Heirloom · Volume Two · MMXXVI
Houses,
made over time.
An interior design studio for homes that gather — and get better the longer you live in them.
An interior design studio for homes that gather — and get better the longer you live in them.
We don't decorate rooms. We help families keep houses — and fill them slowly, with things worth passing down. A good home isn't finished the day the photographer leaves. It's barely started.
— Frances Wren, Founder
A young family bought a farmhouse their great-aunt had left to fall quiet. They didn't want it restored to a museum, or gutted into something new. They wanted it to feel like it had always been theirs — and their children's after them.
We kept the fireplace, the wide-plank floors, and the low beam you have to duck under. Everything else we let go soft — plaster the color of unbleached linen, a sofa deep enough to nap on, and a rug that already looks like it's seen a decade of dogs.
"We told them not to buy anything new that couldn't take a scratch." — Frances
The kitchen wanted to be the middle of the house, so we let it. Unlacquered brass that will go dark at the handles first. A marble island we warned them would stain — and they said good.
We reused the original cabinet doors on the pantry wall, and no one can tell which are old and which we made.
We furnish slowly, and we leave room. A shelf that's full on move-in day has nowhere to put the things you'll actually love — the flea-market bowl, the kids' first pottery, the book you keep meaning to return.
"Half of what's on that mantel, they found themselves. That's the point."
Taking a real house — old bones, odd rooms, low ceilings — and making it work for how a family actually lives, without erasing what made it worth buying.
A single room, done properly, with the patience it deserves. Often the start of a longer relationship.
The slow part. Furniture, textiles, lighting, and art gathered over months — some new, much found, always yours.
New homes that don't feel new. We work with architects to build in age, texture, and soul from day one.
Heirloom is Frances Wren and a small team who love old houses, flea markets, and the particular light of a New England afternoon. We take on a handful of homes a year and stay with them — often for years.
We believe a house should be collected, not decorated. We're patient, we hate waste, and we'd always rather find the thing than buy the new one.
Based in Essex, Connecticut; working across New England.
We take a few homes each year. Tell us about yours — in your own words.