PREGNANT WITH HER FIRST CHILD in 2005, Annie Anderson walked into a dream. Her late mother's friends were throwing her a baby shower at a beautiful old Colonial home across town in Kansas City.
"There was greenery over the French doors and baby pictures of our friends' kids everywhere," the designer recalls. "I was like, This is magical. I want to live in this house, but how am I ever going to live in this house?"
Thirteen years, a blossoming career and two (more) babies later, Annie and her husband, Jeffery, got up the courage to make an offer. "We said, 'We'll make this house beautiful. We'll carry on the legacy of this home,'" Annie recalls. Contract inked, they hired Nancy Ruzicka, a local architect who had worked on the house before. Annie, ten years into her own interior design practice, rolled up her sleeves.
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