American Original: A Weekend Home

Sophisticated, serene, yet kid-friendly, the weekend home of interior designer Victoria Hagan doesn't sacrifice a bit of style.

Exterior of Hamptons Home

The well-manicured homes and sparkling beaches of the Hamptons make it the summer community of choice for many New York City dwellers. It's also where Victoria Hagan met her husband, Michael Berman. Soon after their wedding, they began looking for a house, preferably an old one, to buy. "Then we came across this piece of land with beautiful farm views," says Victoria.

They decided to build a new house in the style of the traditional saltboxes that Victoria has always loved, but "to make the interiors a little more open and light," she says. The house reflects Victoria's talent for mixing an intriguing range of furnishings, from antique finds to clean-lined pieces of her own design, and conjuring the oft-desired but hard-to-achieve effect of relaxed elegance and sophistication that is still family welcoming. "Soon after we moved in, I found out I was having twins," she recalls (sons Harry and Alex are now 10), "so this house is very special to us because I've watched my boys grow up here."

Family Room Ceiling Beams

"We designed the family room to look like an addition to the 'old' house, with a peaked ceiling framed in antique beams," says Victoria. "It's our favorite part of the house." Unadorned windows welcome in light and views of the surrounding fields. Sea-grass matting, a linen-slipcovered sofa, and a coffee table of Victoria's own design have stood the test of toddlers and time.

Dining Room

The dining room is lit by candlelight from a silver fixture that probably once hung in a church and an antique carriage lantern. "This isn't a large room, so it feels intimate, but we can still squeeze in 12 for dinner," says Victoria. "I like upholstered chairs for dining," she notes, and these old bobbin-turned chairs covered in wool felt set up an intriguing contrast with the cross-braced Porter dining table of her own design.

Black Sofa Throw Pillows

"I wanted this to have the soul of an old house, but also to reflect us and our lifestyle on the weekends."

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Redecorating a Family Room - Part 2

Pillows

LAYERING IS KEY

By mixing textures and patterned fabrics with vintage and new, any room can have a lived-in feel.

Yves of French Corner

Nancy's monogrammed pillow was made from a vintage tablecloth found at the French Corner's booth (that's co-owner Yves) at the Marburger Farm Antiques Show.

Refresh with Slipcovers

A 10-year-old Lee Industries sofa was made new again with slipcovers from the company. The ottoman slipcover in Lee's buffalo check fabric is one Nancy had fabricated locally.

Contractor: Cornerstone of Larchmont. Chair: Oly Studio. Wood tray: The Groundwork Group.

Personal Touches

ADD PERSONAL TOUCHES

"One of the best ways to personalize a room is to fill it with the things you love," says Nancy, who in addition to collecting beaded fruit and art pottery is passionate about black-and-white photography. While some of the pictures are custom-framed, others are hung in store-bought designs. Be sure to consider the color of the mat as well as the style of the frame, advises Nancy. "I took some of my vintage photographs to HomeGoods to determine which frame and mat worked best with each image," she adds.

Glass apothecary jar: English Creek Gardens.

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Redecorating a Family Room

Recycling what she had, Nancy Soriano transforms a former bedroom into a family room that offers style and comfort.

Vibrant Family Room

As a former editor-in-chief of Country Living magazine, Nancy Soriano knows what it takes to bring personal style and comfort to a room. "When we bought our 1920s Tudor-style home in Westchester County, N.Y., we set about converting what had been a boy's bedroom into a multipurpose family room," recalls Nancy. By slipcovering an existing sofa and ottoman, pulling in furniture and accessories from other rooms (some from her grandmother and mother), and adding color, texture, and collections, she was able to give the space a fresh, new look and the right fit for her family's needs. "We spend a lot of time in this room," says Nancy, who wanted it to be not only stylish, but comfortable and easy to maintain. "It's my husband Sidney's favorite room," she adds. What makes the room work? Read on to find out!

Pictured: A bold mix of red and gold helps establish a distinctive palette in this room. Slipcovers, durable fabrics, and a woven cotton rug also make it kid- and pet-friendly, as well as easy to care for — important considerations for a room designed for family enjoyment.

Woven shades: Hunter Douglas. Sofa & ottoman: Lee Industries. Striped rug: Dash & Albert.

Reading Corner

PICK A PALETTE — AND STICK WITH IT!

"I wanted the room to be saturated with color and to have a comfortable, clubby feel, but not appear dark and heavy," says Nancy. Everything — walls, crown moldings, baseboards, and built-in shelves — is finished in Benjamin Moore's Westminster Gold #200. The mix of high-gloss and satin finishes promotes a feeling of depth.

Before

Nancy replaced the room's original chair with a smaller one from her living room.

