Designing a home in a former grain silo is something of a challenge, but it was a challenge interior designer Brigid Wethington was up to when she was hired to design a condo in Silo Point.
While the project is still a work in progress, it’s garnered significant attention, and Wethington even filmed a short documentary for the HouzzTV YouTube channel about it.
Wethington is the owner, principal designer and sole employee of B. Chic Interiors, an interior design firm based in Columbia. She left an earlier career in sales and marketing to pursue her passion for design.
“[Interior design] suits me perfectly, because I get to use my skills in business and art and combine them to make beautiful rooms,” she says of her work. “And I love helping people. I get that warm and fuzzy feeling when a project is done and the homeowners are happy. Even six months later, when I get to revisit the home after it’s been lived in, it’s just so rewarding.”
Wethington was approached for the Silo Point project by retired lawyers Jim and Sheila Vidmar, whom she had worked with on other housing designs in the past.
They had been looking at Silo Point as a potential place to live for a while, so when an end unit opened up for sale, they contacted Wethington about it and asked what she thought.
“I was so honored to have gotten to walk around the space with them before they had even put a contract down,” she recalls. “They were looking at me, going ‘Do you think we should buy this property?’ To me, it’s the greatest honor to help them make such a major life decision.”
From a Silo to a Home
Silo Point was originally a grain elevator, and was not built to house people. So there are several challenges that Wethington faced when designing a condo there — with the biggest challenge being the ceiling and the lighting.
Wethington estimates that about one-third of the ceilings were made of concrete, one-third were made of corrugated metal and had exposed metal beams, and the remainder was made of regular drywall.
When it came time to put in lighting, Wethington had to determine how to put it into three different materials. And it’s impossible to mount recessed lighting fixtures in concrete.
So she partnered with Visual Comfort & Co., a lighting design company with a location in Timonium.
“Lighting designers typically work on projects like restaurants and hotels, so it’s very unusual to hire one for a home project,” Wethington notes. “Unless it’s a kind of high-end project, which this was.”
Wethington worked with several vendors and contractors to pull off this project, which she says she could not have done without their help.
“I’m very collaborative, so I bring my vendors in to help me execute projects,” she says. “I’m just a one-person team, so I don’t have assistants, I don’t have interns, I don’t have anybody working for me. So I really lean heavily on my vendors and contractors to help me get these projects done in a professional way.”
A Room With a View
The most striking thing about Silo Point condos is the view they offer. The building has large floor-to-ceiling windows and is right on the waterfront, so its condos get a lot of natural light.
This was a factor that Wethington had to work around, aiming to maximize the amount of natural light that the condo rooms get while also making sure it wasn’t too bright.
In the kitchen, Wethington used countertops with a matte finish — countertops with a glossy finish would have reflected the light, causing an unpleasant glare.
Wethington also took inspiration from the seaside view when decorating the living room, implementing more natural elements into the space.
“The flooring is walnut; the dining table is vaulted oak,” she says. “I focused on organic material to soften up all of the harder elements in the space, since all the metal and the beams can feel very cold and industrial. Humans need trees and grass and flowers, so we were trying to bring a modern, organic quality into the space.”