Renovations

As a former librarian and true book lover, Williams liked the idea of storing her books in the living room. "At first, the built-in shelving we designed was more open, but the exposed books created too much visual clutter, so we added cabinet doors and kept a few open shelves to house a rotating display of our client's collection of quirky and artful artifacts," says Eng-Goetz.

The old wooden ceiling beams in the dining room were purchased from a local Amish farmer and painted white. Warm timbers tie the home together.

"I tried to decide what are the pieces that are going to give the 'wow' factor—in my case the fishbone tiling of the entire apartment and the glass-walled study room," says Efrat. "Those were the corner stones I started with, and built everything around that."