Fascinating loft apartment conversion in Portland

Jessica Helgerson Interior Design brings to us this fabulous loft apartment in Portland’s NW 13th Avenue, one of Portland’s most interesting streets. The loft is located in the recently transformed Pearl District, in an old brick and concrete building that was originally a warehouse and manufacturing facility. It was converted into condos in the 1990s. This particular unit had been divided up so that a long and narrow hall was the first point of entry, with limited storage and a rather jarring color palette of red, green and blue along with yellowish bamboo.

The space was fairly small, only 870 square feet. The clients asked for the designer’s to create a space that was open feeling, with lots of storage, room to entertain large groups, and a warm and sophisticated color palette. In response to this, a layout was designed in which the corridor is eliminated and the experience upon entering the space is open, inviting and more functional for cooking and entertaining. In contrast to the public spaces, the bedroom feels private and calm tucked behind a wall of built-in cabinetry.

The large scale wood dining table and coffee table add earthiness and warmth to the space. Vintage Eames DKW leather, steel, and wood chairs add pattern and interest and pair well with the dark steel and blown-glass chandelier.

The kitchen has glazed brick tiles, honed marble counters, dark cabinets and walnut shelves.

Visual interest and contrast was created by painting the beams a dark earthy grey and the walls a soft yet luminous shade of white. A variety of textiles was then introduced; the hand-stitched felt headboard, the vintage Moroccan rug, the heavy woven fabrics used to upholster the custom sofa and cushions. A series of blown glass pendant lights swag playfully over the sofa.

One of the client’s requests was to find a good home for “Megatron” their big screen television, a member of the family with a personality of his own.  A custom console table was custom designed, made from antique Chinese doors and wrapped in a shiny modern lacquered box. The large scale of the console visually anchors the television while housing the various components.

Photos: Lincoln Barbour

Bright and cheerful turn-of-the-century modern home

This turn of the century modern home was designed for a young family with a very modern aesthetic. Jessica Helgerson Interior Design turned a hundred-year-old Northwest Portland, Oregon house into a fresh current design. The designer completely remodeled the kitchen, opening it to the dining room with two-sided glass cabinets. Also on the ground level, the full bathroom was replaced with a compact powder room, thereby creating a back hallway and vastly improving the flow of the house.

On the second level, excess space was borrowed from an existing bedroom to create a master bathroom, complete with double sinks and a generously sized shower. A cabinet was designed that beautifully conceals a washer, dryer and storage space at the top of the stairs. Finally, the formerly dim attic was transformed into a cheerful, sunny home-office and play area, and the walls and floors were freshened up with a coat of white paint and four large skylights were installed. The house is now fresh, bright, functional, and contemporary, while remaining true to itself.

Other creative surface treatments include laser-cut mirrors, whose organic shapes dance along the entry walls, reflecting surprising snippets of the interior.

A palette of whites and cool grays creates both continuity and contrast throughout the home, particularly through the selection of wall colors, e.g. a light-gray entry that leads to a medium-gray living room and a dramatically dark-gray dining room and library.

Photos: Lincoln Barbour

Glamorous foursquare home with elegant touches

Jessica Helgerson Interiors undertook a very extensive remodel of this turn of the century, Portland, Oregon foursquare. By gutting the small, dysfunctional kitchen and annexing space from an under-utilized back pantry and mudroom, a large and airy cooking and dining space was created. Elsewhere in the house elegant touches were introduced, such as box beams in the dining room; a fireplace mantel and built-in shelving in the living room; a wood ceiling and wainscoting in the upstairs bathroom; and a deep-cased opening, between the entry hall and the living room, which creates ledges for seating and plants.

Woodwork throughout the house was given a dark-ebony stain, which, though designed to look original, also adds an element of elegance and surprise. Eclectic in style, the home’s modern and ethnic furnishings are unified in color and scale. Many of the pieces were locally custom-made, including a sofa that nestles into the living room’s bay window; living-room chairs cozily upholstered in sheepskin; handcrafted wood dining-room benches and a dining-table top; and vibrant blown-glass sculptures by Portland artist Andy Paiko.

Photos: Lincoln Barbour

Stunning family home off the Oregon Coast

This gorgeous beach home is situated on a beautiful stretch of the Oregon Coast, furnished by Jessica Helgerson Interiors for a large family that will be spending lots of time there. The house is divided into three levels, each with its own common living space as well as adjacent bedrooms. The designer wanted to give each level its own special feeling.

The upper level is light and elegant with a 16-foot-long sofa that curves gracefully on thin walnut legs, a handcrafted walnut lamp that curves to match the sofa, and a chandelier that reflects the ocean in hundreds of slightly irregular hand-blown glass drops.

The mid-level is comfortable and warm with colorful rugs and cozy wing back chairs upholstered in linen and cowhide. The game table was designed by Jessica Helgerson who had vintage chairs upholstered to match it.

