Liz Quick’s office is simple and clean. Upholstered cubes double as extra seating or table space. Cabinetry beyond the column hides her printer and computer wires.
Featured Homes
Picture Perfect
Comfortable and cohesive, open and light—this Kirkland home is reminiscent of the Hamptons
BY
Kathryn Renner
PHOTOGRAPHY
David Papazian


Comfort reigns in Liz and Matt Quick’s living room with its savvy blend of modest and marvelous furnishings. The simple cherry drop-leaf table in front of the window came from a consignment shop, while the exotic, custom coconut shell coffee table with iron claw feet hails from Kreiss Collection. This tête-à-tête of old and new, light and dark, formal and ethnic trademarks the home.


Simple lines and a variety of textures—leather, bamboo and linen—lend classic, but updated, chic to the great room.


The large kitchen best defines the Hamptons flavor of the Quick home. Part farmhouse comfort, part French elegance, it shimmers with light and life. Contemporary black granite counters pop against the white cabinetry. The island defers to country style with a butcher block top and massive black furniture-style legs, distressed for character. French chandeliers with lampshades dress up the setting.


The master bedroom offers a quiet welcome with a comfy chaise and a soft palette in the art and crewel drapes.


The master bath features a soaking tub and a chair from Yves Delorme spiced up with zebra-striped fabric.
It's not hard to imagine Diane Keaton feeling right at home in Matt and Liz Quick’s Kirkland home. In her 2003 movie Something’s Gotta Give, Keaton portrayed a writer who pounded out scripts from her charming country Hamptons estate. Forget Jack Nicholson and the ensuing romantic comedy—when Liz saw the film, all she saw was the house: open, light and reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, steeped in the tradition of summers at the lake, perfect but not precious.

“That’s just what I wanted,” says Liz, an attorney and real estate agent. “I loved the subtle colors and the play of black and white, the mix of old and new.”

Liz has never been to the Hamptons. But she brought the Hamptons to the home she and her husband bought a year ago. Raised on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Liz was drawn to this house patterned after the Seattle box-style residences that grace the city’s oldest tree-lined streets. Despite being built in 2004, it looked attractively worn and stood out from the surfeit of new Eastside construction. “We got the old feel without a major remodel,” she says.

The floor plan, gardens and yard, with its antique-iron gate, suited the Quicks and their two small boys. Liz launched a complete décor makeover with the help of Seattle designer Kevin Kurbs. She simplified fixtures and replaced intense colors with muted tones so rooms focus more on the garden views.

“Liz wanted help elevating the quality of her furnishing and fabric choices,” Kurbs says. The two worked as a team. With her great eye, Liz shopped showrooms, retail stores, consignment shops, even garage sales. Aided by Kurbs’ expertise in scale, textiles and detail, the two pulled the eclectic rooms together.

Indeed, the main living spaces are so come-hither comfortable and cohesive, only on close inspection does one appreciate the numerous styles sharing close quarters. In the living room, peace and harmony reign between an Asian chest, Polynesian-inspired coconut-shell table, crystal lamps and a traditional leather chair. The sleek sofa has shabby-chic Impasto-stained legs, as if they’ve been scraped or left outside to weather. A prim cherry drop-leaf table stands nearby. Liz insists that “nothing should match.” She shudders slightly at the thought of a matched set of furniture.

Kurbs, too, eschews décor that’s pat or predictable. He covers graceful, curved chairs with bold or contemporary fabrics and almost lightheartedly mixes period pieces. “Placing a contemporary painting over an Arts and Crafts fireplace with 18th-century English candlesticks will work if the balance and scale are right,” Kurbs affirms. “But there has to be one uniting element, and for me, it’s usually color. I repeat the same color in at least three areas of the room.”

Despite the broad brushstroke of Hamptons influence, rooms stop short of being traditional. The grand kitchen—with its massive butcher-block island and distressed ebony woodwork, French fixtures and stainless steel sink—gets an edge from a high row of glass-faced showcase cabinets. The decision to fill them with modern, sherbet-colored glass art updates the classic room. Woven rattan bar stools surround the country island and bamboo Roman shades hang at the windows for whispers of ethnic interest.

Kurbs relents to a touch of Hollywood glam in the powder room. Small in square footage but with 12-foot-high ceilings, the room is treated palatially with a mural-sized black ebonized mirror and Roma wallpaper that looks like cork sprinkled with gold leaf. Crystal chandeliers sustain the surprise.

As picture perfect as the home is, Liz says it’s resilient and hardy. No one takes off shoes or high heels here, regardless of Brazilian teak floors. All of the rich, light-colored fabrics are washable natural cottons and linens—virtually kid proof. “I told Kevin things needed to be indestructible,” she says. The home survives kids at play, then snaps back for entertaining—a favorite pastime. And it’s not so far-fetched to imagine Diane Keaton as a guest. Wearing a tailored suit, crisp white blouse and trendy glasses, Keaton is like this house: Hamptons-like but still very much her own character.  

Design Details
Interior Designer
Kevin Kurbs, Kevin Kurbs Interior Design
Seattle Design Center, Ste. P-485, (206) 621-1380, deepinterior.com

Bellevue-based writer Kathryn Renner appears in Country and Home, Better Homes & Gardens and other national home publications.