Blog

May 06, 2023

Redesigned 1922 house on the market in D.C. for $4.2 million

Prisoners of covid-19, many people tried to make the most of being stuck at home

Prisoners of covid-19, many people tried to make the most of being stuck at home during the pandemic. For some, the remedy was quilting, breadmaking or binge-watching TV series. For Cat Bennett, it was interior design.

Bennett, who works in the fashion industry, bought this 1922 Federal-style house in early 2020, just as news of the coronavirus hit the United States. She and her teenage daughter were moving to D.C. from Manhattan.

Like many home buyers (and House of the Week commenters), Bennett was unimpressed by the minimalist decorating trend in available D.C. houses.

"When we started looking for houses, every house we went to see looked the same," Bennett said. "They had white walls and beige carpet. They looked like they all had the same decorator."

This 4,670-square-foot house, with three stories above a finished lower level, was no exception. But Bennett "fell in love" with the property, in Northwest Washington's Kalorama neighborhood. Then she moved in and "changed every inch" of the interior.

"Every day for 20 years, I’d get up and get dressed, and all of a sudden I stopped doing that," said Bennett, whose job overseeing fashion events around the world required frequent travel. "I sort of transferred all that energy into the house. It's inspired by my travels and reflects my personality."

With no experience in interior design, she had a lot to learn about materials and product sourcing, and much of that work had to be done online.

"I changed wall colors as I went, and if I wasn't happy, I would change it until I was satisfied," Bennett said. "I just kept adding and adding and adding. At this point, there's not an inch of the house that's not covered in something, in wallpaper or colorful paint or artwork."

The Federal-style exterior at 2402 Wyoming Ave. NW still resembles the 1922 original. But the interior includes pink walls, baby blue cabinets and lip-print wallpaper in various shades of lipstick.

French doors open to a first-story foyer with a checkered floor and a glass-paneled door that leads to a hallway. On one side, there is an office with built-in cabinets that have been painted blue, and on the other, there is a family room with a fireplace. Both rooms have wallpapered ceilings.

At the rear of the first floor, the kitchen has wallpaper with a vine pattern. The dining room — Bennett's favorite space — has a black-and-white-checked floor, and, on the ceiling, there is vivid green wallpaper with larger-than-life herons. Sliding-glass doors open to one of the property's two patios.

The primary bedroom suite, on the second floor, has a fireplace, large closets and an attached sunroom on the other side of two Tuscan columns. Bennett redesigned the primary bedroom's en suite bathroom, which also can be entered from the hall. Another bathroom is attached to another bedroom. A third bedroom on this floor could be used, as Bennett did, as a sitting room.

The third floor has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a gym or media room with leopard-print carpet and matching wallpaper that stretches across the curved ceiling.

The lower level has a laundry room with a washer, a dryer, a sink, storage cabinets — and lip-print wallpaper. There is also a bathroom on this level and a recreation room that connects to a rear patio. Outside, brick stairs connect the two patios. The property also has a driveway.

Bennett spent more than three years redesigning the inside of this house, and she's not finished with her new hobby.

"I really got the bug and want to keep going, which is why we’re selling the house. I’m ready to take on another project," she said "It's a great house, with great, happy energy. It's really bright and cheerful, and I hope someone will love it as much as we did."

2402 Wyoming Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.

Buying a home can be a daunting process. We’re here to help. Start with our Home Buyers Guide, which has everything from important real estate vocabulary to how to find a real estate agent to mortgage options. Or start below for helpful advice on navigating the housing market, or ask us your questions here.