After raising a family in a six-bedroom Victorian home, an interior designer and her husband downsize to a clean, modern take on the cozy cottage aesthetic

WHEN interior designer Jean Stoffer and her husband became empty-nesters, they realized it was time to downsize. The couple had raised four children in an 1891 Victorian home in the Chicago area, a 4,500 square-foot, six-bedroom affair, crammed with fussiness typical of the style: Lots of heavy millwork, complicated crown molding and ornate trim around the windows and doors, said Ms. Stoffer, all made possible by the Victorian eras wood-turning machinery.
The next chapter in their domestic life is a smaller house in Grand…