What I Should Have Posted Last Year

I was recently going through my IPhone pictures and came across some that I never posted of the Southern Accents showhouse during construction that I wanted to share with you.

Oak post and brackets on loggia

The stairhall ceiling under construction

The library paneling in Jacobean style

The ceiling of the formal living room

Wood Mode cabinets being installed in the kitchen

The laundry room Ann Sacks concrete tile, before grout

The outdoor kitchen

The deGournay wallpaper in the dining room going up

The staircase under construction.  Our carpenters built every bit of this in place including the hand-turned newel post finials.

The handmade tile in the formal living room fireplace.  From Ann Sacks and made in Maine.

The Thomas Grant chandelier in the formal living room.

I apologize for not posting these earlier.

What A Difference A Year Can Make

I've never posted pictures of my kids, but felt like this was a good time for a couple of reasons.  First, I'm extremely proud of all three of them.  Second, the black and white below was taken by my younger sister, Meggan Duncan, that has started her own photography business.  She is focusing mainly on children and families now.  You can see her work at http://mldphotography.smugmug.com.  Who knows, you may want to hire her.

December 2009

Summer 2008 (at Watercolor, Florida)

Amazing what one year, braces and haircuts do.  It appears personalities don't change much.

My daughter is 15, into cheerleading, friends, music, church.  She's a caring, loving girl who is about as perfect as a 15 year old daughter can be.

My 10 year old is into everything sports: football, baseball, basketball, golf and hunting.  He's a little mischevious, but our helper around the house.

Our 8 year old is following in his brother's footsteps with sports and outdoors and, as you can see from the pictures above, is the silly one of the group keeping us laughing and smiling.

Where It All Began For Me

My first memories of loving houses began as a child.  I cannot remember exactly at what age.  But I do recall my mother dragging me through house after house though.  She loves houses as well.  Her parents lived in this house below in St. Francisville, Louisiana.  I recall swinging on the swing on the front porch, searching the hills behind their house looking for Civil War memorabilia and visiting the plantations throughout that area.  In the summer we would swim in the river.  At the time, I felt like the windows on the front porch were 12' tall.  Every year, St. Francisville holds the Audubon Pilgrimage tour of plantations and homes.  I recall my sisters dressing up in what I thought at the time were ridiculous outfits (and laughing at them) to work at the house during the tour. 

Just down the street from their house is Grace Episcopal Church.  It is a beautiful church with a cemetery.  Both of my grandparents were buried here.  The cemetery was always intriguing to me with all the tombstones and the ages of many who died during the Civil War -- many who were my age at the time of their death.

And a couple of more houses (plantations) from St. Francisville.

It was my parents who introduced me to the architecture of A. Hays Town in Baton Rouge.  His work has been a major influence on my career.  Andres Duany probably said it best: “Without Hays Town, the architecture of Louisiana might well have dissipated into the mainstream. Instead, we have a wonderful thing, a fine tradition alive and well in America.”

One thing Louisianians have is an appreciation for architecture and tradition.

The homes of Baton Rouge are a perfect example of this.

He may have been the first to incorporate reclaimed materials into new houses.  He was a master at this as shown above.  These doors probably came out of New Orleans.

I will be traveling back to Baton Rouge this summer (as I do every year) and will get more pictures of my favorite Louisiana architecture.  There has been a lot of great homes built in the last few years.

A French Eclectic

Several years ago, we were hired to design and remodel a 1940s clapboard, New England style house.  The house sits on the corner of a street in Fort Worth that has many period revival homes that face the oldest country club in town.  The front of the house faced the other street.  My original design was to basically keep the style, but completely gut, remodel and do a small addition.  But I knew that our client loved French styled houses.  In the middle of the night one night before we began work, I came up with the idea to forget the original design, face the front of the house on the more prominent street and build a large new addition that would become the formal part of the house and entry.  Unfortunately I don't have any before pictures.  But this is what the new house looks like.

All of the new addition is brick and we left some of the original redwood siding in the back.  The portico is salvaged from an estate in River Oaks in Houston.  The iron gates, iron front door and lanterns are antiques as well.  The limestone balustrade and columns are new but we ordered very early in the project and left them in the dirt, sprayed buttermilk on them and threw dirt on them on a weekly basis to give it an automatic aged look to match the antique portico.  The roof is also a reclaimed clay tile that is a mixture of Ludowici and Mineral Wells.

The above pictures are from DHome magazine when they did their cover story on the house.  The dining room is spectacular with bordeaux pattern parquet floors, a antique limestone french mantel, Gracie handpainted wallpaper and beautiful crystal sconces and chandelier.

This is the formal living room that faces the front yard.  I apologize for the quality of the picture (I took it with my IPhone).   I wish I had more images to share with you.  Our clients have sold the house so I am sure it doesn't look anything like it did with their beautiful furnishings.

However, the design of the house is perfect for it's location and setting.  Most people today think that the house is one of the street's original period revival houses from the 1920s.

