Step Inside: Jenna & Brandon's Serene 1968 Saltbox-Style Home
Set in the serene landscape of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, sits Jenna and Brandon Curry's picturesque dwelling. Filled with natural textures, clean lines, and a serene color palette, their 1968 saltbox-style home is full of architectural details and modern updates that seamlessly mix old and new.
If you've been following along on their interior account @forrichardorpoorer, you might remember we first featured the (at the time) newlyweds in their 2019 Ferndale home, which they impressively restored from the ground up. Now, four years later, we're equally enamored at the beautiful home they've created for their now family of five (including George their sweet pup!). A true labor of love, we asked Jenna and Brandon to take us through their creative process and share how their design philosophy has evolved through all of their life changes.
Our house is a 1968 “saltbox” style home reminiscent of a much older England-style house. My husband, Brandon, and I purchased the home from the original owner and moved here in 2019 after completely renovating our first house from top to bottom.
We wanted another fixer-upper that could grow with us and our potential family. Flash forward four years, and it’s home to us, our 2-year-old son, Jack, our four-month-old daughter, Martha, and our dog, George.
We saw the potential when we walked in and just knew this was the house for us. It’s on an acre of land and we fell in love with the possibilities. We have a ton of trees in our backyard, three fireplaces, and plenty of outdoor space for the kids to play.
Brandon is a realtor, and I’m a stay at home mom. Before Covid, I worked at a restaurant in Detroit and was attending school to become an elementary teacher. We then decided to expand our family, and I put everything on (permanent) hold.
I’ve always been obsessed with interiors. Brandon loves doing the hard parts of the renovation, and I love picking everything out. It has taken a long time to get the home to its current state, and we’re still not done!
That said, good things take time—I’m trying to make a conscious effort to invest in pieces of furniture, paint, and home decor that we can live with for a while.
Cozy, colorful and pattern-filled.
I always say it’s not the house, but the people inside that make it a home.
We always try to start with a blank canvas. When we moved in, we basically ripped everything out—the old kitchen, floors, bathrooms, closets.
From there, we put down Woodland Cut sawn white oak floors and painted everything white—little by little we have added hardware, furniture and everything else that makes a room. We don’t really have too much of a method to our madness, haha.
Albert Hadley’s proclamation that every room needs a pop of red and “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be beautiful or believe to be useful” by William Morris.
The Graduate Table Lamp: it has such a beautiful shape to it, and it really looks perfect wherever you put it!
The Gingham Shower Curtain: I plan on putting it in the kid's bathroom when it’s a little closer to being finished.
The Brass Dinner Bell: it’s going to be a staple this summer as we’re building a large fenced-in garden with a dining table for warm-weather meals.
Schoolhouse Light Fixtures: we have them in every room of the house (we’re clearly obsessed), including the Factory 4 Surface Mount lights in the kitchen because we love the classic look of them.
