Bonnie McElveen-Hunter’s bedroom focuses on a fireplace flanked by shelves filled with her collection of blue-and-white porcelain.

Among the ambassador’s favorite spaces is her second-floor bedroom with its soothing aqua walls. At the far end of the room, shelves crowded with Wedgwood and Chinese export porcelain intensify the blue-and-white color scheme of the bedding and upholstery.

Winding up to the top floor, the new staircase leads to the attic sitting room kicked up a notch with bold striped patterns repeated in a zebra rug, needlepoint pillows, and a curvaceous settee. On one wall, a portrait of a Russian general acquired by the ambassador while serving in Finland hangs in an unusual, carved frame.

Travel to Denmark led her to purchase the delicate botanical plates mounted on gold brackets in the dining room. The nature theme in this green-lined room is particularly appropriate, given its view to the garden through tall windows. On one wall hangs one of McElveen-Hunter’s most cherished possessions, a 1913 pastel of a mother and child by Mary Cassatt that was exhibited last winter at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.