Contemporary House Meets an Inveterate Collector

These clients came to me as a result of seeing the space I did in the Designer’s Show House. The wife loved the color violet and the husband, a leading Atlanta architect was creative and open minded. It all worked beautifully. I was blessed with cliients who each had an eye for beautiful things and a sensibility that included appreciation for the smallest piece of paper ephemera to a signed Tiffany lamp.

She had one major request of me that I was unable to comply with. “Please help me pair down and get rid of some of what I’ve collected”, she asked. “You’ve called the wrong person”, I said. Usually I’m happy to help a client do that, but there was nothing I could see anywhere in the house that wasn’t exceptionally beautiful and obviously obtained with a great deal of love and consideration. I explained that it was just matter of creating a background and pulling it all together. The architect husband, had created a contemporary jewel box and now our collective job was to organize the goodies inside.

Purple was the color and everything else played off of that. All the wicker furniture went out to be lacquered the same pale lavender grey and then went to the upholsterer. The sofa was covered with a soft cut velvet in a shell pattern and the side chairs received an over sized print in plum, lavender and touches of green. We resurfaced most of the first floor and second with an Italian terra-cotta to stay in a contemporary vein with the structure. The living room was left with tile only but we found a wonderful Stark carpet for the dining area.

In the dining area the glass and chrome table was a quality piece and allowed a total view of the carpet which we all thought was a good thing. For the dining chairs I found a contemporized version of a French chair which we sent out to be finished with a copper metallic automotive lacquer. To repeat the color of the living room we covered the dining chairs in a deep plum silk velvet. The chandelier was one of the client’s finds - an Italian cluster of glass grapes and leaves. It’s hung a bit higher than normal because the ceiling height in the area was approximately 18 feet. To keep the window treatments in the area simple we used custom colored Levolor blinds.