For designer Delecia Becker, renovating this 1951 home in Skokie, Illinois, was less about reinvention than revival. Her goal was simple: “To bring it back to life,” she says. “It already had so much character and beauty, but it was stuck in the past. I wanted to find a way to bring it into the present without costing the home its story.”
Instead of stripping away everything that made the house unique, Delecia focused on what was worth keeping and built the new design around it. “I never wanted it to feel like an old house that had been ‘fixed up,’” she explains. “I wanted it to feel like it had naturally evolved over time. Just more functional, thoughtful, and suited to modern life.”
Her firm, Becker Interiors took on a full-home renovation. “I reworked spaces that needed to function better for modern life while being very intentional about what I kept, restored, or referenced from the original home,” she notes. The result is a house where it isn’t always immediately apparent what’s original and what’s new.
That approach begins in the entry, where many of the home’s original charms remained intact. “The original Dutch door was obviously staying, along with this really cool curved ceiling detail that gives the space so much dimension,” Delecia says. “I added Sandberg’s Olof wallpaper and brass doorknobs with a traditional shape. I wanted the things I added to feel just as at home there as the things that had been there for years.”
The kitchen, on the other hand, was a complete gut, so functionality came first. “Once I had that figured out, I could focus on making a brand-new kitchen feel like it had always belonged in this house,” Delecia explains. “The checkerboard floors and the window with diamond grilles are two of my favorite details. The patterns speak back to each other without obviously matching, and I think that’s what makes it work. I never want a room to feel like every detail was trying to coordinate with the next.”
Elsewhere, she was careful to vary the volume. The living room is one of the home’s quieter moments, allowing the millwork to take center stage. “Not every room needed wallpaper or a big moment,” the designer explains. “I think having those quieter spaces is what lets rooms like the study be as fun as they are without the whole house feeling like too much.”
And the study certainly has fun. Pattern and color envelop the room, while a pair of bookcases flanking the double doors introduces symmetry and gives the eye somewhere to land. But one of its most successful elements almost didn’t survive the renovation. “The Delft tile around the fireplace is original to the house, and I initially wanted to get rid of it,” Delecia admits. “Now I can’t imagine the room without it. Once the Claret & Key Clayton wallpaper came in, the tile suddenly made sense. It completely changed how I saw something that had been there all along. That room was a good reminder that with an old house, the answer isn’t always to remove what you don’t immediately love. Sometimes you just haven’t found what it needs yet.”
Small choices carry just as much weight. The main-floor bathroom features an octagon-and-dot floor, while the window trim, painted Benjamin Moore’s Antique Pewter, draws the eye outdoors. “I genuinely think it was one of the best calls I made in the house,” she says. “It was a small decision that completely changed the room. Sometimes the simplest details end up doing the most.”
The secondary bathroom might be the clearest expression of Delecia’s old-meets-new philosophy. “Multiple people have walked in and asked, ‘Oh my gosh, is this floor original? I love it!’ And nope. It’s completely new,” Delecia shares. “The entire bathroom needed to be gutted, so finding a floor tile that didn’t feel too new was no easy feat. I didn’t want a new tile that was obviously trying to look old. I wanted one that simply felt like it belonged. The fact that people assume it’s original is probably the best compliment I could get.”
She kept the rest of the bathroom classic with 2.5-by-5-inch subway tile and marble countertops, then mixed oil-rubbed bronze fixtures with polished nickel plumbing. “I actually love that everything doesn’t match,” she says. “I wanted the room to feel like it had evolved over time, and a little imperfection in the mix helps tell that story.”
The home’s most utilitarian spaces received the same consideration. In the mudroom, she paired herringbone slate floors with a blue patterned backsplash, adding pattern and color without making a hardworking room feel too precious. “It’s a mudroom,” the designer says. “It needed to be practical, but practical doesn’t have to mean boring.”
Finally, the downstairs bar has curved millwork on the shelving, which is one of those small details that has maximum visual impact. “Straight shelves would have worked perfectly fine, but the curve makes them so much more interesting,” Delecia says. “I think those are the details that make a house memorable. They don’t have to be big or in your face.”
With a goal for the home to feel like it had always existed this way and aged in place, Delecia found the perfect balance. “That meant knowing when to restore something, when to reinterpret it, and when to just leave it alone,” she reflects. “In the end, I think that balance is what makes the house feel so special. It has a new life without erasing the life it had before.”
