Designer Rachel Horn never had plans to buy a home in Louisville, Kentucky: She’s based in Austin, Texas, and only visited from time to time to see her best friend, Adrianne Hoadley. But Adrianne is a real estate agent who has lived in the area for 20 years, and when she saw this 1937 Bauhaus-style kit home, she could just picture Rachel living in it. “From the photos it looked so warm and inviting, like a little jewel,” says Rachel.

She hopped on a plane the next day and discovered that the place was even better in person. “When I saw this cute, modern box of a house in a neighborhood of traditional brick homes, I fell in love,” she says. Rachel kept some of the charming details, then transformed the rest of the 1,070-square-foot space with a bold black-and-white palette — starting with the exterior. To freshen up the metal-paneled house, built from a prefab kit, Rachel painted it Caviar by Sherwin-Williams. “All of the surrounding greenery made me think the black would pop,” she says.

A lot of Rachel’s furniture is custom, to make the most of the small space. These two sofas and pill-shaped coffee table are from her own furniture line, Rachel Horn Home. She found the vintage midcentury starburst at a local shop. “I’ve used lots of color in my career. Now I need things to be visually quieter, though still layered and interesting,” she says of the minimal color palette. “Black and white is very soothing to me.”

The ’50s-era O’Keefe & Merritt stove and ovens were here when Rachel bought the house. The teal appliances pop against the white counter and walls (Moonlight White by Benjamin Moore). She replaced a red checkerboard floor with striped Forbo Flooring Systems linoleum, then added black and white accessories like splatter dishes from Mexico. “The stove and dishwasher are tiny, but it’s lovely entertaining out of here.”

This corner used to hold a piano, but Rachel thought the windows were perfect for a dining area. She reconceived the space with a brass and marble tulip table from Williams Sonoma, vintage Milo Baughman chairs reupholstered in gold leather and an ostrich feather lamp from Venetto Design that reminds her of Dr. Seuss. “I thought, ‘What would give the feeling of something living, like a tree?’ This lamp was perfect.”