Yeah, I could live there.

Yeah, I could live there is a not-so-new, occasional D16 feature wherein I post pictures of homes I want to break into, kick out the inhabitants and move in. Today we’re traveling to 47 Park Avenue and the Edwardian-style home of Michael and Jonathan (and their dogs, Jacob Crackers, Oscar Wilde and Charlie Buckets) in Yorkshire, England.

I’ve actually been meaning to post about Michael and Jonathan’s houses (they have another one in London) for many months now, but I’ve had such a hard time narrowing down what pictures to share! Their homes are both so gorgeous and inspiring and perfectly renovated that it’s impossible to write about either without using 600 photos. Fortunately for all of us, Michael blogs about both houses himself! I discovered his blog through Jonathan’s location agency, Shoot Factory (a veritable trove of inspiration in itself — I’ve spent many hours clicking through all of those lovely London homes and fantasizing about all of my alternate lives).

So how about just one part of one house, then? The room I keep coming back to whenever I think about their Yorkshire home is the small bedroom they converted into a dressing room for Michael (Jonathan has his own dressing room, which is also lovely!). Oh, it is FABULOUS. Check out this side-by-side:

WOWZA. The room on the left looks like every sad, musty bed and breakfast, and the room on the right looks like…um, I don’t have a good comparison. It looks like a really, really nice dressing room belonging to a person with good taste and fancy clothes. (I’m such an observant and talented writer, I know.) Michael started working on his dressing room in summer 2011, and he’s still putting finishing touches on it — fortunately for those of us who like that sort of thing, he takes loads of progress shots along the way!

The decision to leave the window casings and sashes bare wood while painting the baseboards, doors and floor makes me so happy. It also makes me want to strip off the 50 layers of paint on my own windows! I’m supremely envious of Michael’s ability to keep his clothes and shoes looking so nice on full display. If I put my own clothes and shoes in the exact same room, it would not look like that. Nobody wants to put old, scuffed-up Swedish clogs in a glass cabinet, you know?

About a year into the project, the dressing room reached its first stage of being “done.” And it looked fantastic! An antique marble-topped mahogany dental cabinet at the center of the room, scaffolding poles for hanging clothes, a vintage Scolari chandelier, a super-duper-fancy glass cabinet for shoes…how can you possibly improve on that?!

The answer to that question is one I’d never have come up with for a dressing room, but it’s exactly right: TILE. Specifically, subway tile with dark grout. Ohhhh yeah. I don’t need to tell you how I feel about that (I feel like maybe my kitchen and Michael’s dressing room could be friends, no?).

SO GOOD. I want to tile everything now. And how nice is that angled wall where the entry door is? The dark grout really brings out that wall and the slanted ceiling — it just looks so much more architecturally interesting, and, contrary to what a lot of people think about subway tile, the room now feels so much warmer and cozier. I really love it.

Thank you so much for allowing me to share your home, Michael and Jonathan! I’ll keep following your renovation progress at your blog (eagerly awaiting the shop, too!) and all of the beautiful locations at Shoot Factory.

All photos courtesy of and © 47 Park Avenue