Ceiling Details

DON'T OVERLOOK THE CEILING

A medallion-patterned wallpaper from Farrow & Ball supports the room's overall color scheme and adds visual interest to the ceiling. "It makes the room appear larger but still cozy," says Nancy. The new light fixture adds a modern element to an otherwise classic interior.

Ceiling light: Circa Lighting.

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Christmas in a Southwestern Home - Part 3

Decorative Organization

Amy's mantra when it comes to the holidays? Don't overdo it. "A couple of years ago, we tried to up the ante with 12 days of Christmas cookies," she says. "It was fun at first, but then it became We have to get the cookie stuff out again?"

In this photo: A pine storage unit stashes holiday supplies in style.

Merry Vignettes

The holidays bring Amy's spare-yet-warm aesthetic into stark relief. Instead of hauling out shiny tinsel and multicolored lights, she turns to fresh clippings of pine and spruce, Kraft paper, and wooden ornaments.

In this photo: Ceramic Crate & Barrel pitchers hold fresh greenery. Amy eschews loud patterns in favor of more subdued gift wrap, like Oscar & Ollie's simple stamped Kraft paper.

The Family

Amy and Bill Mueller gather on the patio with Lexi, Tucker, and Dawson.

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Christmas in a Southwestern Home - Part 2

Bedroom

Amy uses baskets—loads and loads of them—for toys, hardware, you name it. She admits to an almost fanatical obsession with organization. "Even as a child, I begged my parents to let me clean the closets!" she reveals.

For the walls throughout her home, Amy's love for classic white-on-white interiors prompted friends to ask, "You let children in here?" (Answer: Of course. The couple has three: Lexi, 9; Tucker, 7; and Dawson, 3.)

In this photo: Amy slipcovered Lexi's headboard in gossamer linen from Bella Notte; the duvet cover is homemade. At the foot of the bed, a tufted bench provides a place to sit.

Bathroom

The Muellers' East Coast sensibility did cause occasional communication breakdowns. "For the bathroom, we kept referring to 'subway tiles,'" Amy recalls. "Our installer had no idea what we were talking about. He knew them as '3 x 6 tiles.'" Later, she received blank stares when uttering the words guesthouse and mudroom: "In Arizona, those spaces are called casita and dirty kitchen."

In this photo: Lexi's claw-foot tub, by Aquatic, basks in the reflection of a wall's worth of vintage beveled mirrors.

Garage

At Christmas, all bets are off when it comes to Santa. Lately, the kids have been lobbying for a puppy and a batting cage (budding athlete Tucker dreams big). But how does Amy-the-organizer cope with the present-ripping, stocking-dumping chaos that is Christmas morning? "Baskets," she says. "I put out lots of baskets."

In this photo: The Mueller kids make a bit of merry mischief in the garage, at a salvaged cabinet their mom modernized by removing doors and adding bins. The paper dispenser came from an old general store.

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Christmas in a Southwestern Home

When major league ballplayer Bill Mueller and his wife, Amy, moved from Massachusetts to Arizona, the couple brought old-fashioned New England charm to their brand-new desert home.

North by Southwest

One drawback to life as a major league ballplayer? Where you put down roots is rarely your call. Which can prove difficult if, like Bill Mueller, you get a bit too comfortable in a certain leafy Massachusetts town. Though Bill and his wife, Amy, fell madly in love with the suburb of Wellesley, in 2007, when the Los Angeles Dodgers swooped in with an offer to good to pass up, the Muellers found themselves moving to Chandler, Arizona, near the team's spring training facility. Intent on retaining a bit of Northeastern charm, Amy hired Phoenix architect Agnieszka Jastrzebska to devise a saltbox-meets-Southwest home.

In this photo: Linen-covered pendant lamps bring the kitchen's 17-foot ceilings down to a cozy scale. Amy bought the giant train-station clock on 1stdibs.com, then had the timepiece mounted to look as if it's casually propped above her Wolf range. White marble tops the custom cabinets and island. The trim is painted Cottage White by Dunn-Edwards.

Bright idea: Fresher than cut flowers, a single evergreen branch suggests a larger tree.

Dining Area

Since plopping a clapboard Colonial on a block lined with Spanish-style ranches would hardly have been neighborly, Amy and Jastrzebska dreamed up an exterior that blends Arizona stone with New England-esque woodwork. When selecting wood furniture, Amy chose already-weathered reclaimed elm and pine, not fine mahogany.

In this photo: In the Muellers' dining area, custom armless wing chairs tuck neatly beneath a pedestal table of reclaimed elm. The chalkboard was cut and framed in a weathered wood to match. All the walls wear Exclusive Ivory by Dunn-Edwards, making touch-ups easy.

Patio

Inside the home, wood details—beadboard, crown molding, and window casings—go against the local grain. "The weather here is so hot and dry," Amy explains. "We were warned that our wide-plank floors and Dutch doors would need constant care." She weighed her options and went for it anyway.

