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Matching Manchester condominiums get distinctive decorator makeovers

New Hampshire Daily News – Manchester Union Leader
Home & Family Section
November 2, 2003

A Tale of Two Condos

Matching Manchester condominiums get distinctive decorator makeovers

By Gary Dennis
Union Leader Staff

Two identical living spaces.  Two different occupants. 

And more importantly, interior designer Christian Boyer will tell you, two different personalities.

Creating the perfect living room or kitchen is as much psychiatry as it is designer know-how, he says.  Boyer has worked that detail several times – literally and figuratively.

Residents of the condominiums at the 300 North River Road in Manchester may have seen the young, well-dressed man in a mad dash, going up and down elevators as he works for several clients in the building.

He’s become, unofficially, the resident designer of the condos.

It’s no small feat setting up the visuals and feel of a room someone will spend the majority of his or her time in.  And creating the perfect space for one person and then working off the same template in another person’s space can be daunting, he said.

“Can you endure clutter?  Some people can’t handle it, “he said.  “Others like the security of having all of their things around them.”

At the North River Road address, Boyer recently took on a three-room project with two identical floor plans.  Beverly Spiro moved out of her North end Manchester home for the convenience of a condominium living; her sister-in-law, Mary Spiro, did the same into another unit.

“But it was important to give each her own identity,” he said.

When he visited Beverly Spiro in her home before the move, Boyer said he took extensive mental notes of how she likes to decorate on her own.  It was clean and crisp, no clutter with soft color.

“She likes to have established places for established things,” he said.

Mary Spiro’s tastes are a little different in that she doesn’t mind the “clutter” of some more splashes of color.

The layouts of the condo start with a short hallway at the entrance with a square-shaped kitchen to the immediate left.  Straight ahead is the dining room, which continues to the left after the hallway.  Opposite the dining room to the right is a living room about as big as the dining room and kitchen put together.

Each condominium includes a hallway that runs to the left of the aforementioned spaces, with a bathroom and three bedrooms.

Beverly Spiro’s kitchen was totally redone by Boyer and his carpentry subcontractors.  Wood finished cabinets were replaced by a whitewash look and Boyer brought in flesh tone countertops to keep the look of the kitchen clean and neat.

A French provincial dining room set was brought from her previous house and set up under a wrought-iron chandelier.  The more ornate chandelier Boyer says, was a decorating stretch for Beverly.

The floors are a soft grayish-beige tone; the walls are a dusty salmon.  Boyer’s choice for furniture angled off a brick-red color – “puffed tomato,” actually – he found in the back of one of the chairs that survived the journey to the new home. 

Furniture in that living space is a contrast to the plain carpet – a burgundy sofa keeps company with an olive green chair and blue-gray recliner.

There’s no window treatment on a large window or sliding glass doors to a patio overlooking a well-landscaped courtyard that allows views of nature’s hues.

“Basically, I created a neutral palette she and her husband could work with,” he said.

Walk into Mary Spiro’s space and the sameness of space disappears.

Rich, green carpeting and soft yellow walls add a warmer touch to her living room, but take away some of the feeling of space.  A salmon sofa and other coral-like tones appear at first a strange match with yellow and green, but somehow work together. 

Mary wasn’t as concerned with the feeling of space, as is defined by a white sheer window covering that creates a layer between the inside and the outside. 

“There’s so much color in here already,” Boyer said, explaining the space doesn’t need any tonal help from the outside.

Mary’s kitchen has a busier look even just from the presence of natural wood cabinets.  In that room and the dining room, it’s the presence of colors in the cabinets, walls and floors that fills the space.

Boyer said clients like the two Spiros get to the point where they don’t feel comfortable making any decorating choices without consulting him first.

“In their travels, they’ll sometimes call me before they purchase something” like a painting or furniture, he said.

And that’s comforting, he said, knowing how comfortable they are with him.