"When I found the house, I was actually helping friends find a house," says Katie Polsby, owner of the recently relaunched traditional wallpaper and textile company CW Stockwell (opens in new tab), who created the iconic banana leaf Martinique (opens in new tab) pattern (yes, It's the pattern that was used on Blanche Devereaux's bedding) (opens in new tab) was created by Katie Polsby." I already owned a condo in the neighborhood and had no intention of moving."

"I was not looking to move.

It was in October 2014 that Polsby stumbled upon a 1904 Queen Anne-style Victorian home (and this date would play an important role in her buying process). She recalls, "The listing agent scheduled all of the open houses during the World Series, when the San Francisco Giants were playing the Kansas City Royals." I was very surprised because the agent had been in the business for 30 years and was a huge Giants fan."

The town went wild for the series, with only one or two prospective buyers at each of the three open houses. Polsby recalls, "With the entire city literally looking away, I bid ridiculously low and ended up getting the house for less than the asking price."

Located along the Panhandle, a greenbelt leading to Golden Gate Park, the house was still inhabited and unstaged when Polsby toured it." It was in rough shape, but being in the design world, I could see that despite the many unpleasant things in the house, it had great bones and was in decent structural condition." Her theory is that most of the work is cosmetic, and a lot of white paint would go a long way.

"I had zero anxiety and was too confident going into the renovation," she laughs. It only took four months from the time we bought the house until we moved in, but I spent the last six weeks couch surfing with my dog, Gertie, as the scope of work kept expanding." Shouldn't we do that too?" was said far too often," she recalls.

One of her biggest jobs was to create a master bathroom. Most Victorian homes have separate bathrooms," she explains. 'One room had a bathtub and sink, and another room, 10 feet away, had a toilet. Polsby decided to create a powder room by adding a sink in the room with the existing toilet, and a toilet in the room with the tub, making it the master bathroom. 'Ultimately, the master bath required a complete rearrangement of the layout,' Polsby said. It was a total remodel," she says. 'After removing the closet to install the toilet, everything was placed in a different location.'

The kitchen, laundry room, and office each had their own problems. The area where the refrigerator is now located," she says, "was where the sink was originally located, and to the left of the sink was a door to a large pantry. We closed that door off, tore down the pantry and connected it to the porch to create a new laundry room and office space. The house's original laundry porch was also a relic of Victorian life. Before the washer and dryer were installed, there was a covered, sloping porch behind the kitchen that served that purpose." Basically, it was an uninsulated wooden shed with a floor built at an angle to allow all the water to run off, a complete waste of space that has never been updated."

Transforming the turn-of-the-century floor plan into a functional, modern living space may have required some immediate heavy lifting, but Polsby settled on an interior design over time. There are so many great things about this house," he says. 'There are paint colors, wallpapers, and textiles just waiting to be given new life. It's fun to live with and figure out what needs to be done as opposed to having everything done right away."[17