Dawson built the porch, including the slatted wall on the deck, for the couple’s frequent outdoor entertaining. The fireplace was rescued from another house and repainted red. (Photos by Collin Richie)
Jewelry artist Madeline Ellis fuses minimal, rustic and midcentury modern elements into her home
Madeline Ellis sees her house as a blank canvas. The jewelry artist’s home design draws on many influences, including her background in landscape architecture and her international travels.
Despite such rich material to work with, Ellis avoids holding her design to any one particular “look.” Instead, visitors to her Perkins Road overpass area home will find a predominantly white space with natural light from plenty of windows. The space serves as the backdrop to her design ideas—a true whiteboard of inspiration and experiments played out with paint and furniture.
Homeowners Dawson and Madeline Ellis with their children, Charlie and Lillie.
“I like the things I like,” she says, adding that she does her own design work and was not afraid to incorporate two small children and pets into both the practicality and execution of her design scheme.
“We love to experiment, and we constantly change things up,” she says of working with her husband and business partner, Dawson, who also has a degree in landscape architecture (both Ellises studied at Louisiana State University). “Our back room has been a porch, a bathroom, a utility room and an office, and we are renovating it now to be a sitting room. It might sound crazy, but we truly enjoy it.”
Ellis espouses the same design aesthetic—clean lines and simplicity—that goes into her delicate, soulful jewelry. Each of the furnishings, inside and out, has a story, whether it’s a sentimental heirloom or a piece “upcycled” from something else. Their picket fence, for example, was fashioned from wood reclaimed from about six other fences. Ellis herself created most of the art hanging on the walls. “We’ve been really resourceful,” she says.
With the open floor plan, the Ellises can watch their kids playing in the living room while they cook. The dining table, found for Ellis by one of her friends, keeps with the home’s clean look, while the copper pendant light adds warmth.
The home features plenty of interesting textures. “I love natural things; I love leather, wood, fur,” she says. “I like shiny metal and brass and old, old rusted stuff.” More importantly, she loves playing with the juxtaposition of those textures against each other. “Putting those things next to each other highlights each thing’s essence more.”
Her favorite room? The living room—but not for any one piece of furniture. Ellis loves the purpose it serves and the people who gather there.
This year, Ellis is considering stamping a pattern onto the walls. She’s also currently making kiln-fired wall planters to raise the home’s greenery out of the way of their young children.
And although she says that having youngsters makes it difficult to tackle some of the larger projects the couple would like to address at home, she actually finds ways to make them part of the process. Her 4-year-old son is already a veteran of painting a room and mudding an archway.
Her favorite part of the design process? Planning. “I do get a lot of satisfaction out of researching things and thinking about it. It’s fun to actually do it and then have it be done … but then I’m automatically on to the next thing.”
The Ellises kept the house’s original arched entryway in the living room and created an arched entryway in the dining room to complement it. The living room is extremely kid-friendly, with a durable cowhide rug that’s lasted more than seven years already. Everything wipes clean easily, even the white chairs and the midcentury modern sofa. The wood flooring is the house’s original.Windows and one wall in the kitchen were removed to create an open space connected to the living and dining rooms. Dawson built the concrete countertops. Paired with the floor-to-ceiling white cabinets, they give the kitchen a clean look. The flooring—terra-cotta octagon tile—gives an earthy and warm feel to the otherwise industrial kitchen. The butcher block island was a Craigslist find.An old map of Louisiana hung in Ellis’ grandparents’ house during her childhood. She’s always loved it. The console is from an estate sale, and she loves the angular drawers without handles.Dawson built and welded the green canopy bed in the master bedroom for her birthday.Ellis’ friend made her this 4-foot piece of art. It makes a statement above the porch’s bar.
