Playful vision enlivens downtown loft retreatEILEEN McCLELLAND, Copyright 2005 Houston ChroniclePublished 05:30 a.m., Saturday, July 9, 2005LifeComments (0)Larger | SmallerPrintable VersionEmail ThisFontIn Katie Koenig's downtown Houston loft — one L-shaped room plus bath — exposed air-conditioning ducts snake across a 14-foot unfinished cement ceiling. Two walls hold floor to ceiling rows of triple-pane windows. One corner has an exposed brick wall.About what you'd expect — so far.Step into Koenig's space, though, across a patchwork of jewel-toned Oriental rugs, and you don't notice those bare beginnings.A 12-foot stuffed giraffe is the room's playful focal point. But it steals the design show only if you're able to stop staring at the thousands of beads heaped in bowls, hanging from hooks and piled on shelves above the galley kitchen.Or the painting by Robert Delford Brown of a pregnant woman wearing only go-go boots propped near the doorway.Koenig, owner of Bellaire Bead Shop, uses her leased downtown loft as a guest house, creative space and display area for the treasures she loves to collect.The towering Steiff giraffe is an antique. At night, spotlighted in the windows, it's a distinctive and offbeat downtown beacon for passers-by.Koenig also collects disembodied dolls' heads, some of them antiques. They surround one of the two beds in the loft. Some have become makeshift lids for bead storage jars."My friends try to find the most bizarre doll heads they can, the ones where the eyes move and they have different expressions," Koenig said. There's a Dennis the Menace head among them.Above a headboard is a security mirror Koenig bought from a drugstore and adorned with garnets and fur.She's salvage savvy — as are her parents, Margaret and Jake Koenig, who often share finds with her.Heavy, wooden wheeled bins once used to haul merchandise around Main Street's Woolworth's store are filled to the brim with beads and beaded jewelry. A metal Brach's candy display shelf from a Houston drugstore holds rolled-up bath towels."Dad was in the building business, and he would end up with a lot of architectural items," she explained, pointing to an intricately carved walnut and yellow pine newel post made in Germany in 1845, and salvaged from a historical home in Austin. The post now anchors a corner of a handwoven Iranian rug. "It has a twin that is 14 feet tall, but we couldn't get it in the elevator."A 3-foot-tall wooden figurine dressed in a Grecian-style gown was a fixture in downtown'sMetro Theater. Now the elegant lady clutches a strand of beads and stands graceful guard over a bed.A solid mahogany parlor bench parked at the foot of the bed came from a Louisiana junk dealer, finding its way to Koenig through a network of friends.Koenig said she doesn't have time to frequent antiques stores, flea markets or auctions. "My friends deal in art and fine furniture and know what I like."She maintains a warehouse for the overflow and recently bought a house in the First Ward that she is beginning to furnish and remodel."I like to buy big things that are hard to move, and I think someday I'll have the perfect place for that," she said. "I don't buy it unless I really like it and then I become attached to it."She's also an art collector, but not an art snob, she said. A painting of a woman eating a watermelon, for example, isn't at all valuable, but serves as the colorful focal point for one of the bedroom areas."I like watermelons," she said. "And will you ever see another watermelon-eating lady with black rain dripping on her?"When decorating any space, Koenig goes for originality and isn't influenced by what "normal" visitors might think. People without her eclectic leanings are sometimes taken aback by her loft, and especially by the giraffe, she says.But decorating a room or a loft is a deeply personal endeavor, she believes."Anyone who wants to live in a loft to begin with has somewhat of an artistic style," she said. "Let your own personality show and don't try to be like the Joneses. A lot of what I have is very expressive, but worthless to other people."Loft dwellers don't need to choose midcentury modern furnishings to mesh with industrial architecture."I have furnishings that make the transition from midcentury to today — and beyond," she said.eileen.mcclelland@chron.com
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