f
TOP LEFT Dutch doors at both ends
of the mudroom are handy to keep the
couple’s dogs penned in. “I’ve always
had a thing for Dutch doors,” Angie says,
“and they fit my idea of using things like
doors and light fixtures as decoration.”
TOP RIGHT To suit the style of their old
farmhouse, the Cavaliers built a garage to
look like a barn. There’s an apartment in the
loft. The glassed-in breezeway connects it
to the original house. ABOVE Angie and
Michael, with Jack, Scout, and Bella, moved
into this historic house and embarked on
a renovation after Angie was successfully
treated for breast cancer and her
priorities shifted.ACED WITH A LARGE, EMPTY WHITE WALL IN NEED OF
some interest, Angie Cavalier went to one of her favorite
antiques dealers and bought two weathered ladders.
“I literally propped them against the wall, and there they
still are,” she says.
This low-key attitude toward decorating her newly renovated
historic home in McKinney, Texas, is a far different approach
than she would have had 10 years ago. Her previous house in a
suburban neighborhood was filled with numerous collections
in a layered, fuller style. Instead of two ladders, she would have
had five, and they’d have been graced with beautiful French
linens, for instance. It was a look she was proud of and had
worked for years as an antiques dealer to achieve.
But a startling life change led to a decisive lifestyle change.
In 2009, Angie was diagnosed with breast cancer. “That altered
my whole life,” she says. “We sold the house and most of the
furnishings in it and started over in a more simple fashion.” She
and husband Michael bought this fixer-upper near downtown.
The house, which was really two farmhouses joined together,
dated to the 1890s and needed TLC. They spent a year on a
renovation designed to honor the home’s history yet open up
walls to fix its flow issues and make way for easier entertaining.
The result is light, airy rooms bathed in natural daylight with
views of the mature trees and new gardens outside.
“Instead of a lot of stuff we don’t need, I wanted the house and
surroundings to be the beauty,” Angie says. “I wanted the house
to speak for itself.” She enjoyed highlighting its quirks. The
different woods used in the floors are unified under a white-
gray wash, but they change in tone and color from room to
room. After she tore out a closet in the front hall to create elbow
room, Angie liked the crusty beaded-board innards so much she
left them in place. “There are bits and pieces of old wallpaper,