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"Arguably the most alluring thing about loft living is the blank-slate freedom of raw space. Possibilities are endless: Keep it open and flexible or slice the space into rooms with designated uses? Run walls to the ceiling or stop short so light can flow? How then does a thirtysomething couple in love with the unfettered liberty of their loft in Manhattan make the leap to a Georgian Revival home in an outer-borough planned community where a rigorous architectural review committee dictates heights of hedges, colors of mortar and paint shades of exterior trim?  &amp;quot;When we arrived for a first visit, we were zero percent serious,&amp;quot; admits the wife, a photojournalist who put her career on hold when she became pregnant with twins. But since her real estate developer husband&amp;#039;s work was headquartered in Queens and they knew they would eventually need more space, she says, &amp;quot;when we left, we were 30 percent serious.&amp;quot;   They returned to Forest Hills Gardens five months after the birth of their girls and asked the elderly couple who lived in this house whether they might be willing to sell. As fate would have it, the retirees had already arranged to move to an assisted living facility. The husband told the prospective buyers that if they were serious about buying the house, they should come back to Queens the following Monday with their inspector.  Suddenly, 30 percent serious became 100 percent sure.   Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (the son of Central Park&amp;#039;s chief planner) and Grosvenor Atterbury (the architect of the Metropolitan Museum of Art&amp;#039;s American wing) began the development of Forest Hills Gardens in 1908. Their inspiration was England&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;garden city&amp;quot; movement, which arose in the late 1800s as a repudiation of the inhumane housing that plagued London&amp;#039;s factory districts.  This home was built in the 1930s. &amp;quot;We didn&amp;#039;t want to ruin the integrity of what was,&amp;quot; explains the wife. &amp;quot;Our deal was that we wouldn&amp;#039;t change anything original. What&amp;#039;s beautiful to me about this home is the craftsmanship and detail.&amp;quot;  Over the next eight months, designer Robert Kaner says he &amp;quot;introduced a new stylistic vocabulary&amp;quot; within the structure&amp;#039;s traditional architectural envelope. He began by painting walls pure white and darkening the floors, &amp;quot;which allowed the moldings and trims to really express themselves,&amp;quot; he explains. Everything else became a contrasting juxtaposition to this backdrop.  Kaner gently tweaked the Palladian order of the formal living room with an asymmetrical arrangement of furniture. Since decorative trims already emphasized the room&amp;#039;s right angles, he threw in some curves with a voluptuous Vladmir Kagan sofa and 1950s rounded-back chairs. He also used single-panel draperies on the windows. &amp;quot;They have a nicer presence than four smaller strips of curtain, which would have felt fussy,&amp;quot; he says.   The home&amp;#039;s new palette took some negotiation. The husband craved color, but the wife, who grew up in a 1970s whitewashed ranch, wanted neutrals. She compromised on the dining room, now a classic deep red, as well as on the bedroom, which was swathed in a buff khaki.  The kitchen and baths had been modernized over the years, so the designer wasn&amp;#039;t bound by the &amp;quot;don&amp;#039;t change anything original&amp;quot; rule. &amp;quot;We thought of them differently,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;We wanted them to be warm and inviting but to take advantage of modern appliances.&amp;quot; So, after complete guts, color was allowed (yellow and red accents in the kitchen, lichen green in the master bath and, for each of the three other baths, a monochromatic take on a different color\u2014one is blue, one yellow and one celadon).  &amp;quot;Robert and I worked very hard to balance the traditional and modern,&amp;quot; says the wife, &amp;quot;and to have beautiful things that were also friendly. I didn&amp;#039;t want anyone to feel they had to keep their hands in their pockets.&amp;quot;  The result also held a pleasant surprise. Thankfully, a profusion of French doors on the main floor created a democratic sense of openness and connection. &amp;quot;I can run a table from the dining room into the den. I can open and close doors to create new traffic patterns in the living room and library,&amp;quot; she says.  In other words, the house has all the flexibility of a city loft. What The Pros Know &amp;quot;I wanted the kitchen to feel modern but warm,&amp;quot; says the wife, explaining the choice of Effeti&amp;#039;s cherrywood Diamante cabinetry (Effeti.com). To enhance the homier feel, designer Robert Kaner had the back stairs and banister richly stained, and he converted a closet under them into a butterscotch yellow nook with storage drawers and shelves for cookbooks. He added a custom stainless steel farm sink that he calls &amp;quot;definitely quirky&amp;quot; and created a backsplash of colored glass tiles that appear to be placed randomly, even though, he asserts, &amp;quot;there&amp;#039;s nothing random about them.&amp;quot; The client didn&amp;#039;t want an island, so Kaner bisected the space: a galley-style kitchen on one side and an open area to the right where bar stools now pull up to a serving counter. The arrangement creates cozy, humansize areas for preparing and eating meals while remaining open enough for all of the activities family kitchens accommodate, from quick lunches to homework while awaiting dinner. Click here to see the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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