Amy also teamed with designer Kristin Alber to achieve a crisp look that can withstand the messiness of real life. Most of the upholstered chairs sport slipcovers of washable linen. "If there's a spill, I just toss them in the laundry," Amy says.

In this photo: A stone fireplace keeps things toasty on the covered patio, furnished like a full-fledged living room.

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Tour Corbin Bernsen's California Home - Part 4

Something Borrowed

The master bathroom's sink console incorporates the same concrete and salvaged wood as the kitchen counter and cabinets.

Bright idea: A metal funnel makes a cool industrial lampshade.

Boys' Room

Henry and Oliver (holding Atticus the bunny) kick back in the barn, which serves as both their art studio and sleeping quarters. Henry painted the oil work at left; Oliver's canvases are stacked on the other side of the room. Corbin constructed the ladder leading to the loft, and the steel bed frames are Room & Board bargains.

Bright idea: Curtains sewn from drop cloths provide privacy for each nook.

The Family

"This house is a combination of the trips we've taken and the experiences we've had," Amanda says. "It's the evolution of Corbin and me for the last 24 years."

In this photo: Corbin and Amanda join sons (from left) Angus, Finley, Henry, and Oliver in the backyard. Corbin built the benches; his brother, Collin, made the matching table.

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Tour Corbin Bernsen's California Home - Part 3

Rock Out

Corbin's guitar finds a home on a wicker rocker that Amanda scored, along with the pull-down map, at a flea market.

Smart Storage

Amanda transformed an old wooden box into a hardworking hamper by installing separate his 'n' hers baskets.

Bathroom

A hammered-brass pendant from Terrain illuminates a vintage claw-foot tub in the master bath. Pennsylvania bluestone covers the floor. The walls are painted Horizon Gray by Benjamin Moore.

Bright idea: Two-tone painted walls mimic the look of wainscoting, for less.

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Tour Corbin Bernsen's California Home - Part 2

Living Room

Another philosophy Corbin and Amanda share? The virtue of thrift. "We love scouring flea markets and garage sales," she reveals, giddily recounting their best bargains: a vintage wicker rocker for $40, the living room's swap-meet Chesterfield sofa reupholstered with Ikea linen, even the kitchen's drawer pulls. "Twenty-five dollars for the bag of 50!" she crows.

In this photo: Amanda painted the wooden Moroccan settee with basic gray primer and found the Berber rug in Marrakech. The large oil portrait is by contemporary Scottish painter Peter White; the oak-and-steel coffee table hails from H.D. Buttercup.

Hallway

Digby poses next to a table fashioned from French marble and steel. The pouf is by Dosa, and the British landscape was a gift. The wood floors are painted Gray Timber Wolf by Benjamin Moore.

Bright idea: Turn a hurricane into an electrified lantern with a swag-lamp kit.

Bedroom

Their house also has an incredibly personal feel to it, since the duo renovated and decorated the place themselves. "We like to take traditional and mix it with something more progressive. That's what life should be: Understand where you came from, and pay tribute," Corbin says. He practiced what he preaches by incorporating hand-me-down furniture from his mother, The Young and the Restless diva Jeanne Cooper.

In this photo: Pottery Barn's jute rug anchors Corbin and Amanda's bedroom, where a Room & Board steel bed frame wears a duvet by Toast and a purple throw from West Elm. A swap meet yielded the nightstands and $10 painting. The pillows are by Yves Delorme.

Bright idea: A large piece of art would've competed with the bed frame. The wee work above the pillows? Just right.

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Tour Corbin Bernsen's California Home

Actors Corbin Bernsen and Amanda Pays took a hands-on approach to renovating and decorating their Southern California home, instilling personality through architectural salvage and vintage bargains.

The Real Deal

"Family is important to us. It's the center of everything we do," says actor Corbin Bernsen. By "we," he means himself and his wife, Amanda Pays. "Everything" very much includes their Studio City, California, home, a 3,500 square foot 1940s ranch house.

Long before Corbin became famous playing cad-about-town Arnie Becker on the television show L.A. Law (he's currently on Psych), he worked as a carpenter. Amanda, whom you might remember from Max Headroom and Oxford Blues, gave up acting to focus on raising the couple's four children: Oliver, 24; twins Angus and Henry, 21; and 14-year-old Finley. With the kids mostly grown, she's turned her attention to a career in interior design.

In this photo: Steel chairs from ABC Home contrast with a massive century-old mahogany dining table, now pickled a paler hue. Amanda bought the lamps—repurposed chicken feeders—at Cisco Home, and the metal wine rack at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. The walls are painted Plaster of Paris by Sydney Harbour. Digby, a whippet, has been part of the family for three years.

