One family has transformed a love of animals into a decorating motif for this 19th-century house in New York's Hudson River Valley.

Once Rachel McPherson and Patrick McMullan saw this 19th-century farmhouse in New York's Hudson River Valley, they knew they had found the yin to their Brooklyn brownstone yang. It was quiet and verdant. "Let's be more relaxed here," Rachel told her husband. Working with interior designer Jeri Hansen, she made the house friendly for their two children and three dogs. Outdoors, the family expands to include chickens, guinea fowl, ducks, and peacocks.

Red & Blue Living Room

In a living room with formal flourishes - like toile curtains and a 19th-century oil painting - furniture typically found outdoors, such as a rattan settee, maintains a relaxed tone. Rachel McPherson discovered the dramatic wrought-iron candelabra in the Hudson River Valley area. "I use it all the time, and I even take it outside in the summer," she says.




Spring Chickens

Dispersed throughout her home, Rachel's fowl wink at traditional farmhouse motifs. The large, painted cast-iron chicken numbers among a group that Rachel bought in an antiques store. As for its companion, "I grew up with that little painted iron rooster," says Rachel. "It was my mother's; she got me started collecting chickens."




Front Hall

Painted ceramic roosters from Hammertown Barn in Pine Plains, N.Y., greet visitors in the front hall.




Rustic Elegance

The couple waited a few years before redesigning the kitchen. "I'm glad," says Rachel. "I watched how we used it and learned a lot." She chose a fireclay sink and a granite backsplash. The glass-fronted cabinets help brighten the room, and she says, "The dentil molding adds elegance." The pears and flowers come from the garden; the family also grows apples, cherries, raspberries, vegetables, and herbs.




Outdoor Colors

The family often reads together in the master bedroom. Rachel and Patrick enlarged the space by knocking out the adjoining dressing room, and they added closets along the far wall. The partition behind the sofa displays pitchers from Authantiques in Woodbury, N.Y. The needlepoint-dog pillows - a bulldog posing as Henry VIII, a Lab dressed as Andrew Jackson - were gifts from friends.

"We wanted to keep the inside light, so we brought in colors from the outside: yellow, blue, the gray-purple of a winter sky."



Country Bedroom

A handsomely carved c. 1905 bed that Rachel and antiques dealer David Drummond found in England helps create a cozy feel in the master bedroom; balloon shades soften the double-hung windows. Rachel fitted the bed with a patchwork pinwheel quilt made by her mother and needlepoint pillows that feature various dog breeds.




Dog Accents

The fir fireplace surround, with a shell centerpiece, is original to the house. The mantel sports representations of Scotties and French bulldogs, two of Rachel's favorite breeds. An American early-20th-century hand-painted cast-iron Lab sits under an antique Chippendale drop-leaf table from David Drummond.







photo credit: Lucas Allen