Every time Susan Broadbent has moved into a new home, she has decorated it in a different theme or style. She has been doing this since she was 17 and has never repeated her interior decor.
After she married Richard Dahlquist, an Edward Little High School art teacher, 11 years ago, she has continued her tradition through their moves around Portland apartments and into their current Lewiston house.
“My apartments were always my studios, with the bed as secondary,” said Dahlquist, who gives his wife free rein decorating their homes.
“I always paint each apartment and then paint it back if I have to — and even then sometimes not getting my security deposit back,” laughed Broadbent, who is a Sun Journal designer and freelance artist.
When Broadbent lived in New Mexico, her place featured Mexican art. In Portland, the couple’s State Street apartment was 1940s bohemian. Another Portland apartment was “beatnik mid-century,” with streamlined furniture and bark cloth curtains.
The couple describes their current Lewiston home as 1940s art hip, and the bright yellow dining room is styled after Claude Monet’s Giverny, France, home.
“I’ve always loved his dining room,” said Broadbent, who found chairs identical to the ones in Monet’s home on eBay.
“We’re pretending we have an old French farmhouse,” added Dahlquist. “We didn’t pull off the move (to France), so this is as close as we get.”
Their living room walls and floor are painted black, with bright pops of colors from their artwork, throw pillows, rug and bright red bookcase.
“I really liked greige, which is a warm gray, but wanted something more for the living room because its the main piece of your home,” said Broadbent. “I saw all of these black rooms and thought it was cool. Art galleries are white to show off the art, and black does basically the same thing. I wanted to use black as the neutral and have everything pop.”
It has taken time to turn their house into the home it is now. The couple purchased it in 2004 and slowly worked at ripping out dropped ceilings and mauve carpets. They had their kitchen ceiling built to cathedral heights and removed walls to open it up.
Work on the bottom floor of the house is done. The upstairs remains a work in progress. “Owning is different because we ripped out all this stuff,” admitted Dahlquist. “We’re slowly working on it.”
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- Richard Dahlquist and Susan Broadbent’s Lewiston home features a yellow dining room inspired by Claude Monet’s dining room in Giverny, France. Broadbent found the chairs, matching those of Monet’s, on eBay, “so that kind of started it all off.”
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- “I wanted to use black as the neutral and have everything pop,” said Susan Broadbent of her black living room, which showcases her and her husband’s art collaborations. The diptych over the sofa is of Broadbent’s parents.
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- “My father laughs at me for color coding my books,” said Susan Broadbent of her bookshelf in her Lewiston living room. “I never would have thought of such a thing,” added Richard Dahlquist, Broadbent’s husband.
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- Upon entering the Dahlquist-Broadbent house in Lewiston, their collaborative paintings and Dahlquist’s hand-coiled vessels greet the visitor, along with a mirror handcrafted by Susan Broadbent.
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- Susan Broadbent and Richard Dahlquist painted their living room red when they moved into their Lewiston home in 2005, but soon after decided to paint their dining room yellow — Dahlquist’s favorite color — and in the style of Claude Monet’s home in France. That ultimately led them to repaint the living room black. “I like red and yellow together, but when I decided I wanted to do the Monet dining room, I didn’t want a bright red room next to a bright yellow room,” said Broadbent.
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- Richard Dahlquist sits in front of a painting of himself by his wife, Susan Broadbent, a Sun Journal designer and freelance artist, in their dining room. The room was inspired by Claude Monet’s dining room in France. “We’re pretending we have an old French farmhouse,” joked Dahlquist. “We didn’t pull off the move (to France), so this is as close as we get.”
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- Richard Dahlquist and Susan Broadbent’s Lewiston home features a yellow dining room inspired by Claude Monet’s dining room in Giverny, France. Broadbent found the chairs, matching those of Monet’s, on eBay, “so that kind of started it all off.”
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- “I wanted a tole chandelier for the dining room and found this one on eBay for almost nothing,” said Susan Broadbent of her dining room light fixture. “It was white and chipped and after painting it, I loved it. I wanted something that looked a bit European.”
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- When Susan Broadbent and Richard Dahlquist bought their home in 2004, the dropped ceilings and mauve carpet were removed throughout. The kitchen ceiling was rebuilt to cathedral heights.
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- Even down to the small details, an artist’s eye can be seen throughout the home of Susan Broadbent and Richard Dahlquist.
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- After moving in to their home in 2004, Susan Broadbent and her husband Richard Dahlquist ripped out a wall into the kitchen, opening up the space and making a continual flow throughout the Lewiston house.
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- Throw pillows add a bit of sparkle and pop on the dark gray couch in the black living room.
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- “I wanted to use black as the neutral and have everything pop,” said Susan Broadbent of her black living room, which showcases her and her husband’s art collaborations.
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