Kitchen

Amanda gets full credit for reimagining this property's covered patio area as a sprawling, raftered kitchen. It is, in her husband's proud estimation, "the heart of the home." He's right. The kitchen serves as the hub from which the house's layout, and its aesthetic, flows. In this room, reclaimed barn wood bumps against stainless steel, and an antique mahogany table mingles with midcentury metal school chairs. The backsplash of Moroccan tiles hints at the family's exotic travels, while Amanda's British upbringing reveals itself in ceramics gathered during European vacations. She painted the graphic lemon artwork herself.

In this photo: Kitchen cabinets are clad in reclaimed barn wood and topped with poured-concrete counters. A stainless steel worktable provides extra prep and storage space. Shelves of cast-off scaffolding flank the backsplash. The Kenmore refrigerator and Jenn-Air stove are from Sears.

On Display

To the left of the fridge, upper cabinets sport glass doors lined with chicken wire.

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A Modern Country Getaway - Part 2

Bedroom

The master's corduroy-upholstered headboard was made to order. The artwork above it, by Florian Schmidt, is echoed in the geometrical Dash & Albert rug. John Robshaw makes the patterned lavender bedding.

Bathroom

An antiqued-brass and bronze light fixture from The Urban Electric Co. shines above a Kohler trough sink in the guest bath. The window shades are Hunter Douglas. Priscilla inherited the sign on the door—which reads chien méchant, or "beware of dog"—from her grandmother.

Bright idea: Instead of towel bars, peg rails offer maximum utility in a tight space.

Kid's Room

Art by friends greets the gallery director at every turn, from Joe Fyfe's painting in the dining area to a mixed-media work by Robert Kushner—an artist Priscilla represents at DC Moore Gallery—in her daughter Caroline's bedroom. These works serve as reminders of the community that has nurtured Priscilla through her loss.

In this photo: John Robshaw linens and a Madeline Weinrib rug enliven this space. The beds are by Ducduc. The floor is painted Skimming Stone by Farrow and Ball.

Bright idea: Give canisters new life as bedroom lamps, like the red one on Caroline's bedside table.

Porch

"This house is infused with positive energy," Priscilla (left) says, "because it was a collaboration among friends and family." Now, when her sister Kate (right) visits, she lounges on the custom sofa that she commissioned. Pal John Danzer, founder of the garden furniture company Munder-Skiles, stops by for a drink on the porch (painted in Studio Green by Farrow & Ball) and relaxes on a section of his own design.

Recently, more than 30 members of Will's family gathered at the home for the holidays; there was room for everyone to feel welcome.

"My husband is buried here in Norfolk. It was a place he loved," says Priscilla. "People tell me Will would have been proud of me for moving ahead. I've never once regretted that decision."

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A Modern Country Getaway

A small Connecticut town—and a community of artists and designers—helped Priscilla Caldwell realize a dream she shared with her late husband: a family getaway as cozy as it is spare.

It Takes a Village

The picture-postcard New England town of Norfolk, Connecticut, has long attracted urban types looking for an escape, which makes it no surprise that Priscilla Caldwell, a director at the DC Moore art gallery in Manhattan, fell sway to the place's charms.

She and her equities trader husband, Will, first rented a vacation home in Norfolk. But as their family expanded to include two daughters, the couple decided to build a retreat all their own, on 15 acres by the Blackberry River. Then, on February 9, 2007, the day the final set of drawings from the architect arrived, Will died of a heart attack while walking home from the gym.

No one would have blamed Priscilla if she'd scrapped the plans then and there. But she had so much invested—emotionally as well as financially—and she believed that her girls needed a refuge more than ever.

In this photo: A triptych of lake photographs by David Hilliard establishes a laid-back mood in the living area. Positioned behind the custom sofa, a stained-pine tavern table doubles as a desk. The turned-wood lamps are by Jamie Young. The door frame is painted Black Blue by Farrow & Ball.

Dining Area

Hope Dana, an architect Priscilla and Will had befriended when they first started visiting Norfolk, helped rethink the blueprint by trimming some of its square footage and formality. Together the women envisioned a more open floor plan, with one big living-dining-kitchen area that encourages togetherness and a large screened-in porch to maximize the forest views.

In this photo: Priscilla's younger daughter, Caroline, descends the stairs leading toward the dining area, where a custom cherry table mixes with 1950s Paul McCobb chairs and a painted-steel pendant lamp by Nautic Lighting. The painting is by Joe Fyfe.

Mudroom

To finesse the interiors, Priscilla had to look no further than her sister, Kate Vail, and Vail's design partner, David Nastasi. They chose a restrained palette inspired by the sand, stone, and water of nearby Tobey Pond. "I like things traditional but not fussy," says Priscilla of her aesthetic.

In this photo: Priscilla displays her daughters' horseback-riding ribbons above peg rails. The family's Border Terrier, Jojo, stands atop a colorful rag rug. The wall is painted Wimborne White by Farrow & Ball.

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