The lower level is playful and casual with a big sectional clad in reclaimed barn wood and a boat transformed into a day bed that hangs from the ceiling.

With very few exceptions nearly all the furniture is either the design of Jessica Helgerson, built in Portland, or vintage.

The home theater has inviting velvet chairs, funny Mexican movie posters and pillows made from vintage silk scarves.

Photos: Lincoln Barbour

Stunning Mediterranean style remodel in Portland

This project designed by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design was a kitchen remodel, and new furnishings for a Mediterranean style house, built in the 1920s of white clay bricks, which was an unusual housing type for Portland, Oregon.

New furniture includes vintage chairs in the dining room, reupholstered in brightly colored felt, a 10′ long vintage bench upholstered in an antique morrocan rug, a JHID-designed coffee table made of walnut ‘bricks’ an echo of the brick architecture. The curtains in the living room are hemp, with a border made from antique suzani tapestries. A painting in the living room is from Portland artist Alison O’Donoghue.

The kitchen was originally divided into a breakfast room and kitchen, and the kitchen was further encumbered by an island with less than 30″ of clearance on either side of it. The kitchen was closed off from the dining room by a narrow doorway. It had probably been remodeled in the 60s or 70s and had unattractive oak cabinets mounted onto a dropped soffit that lowered the perceived height of the kitchen, and closed it in.

The clients wanted to open the space up, while retaining the ability to eat in the kitchen, and give it a fresh feeling more in keeping with the architecture of the house. The island was removed and the wall between the kitchen and breakfast room.

A dynamic material palette of encaustic concrete tiles was selected for the floor and locally hand-made ceramic tiles for the walls. A built-in window seat plus two stools allows the family of four to comfortably eat in the kitchen.

A whole wall of cabinetry was designed around the refrigerator, which provided enough storage to forgo upper cabinets at the sink and range.

Painted, rough-sawn beams create visual interest on the ceiling. The counters are solid, thick walnut slabs from locally felled trees. The reclaimed iron bases were found at a local salvage yard and a slab of marble was cut to serve as a tall table and additional counter space.

An adjacent back entry was reconfigured to create a useful little mudroom, and in the space between the two designed a thick arched opening with shelves for cookbooks and a pull-out broom closet.

The hand made ceramic pendant lights are the same shade of cool, slightly purple-grey as the concrete floors.

The designer opened up a large arched opening between the kitchen and dining room to better link the two spaces.

Photos: Lincoln Barbour

Small home with a clever layout on Sauvie Island

This little house is where interior designer Jessica Helgerson and her family have been living for the last several years. It sits on a five-acre property on Sauvie Island, an agricultural island on the Columbia River 15 minutes north of Portland, Oregon. The house is an interesting experiment in reduction and reuse not only because it is only 540 square feet or because it was remodeled using nearly exclusively reclaimed materials, but because the building itself is now being recycled for the fourth time. It was first built in the early 1940s as part of Vanport Village; a quickly erected development built to house shipyard workers. When Vanport Village flooded in 1948 this particular little house was floated down the river to Sauvie Island, where it became the goose-check station. Years later it was remodeled to become a rental house.

When Jessica and Yianni bought the property in late 2008, they decided to remodel it without adding to the existing footprint. Their first step was to redesign the interior for maximum space efficiency. A ‘great room’ houses the kitchen, dining room and living room with large, comfortable, built in sofas that double as twin beds for guests. Drawers under the sofas hold children’s toys and a wall of shelves houses books and more. The ceiling was opened up in the main space, but the bathroom and bedroom have lower ceilings to accommodate the parent’s sleeping loft above, accessible by a walnut ladder. The children’s room has two bunk beds as well as a full bed for guests. A pull-out closet makes maximum use of the narrow space near the bunk beds.

New high-efficiency windows come right down to the sofas and offer a fun way for kids and cats to enter and exit the house. The walls were insulated, then faced in reclaimed wood siding, most of which was found on site in one of the barns. The new floors are local Oregon white oak, and the dining table was made from locally salvaged walnut. The range is a vintage Craigslist find, and the tub was a salvaged from a friend’s demolition site. A wood-burning stove easily and efficiently heats the small house.

As part of the remodel, the worn out roof was replaced with a green roof, planted with moss and ferns gathered along the Columbia River Gorge. The green roof offers insulation as well as a playful visual counterpoint to the traditional white cottage. Despite its size, the house is welcoming and comfortable and nearly every weekend it is full of family and friends coming from Portland to enjoy a day in the countryside. In addition to living in a small footprint, Yianni and Jessica have been working towards food self-sufficiency. Their first year on the property they built a 1200-square-foot green house, planted vegetable gardens, rows of berries, and fruit trees. They are also raising chickens for meat and eggs, keeping bees, and making cheese from the milk of a neighbor’s cow. Via

Photos: Lincoln Barbour