From single girl in the city to married mom, a decorating partnership endures

CHICAGO - When a person grows up, sometimes their decorating does too. Jill Fireman had just begun working on a project with interior designer Tom Stringer when she did a decorating about-face. She realized that the baggage she'd been lugging around wasn't American Tourister; it was her furniture.

"When Jill and I first started we were planning a very sleek townhouse, very single-girl-in-the-city," says Stringer. "Then she up and sold the townhouse, bought this co-op and got married." Stringer was unfazed. This adaptable award-winner is known for his versatility _ his portfolio runs the gamut from 1880s restorations to the cutting-edge interiors of celebrated North Side Chicago restaurant Alinea.

"I feel like I've watched Jill grow up. And now that she's a mom, she's a real grownup!" says Stringer. "My life took a turn," agrees the mother of infant Sophia. "When Tom and I first started working together it was just me and my dog Max."

She and Max had inhabited a modernist world of streamlined furniture and white walls, fun while it lasted, but today Fireman lives happily amid an assemblage of soft pretty colors and playful detailing accented by her eclectic art collection. The results are the culmination of lively discussions among Fireman, her English-born husband and Stringer (with some serious baby-proofing a late addition to the agenda). Their goal, according to Fireman, was to come up with a style that would complement the European feeling of their 1920s-era Gold Coast apartment. "This is a very 'panel and crown molding' building," says Stringer. "Some of the detail was good and some was not." A fake fireplace, for instance, was not. It was quickly removed, as were some of the more "goopy" moldings. Stringer says that he dreamt up the "inexplicable style" of the living room shelves and cabinets himself. "As I was sketching, I came up with that wacky Moorish cutout top and Jill loved it."

In fact the whole apartment echoes the style of those bookshelves-unconventional yet worldly _ a meticulously edited stash of antiques set against Fireman's edgy mix of ethnographic, primitive and modern art. "The clean lines of this neoclassical furniture smooth out the dichotomy of Jill's art collection," says Stringer of the 18th and 19th century European pieces he chose: "If I could explain why that works I'd get a great prize from the design world."

No worries. There's explanation aplenty in the living room where, for one, an intensely emotional Luis Gonzalez Palma photo collage is softened by the soothing serenity of the furniture's classic lines. "It's infinitely more interesting to work with a client where art is not an afterthought," says Stringer. "We had to keep the decorating kind of understated because the art keeps changing."

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Just like its owner, apparently.

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Resources: Interior design, Tom Stringer Design Partners, Chicago. Living room table vignette: Artwork over table by Luis Gonzalez Palma-Schneider Gallery, Chicago; circa 1790 Gustavian chest, Biedermeier pedestal table and antique Empire armchairs-Lief, Los Angeles; foyer console-Pagoda Red, Chicago; chair fabric by Clarence House-Lee Jofa, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; mounted insects-June Blaker, Chicago. Living room facing windows: Custom roman shade fabric, Concorde Stripe by Christopher Norman-Nancy Corzine, Mart; Ondoso table lamp-Donghia, Mart; custom club chair fabric, Belgravia-Scalamandre, Mart; Louis XVI reproduction bergere, Minton-Spidell-Michael Cleary, Mart; antique Louis XVI bench-client's own; custom ottoman upholstery, Shrunken Buffalo Bull leather, white resin-Edelman Leather, Mart; rug-Fedora Design, New York. Master bedroom: Custom roman shade fabric, Travers, Palmerston Stripe-Gold-Summer Hill; Mart; antique swing arm sconces-Reborn Antiques, Los Angeles, headboard-Swedish Blonde, Alabama; antique Gustavian nightstand-Leif, Los Angeles.

© 2008, Chicago Tribune.