Curating a Maximalist Cottage with Designer Wendy Buhr

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Not much in the style and design world intimidates Wendy Buhr; she’s been a part of it since birth. The owner and lead designer of Ella’s Interiors was raised by a builder who flipped houses and an antique dealer who owned a shop that teenage Buhr was often entrusted to run. By age 17, Buhr was working for an interior designer in Chicago. In 1999 she launched Ella’s, a vintage clothing and jewelry shop in downtown Traverse City that has since spawned Ella’s Interiors headquartered in the same building.

Along the way, loyal boutique customers have become clients of Ella’s Interiors and vice versa. So, it wasn’t unusual when a frequent customer had a small request: she wanted Buhr’s help selecting new lighting for the dining room in her little cottage in Leland. “I went out just thinking I was going to help her with some light fixtures,” says Buhr. “And all of a sudden, we were going from room to room tearing the entire cottage apart.”

“For every house [Ella’s Interiors touches], we make our own pillows out of traditional woven fabric from cottage industry makers, people who weave and embroider,” Buhr says. “For example, In Laos, the colors they use are so vibrant—bright pink, indigo, green. That’s what I wanted in her home because that’s her personality.” The lights are hand-blown from Kuzco Lighting.

Buhr had the pretty pink pantry built to store and display the homeowner’s collections of linens and dishes. The Indonesian doors give it a storybook feel even when closed.

Normally, Buhr doesn’t blink in the face of an interior design challenge. But she admits she was daunted by the size and lack of light in the home, as well as the sheer number of collectibles—some even spilling out and around the modest cottage. There were art collections, clock collections, fishing rod collections, linens and dishes—hundreds of pieces each.

Job one for Buhr was opening up the cottage to its lake view and providing more light in the rooms. Buhr started, she says, “by blowing out the kitchen and dining room,” then added a four-season porch, whose walls can automatically change to either all-screen or all-glass depending on the weather.

Stunning handmade Pewabic tile faces the new gas fireplace on the screened-in porch. All of the rugs in the home are antique, sourced through Ella’s Interiors.

Meanwhile, Buhr turned the garage into a staging area, removing everything from the house, then grouping and cataloging every piece of each collection. She worked with the owner to select specific art pieces to act as a springboard for each room—its textiles, finishes and furniture—then brought in multiple cabinet makers to build functional but beautiful storage and display options that treated the collections as one would art installations.

In all, Buhr expanded the home’s footprint by only about 400 square feet, but completely transformed the space from something that felt cluttered and closed in, to a joyful retreat with loads of personal character and enough room to dance about. “Some people want cookie cutter,” Buhr says. “But our clients are about telling a story, having individuality, interest. They don’t want their homes to look like anyone else’s.”

The homeowner wanted to keep the home’s original knotty pine paneling so Buhr turned it into a backdrop for her extensive art collection.

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