Luxury and Comfort Define This Atlanta Home

Soothing neutrals and high-end finishes make for a peaceful retreat in the luxe Buckhead neighborhood.

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By: Michel Smith Boyd

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Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

A Family Room Built for Relaxation

This gorgeous home in the Atlanta neighborhood of Buckhead is defined by quiet luxury and a soft, soothing color palette. Made for both family life and entertaining, this home has it all. Here in the family room you can see the soft gray-blue palette shared by the majority of the home’s main level. I’m immediately struck with how the simple walls and painted brick allow the artwork to pop off the walls. We didn’t use a lot of pattern in this room. However we created our own with these solid silks, creating a cool color-blocked look for the panels. Just as much work went into choosing the comfortable furniture. I just want to take a seat on that rug!

The Family Room Formerly Known as the Sunroom

This family’s sunroom is so popular that it’s rendered the actual family room virtually unused. It is officially the family’s favorite place to hang out. The room actually just received what we like to call a “facelift” in the summer of 2017. The spacious sectional, motorized shades, art, tables, rug and pillows are all new additions. As a self-proclaimed texture fanatic, I added grasscloth to the ceiling just to get one more natural element into the room. For this family, I built a tone-on-tone foundation with lots of texture and added in color with pillows and accessories.

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

The shiplap walls in the family room paired with the distressed wooden mirrors speaks to a casual luxury that is the intended overall mood of the home’s decor. We were as focused on comfort and approachability as we were on making it aesthetically pleasing. In the collage of nine teak wood framed mirrors, no two are exactly alike. The natural wood tones are echoed by the side table’s zebra wood facade. My fave detail in this image is the smart and simple tailoring on the sofa.

Cohesive Elements

I must admit, I am slightly obsessed with convex mirrors. I love the impact they add to a space, especially above this pair of dining consoles flanking the butler's pantry. Check out how the distressed frame speaks to the painted driftwood base of the console. The body of the lamp is as porous and textured as the white driftwood, but we specified it in black as a nod to the dining chandelier and to help ground/substantiate the glass tops. The mask is a find from the homeowners’ travels and also works well with the artwork.

A Family that Entertains Together Stays Together

This custom built-in settee resides in a space typically slated for bookcases. Since we had enough storage and this is an entertaining family: why not add more seating? I also imagined this corner being the perfect spot to curl up with a good book, with a cozy fire going and a snack. I specified this piece be upholstered in white to blend in with the walls and also not compete with the sofa.

Edited Layers

The formal living room/parlor is one of the first impressions you get to make on your guests about what your personal style is and how you like to live at home. For the entertaining spaces in this home our client wanted chic, well-edited rooms with simple palettes and lots of light. Their formal living room is exactly that with transitional furnishings and original artwork created by one of their daughters. The layering in this room is subtle but impactful. Metallic wallcovering defines the niches. Sheer panels, a painted ceiling and an antique mirrored platform coffee table rest on a white silk rug. All of these carefully curated details have light-reflective properties. Editing does not equate to skimping.

Love Is in the Details

This chair is one half of five different sets of swivels in the house. We sourced the chairs for the room’s original design scheme and simply had them reupholstered for the update. The Jim Thompson, cut velvet applied to the chairs’ outside back was also used for the window cornice, which cleverly conceals motorized linen shades that help to control sun exposure. For the interior and seat, we used a solid velvet inspired by the accent fabric and finished clean with a coordinating leather welt. The plant thriving in the background was a gift given to the homeowners on their wedding day, over twenty-five years ago.

A Dining Balance

My practical approach to dining room design is to choose amazing chairs with an understated table or just the opposite so that they aren’t competing to be the focal point. Here we selected a classic double pedestal table to compliment ten plush chairs with metallic woven interiors and soft white leather backs. The drapery is as clean as the chair’s design and the bar cabinet is intentionally white to allow the 72”x72” abstract painting to become the star of the show. It was one of the pieces from our client’s existing collection that I insisted we keep. This room is also an example of how well classics and contemporary marry. The chandelier, inspired by the painting, mimics the repetition in the panels and is shaped like the table to which it’s perpendicular. Harmony is a key ingredient to successfully designed rooms.

Poolside Inspiration

The palette for the house was inspired by the backyard pool which is visible from the front door as you enter the home. We used a subtle shade of blue on the ceiling to connect the kitchen/breakfast/family room area to establish continuity between the interior and the outdoors. The white walls and cabinetry are perfect backdrops for the lush green views outside the kitchen windows and the geometric upholstery that brings our blue theme down to eye level.

Sculpting Centerpieces

Every room is better with fresh flowers or the perfect green plant to add life and a little fresh air. In the case of this island’s centerpiece, I created a custom “permanent botanical." The large resin bowl (approximately 32 inches in diameter) is filled with multiple varieties of moss, green moss balls, agate, pyrite and driftwood branches to create an elevated natural arrangement. There is no limit to the possibilities and best of all, you can create this look yourself with things you love.

A Powder Room With Style and Grace

According to my rules, powder rooms are supposed to be fabulous! It’s the one public space that everyone visits privately, so I always strive to make a great impression. I love what an over sized piece of artwork does in a small space, and this is a big one. We did a simple strie faux finish on the walls and an always-chic Carrera marble on the vanity which we repeated for many of the surfaces throughout the home. Believe it or not, the mirror was the last item I sourced, and it was worth the hunt. It’s special, just like powder rooms should be.

5 Star Status Master Bedroom

This is one of my favorite master bedrooms of all time. It immediately reads as a luxury destination. This was the last space we designed in our original scope of work and I wanted everything we chose to have as much tactile appeal as it did visually. Wherever you land, you’ll sink down into lush velvets, silks, furs or mohair. The color palette is limited but soothing, varying from dark chocolates to taupes with dashes of white to keep it crisp and reflect light. We used a faux silk wallcovering in the bedroom’s entry and on the bed wall, but conserved by using a perfect color-matched paint on the walls adjacent. I know it may seem a little indulgent but whenever you can, try adding fresh flowers or an orchid in your bedroom: instant hotel suite status!

The Gentleman’s Bar

Both husband and wife have their own private spaces in the home and this is the entry to the “man-cave.” That’s right, before you get into the actual cave, you can visit the bar! The finishes are a little swank for the typical man-cave, but our client entertains business partners, colleagues and friends alike here. The walls are dressed in a commercial grade flocked, striped wallcovering to capitalize on the bar’s height and detract from its lack of width. I viewed this room as akin to designing a powder room: a small space that needed to make a big impression. The custom cabinets are Macassar ebony and the rug is from my own licensed collection. I even managed to get another convex mirror in the house.

Sophisticated Man Cave

Once inside the man-cave, the cool angles and architectural features clearly identifies it as a former attic space. The room is accessorized with black and white images of career milestones and nostalgic art that references the homeowner's home town. There are two seating areas, a game table, a live edge counter with four barstools and of course a massive television. This room meets the needs of whatever type of guests our homeowner is hosting. There are four large club chairs for casual business meetings, a comfy sofa for lounging, or we can fill every seat for a big sporting event. Every element in this room has a purpose, but we still managed to inject good design principals into finishes, the space plan and overall mood to ensure a great result.