GROWING A HOUSE

‘A cozy spot to sit with a cocktail’

By Liz Jaros
Home Book Magazine Contributor

In the course of his daily duties at Carriage Flowers on Marion Street in Oak Park, owner Joe Bianco doesn’t take a whole lot of time to stop and smell the roses. When the pressure is on and his senses are overloaded, arranging flowers is a job, he says, not a joy.

But every Tuesday, when the last bouquet has been bundled and the “closed” sign has been flipped, Bianco buttons up the shop with an armful of blooms he intends to fully enjoy. He’s headed home to his expanded Victorian farmhouse in Forest Park – a unique sanctuary 22 years on the making. And it is in this comfortable context – surrounded by the things and, as often as possible, the people he loves – that Bianco will finally be able to appreciate the fruits of his own labor.

Dramatically expanded with a vaulted-ceiling addition and whimsically peppered with original art, Bianco’s home is a rich tapestry of color and texture. Through it, he’ll weave his favorite floral specimens with pleasure, not obligation.

“I love to entertain, and I love having the space for it,” Bianco says before a formal table that spans two rooms, seats 12 comfortably and is clearly the heart of this home.

Depending on what he has planned – and he almost always has something planned – Bianco says he enjoys choosing flowers and linens to dress the table. He’s even embroidered the 15-foot table runner himself.

Illuminated by a low-hung chandelier and a pair of silver candelabras with electric flames, this central gathering place is framed by a grand piano at one end and a round table that can be set to accommodate six additional diners at the other.

When weather permits, a set of east-facing French doors can be opened from a Juliet balcony overlooking the backyard – which, of course, is spectacular – for an al fresco experience.

On these occasions, Bianco says dinner will sometimes stretch into the wee hours.

A round, full life

“My fingers are always moving,” Bianco says. “I’ve got to have them going in something or I go crazy.”

But when he’s not working, hosting a dinner party, lending his talents to a local charity event or stitching together a custom veil for an anxious bride, Bianco does enjoy some downtime.

“My favorite spot to relax is here by the fire,” he says in front of a marble-faced gas fireplace with a dentil molding mantel support. “It’s such a delight to have a cozy place to sit with a cocktail at the end of the day.”

Five years ago, when Bianco was sketching plans for a home addition that would jut south to roughly double his first-floor living space, he made sure to include an interior stack that could ultimately house a fireplace.

After shopping around for one and gasping at prices, Bianco says he decided he would build the focal point himself.

“Everyone thought I was crazy,” he recalls. “But I said, ‘I’m gonna do it,’ and I headed off for Home Depot.”

Above Bianco’s homemade fireplace, displayed prominently upon a crimson-stroked, gallery-style wall that holds artifacts from his shopping sprees and travels, a painting by Fernando Botero tells us a lot about the man who’s poured his taste and talents into decorating this house.

In this family portrait of sorts, a fleshy couple poses while a pair of boys (actually adults, but on a smaller scale) tug at their shirttails. Botero, a 60s era Columbian-born painter and sculptor know for disorienting his subjects with bloated faces and portly physiques – speaks to Bianco on some level, and he’s acquired as many of the artist’s pieces as he could get his hands on.

“He paints these fat people and I’m just drawn to them,” Bianco says.

Botero’s anti-museum style and visual depiction of the relationship between rotundity and pleasure appeal to Bianco – a man who likes to stuff his loved ones with good food and drink – for good reasons.

Grand beginnings

Inarguably an amateur carpenter success story, the fireplace project was not Bianco’s first attempt at woodworking. That came 18 years earlier when he first bought the small Victorian despite it having no obvious spot for his piano.

“The house was a total mess,” he recalls. “But the price was right and I knew I could work with the space.”

So one of his first orders of business as the home’s owner became enlarging the entryway between its foyer and living room and – despite having no official experience – trimming the opening with decorative wood molding.

And in the end, with every ounce of first-floor space utilized, Bianco and his baby grand could both breathe a little easier.

In time, though, as he maintained an open door policy to friends and family members in need of a place to stay, Bianco began to feel the walls close in on him again.

“I thought about moving,” he recalls, but everything out there was ridiculously overpriced.

It was actually his realtor who suggested expanding into the other half of his double lot.

And now, with his entertainment space ample, Bianco says he’ll soon pour his creative juices into a kitchen redo. When that’s complete, the party here may never end.