DOWNSIZING THOUGHTFULLY

When Kati Sowiak moved to an apartment, she brought works by her favorite painters, artifacts from Africa, and family photos and heirlooms from her old Victorian house.

Every Friday in pleasant weather, Kati Sowiak and her Newtown neighbors gathered on one another’s porches for after-dinner drinks and snacks.

She and her husband, Ray Sowiak, purchased the six-bedroom Victorian in Bucks County with the columned porch in 1993. They installed a new kitchen and made numerous improvements.

Kati, a graphic artist, filled the home with works by her favorite painters, artifacts from Africa, furniture from local stores and yard sales, and family photos and heirlooms.

Life changes. The Sowiaks’ son, Greg, and daughter, Delphine, grew up and moved away. The couple divorced, and the big house, built in 1874, was sold.

In May, Kati moved to an apartment in an 1838 brick building in Newtown, three decades older than her former home. Her living space is on the second floor with a studio loft on the third.

Downsizing, from 3,353 square feet to 975 square feet, she had to choose what furnishings acquired over 30 years to keep.

On the landing atop the staircase in her old home was a large framed photo. The beautiful woman in white was Kati’s mother, Maria Antalffy, in 1948 when she was a model in Budapest, Hungary.

A smaller version of the photo was one of the few possessions Maria and her husband, Laszlo, and Kati’s older sister, Lilli, took when they fled Hungary in 1956 after the failed revolution protesting Communist oppression.

They settled in Wilmington, Del., where Kati and her brother, Les, were born.

In Kati’s sunny new apartment, the portrait fit perfectly between two windows in the studio loft.

A portrait of another lovely woman in a pink blouse and blue skirt hung above the piano in the Victorian. The woman, Kati’s aunt Jolan Kemeny, had been a baroness in Romania. She, too, fled oppression and came to the United States, carrying the rolled-up painting by artist Agist Benkhard with her.

That portrait now hangs over the gold-and-red living room couch Kati kept. The piano was left behind for the Victorian’s new owners.

Kemeny painted the eggs hanging on branches in a glass vase on a table nearby.

Kati gave the portrait of a regal ancestor wearing a gold chain to a nephew but kept the Antalffy coat of arms.

The apartment was recently renovated. Walls were painted griege with white trim. A new kitchen has white cabinetry. A new bathroom features a walk-in shower. Floors stained walnut show off Oriental rugs Kati’s father gave her.

Tucked between two windows in the living room is a drop-leaf table flanked by two dining chairs. Kati used to extend the table to seat 12 in the formal dining room; now she extends it to comfortably seat eight.

Photos of zebras she took on an African safari sponsored by the Philadelphia Zoo hang in the studio along with a zebra mask. Before the birth of her daughter in 1991, Kati was director of graphics and exhibits at the zoo, where she acquired the “Kangaroos and Flightless Birds” sign hung high on a wall. A friend gave her the black, white, and brown mudcloth blanket hanging over the trundle bed in the studio. African women believe the mudcloth reduced childbirth pain.

Positioned among the houseplants on a windowsill is a spindly giraffe Kati carried back from Kenya on the plane.

In the studio are two framed details — a child’s face and leopard’s face — from the painting Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks, a 19th-century Quaker who was a Newtown resident. Kati created the art for an exhibit at Newtown Friends Meeting, where she is a member.

Kati found room for the portrait of an Amish girl painted by her mother-in-law, Katherine Sowiak, and two impressionistic paintings by Bucks County artist Katherine Steele Renninger.

Leaf-patterned Chinese lanterns hanging in the stairwell were a housewarming gift from Delphine.

Kati said she did not need to buy anything for her new apartment and felt “blessed that my furniture adapted perfectly in its new space.”

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