The Interior of the Southern Accents Showhouse -- Part II

Before taking you upstairs, it's hard to not show you the stair hall.  Just off the entry and before the library, the stairhall is probably my favorite room in the house.  I never thought a stairhall could be a favorite room but it is mine.  Maybe it has to do with all the time and money we spent creating it, but it's one more element of the house that makes it a true Cotswold style house.  The paneling, tudor style baluster and hand painted burlap wall covering (from Rusty Arena) are beautiful and very fitting for the house.  The oak trusses in the ceiling complete the room.  Our carpenters did all of this work on site and in place including the hand turned finials on the newel posts.

At the top of the stairs you come to the first bedroom, the boy's room.  Joe designed this room, well, for a boy.  With all fabric walls and ceiling, this room is probably the quietest in the house.

Outside the boy's room and before the playroom is the children's library because every child needs their own library.

Just past the children's library is the playroom.  Designed to be large enough for television seating and a pool table, Joe had a different idea for the showhouse.

On the other side of the playroom is the girl's room.  Feminine is the best way to describe this room.  Needless to say, this was the favorite of every girl that toured the house.

The girl's bathroom completes the girl's retreat.  With all white Ann Sacks tile surrounding the tub and a unique limestone floor (also from Ann Sacks) this bathroom is perfect for a little (or any age for that matter) girl.  The photograph next to the vanity is my little girl when she was 5 years old.

On the complete other side of the house is the guest suite.  Above the garage and laundry room and with it's own staircase, the guest room is the most unique room in the house.  Joe selected Porthault linens for the bedding and they were the inspiration for the entire room.  With zebra stripe walls (all handpainted by Shaun Christopher) this room was the favorite of a lot of visitors.

The guest bath continues the same zebra stripe and has all Ann Sacks marble.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the upstairs.  After I did my previous post on the downstairs, I realized I did not include pictures of the kitchen and morning room.  The cabinetry is all Wood Mode, the countertops are honed black granite and the backsplash is Ann Sacks Gothic tile (handmade in Maine).

The Interior of the Southern Accents Showhouse -- Part I

When I was first told that Joe Minton was being considered to be the interior designer for the Southern Accents Showhouse I wasn't sure what I thought.  I had seen many photographs of his work, knew he was known as one of the best interior designers in the United States and knew he would do an incredible job.  However, even though our offices are within a mile of each other, I had never met him before and had a big concern for the builder/interior designer relationship.  In addition, because of our time constraints on building and finishing the house I was worried about working with someone I had never worked with before.


Well, to say that things went well is an enormous understatement.  Joe and his staff were not only incredible to work with professionally, I feel that we have all become great friends.  They took on the project like they were being paid by their highest-paying clients.  And the outcome speaks volumes for the hard work and dedication they put into the project.

It is difficult to pick where to start with the pictures of the interior because every room is not only beautiful, but very fitting.  When asked what was his favorite room in the house, Joe said, "Whichever one I'm standing in."  Above is the formal living room which is sits directly in the middle of the house.  Even though this room is quite large, Joe's take on this room was to create a comfortable feeling of an estate in the English countryside.  His mixture of furnishings  and antiques are perfect for this room.  The floors in the living room (and throughout most of the house) are wide-plank, hand beveled oak.  The ceiling has enormous oak trusses.

I designed the paneling for the library in a Jacobean style.  Joe's selections for the room are classic English and the room is set up for work, reading or to simply watch television.  Everyone raves about this room and it was difficult to get visitors of the showhouse to move on from this room.

The master bedroom and bath are my favorite we have ever done.  The room is large enough to have two sitting areas.  Joe designed this with a nod to old Hollywood.  The walls are painted in a pearl color and the ceiling is in a very pale blue.  The windows overlook the pool and backyard.  There are two entries into the master bathroom -- her side and his.  On her side, you entire into an octagonal dressing area and on through two closets.  One closet is set up for handbags, shoes and out-of-season clothes and the other is a mirrored room with hidden closets.

The master bath resembles a bath you would see in the Savoy Hotel.  All white Calacatta marble with bespoke cabinetry.  The marble floor was designed to match the millwork on the ceiling.  This room is very bright and soothing.  Joe's mixture of stark white with antiques is beautiful.

When Joe first showed me the sample of the de Gournay hand-painted wallpaper for the dining room I was a bit scared.  The background color was ORANGE.  I think my first comment was, "Wow!".  After more thought, Joe had de Gournay change the colors of the paper and the room is about as much of a statement as a room can make.  The peonies in the paper are about 12"-14" in diameter.  The room is square and perfectly set up for a round dining table which I love.  There is a black tiled fireplace (we put tile in all the fireplaces) with a mantel from England.  The ceiling is silver leafed with a glaze on it.

The conservatory (above right) is one of the rooms of the house that gives a nod to the great estates of the 1920s.  Just beyond the entry hall, this room draws your eye through the house and to the backyard when you open the front door.  With black limestone floors, antique mirrors on one entire wall and french doors opening to the loggia the conservatory calls for morning coffee and a newspaper or afternoon tea.

The bright and cheery laundry room is done in crisp white walls, ceilings and cabinetry and a concrete tile floor from Ann Sacks.  The dog doesn't come with the house (he belongs to Joe).

 

Right after we finished the install on the house we were asked if Indulge magazine could do a fashion shoot at the house.  The first picture is in the master bedroom, the second is in the entry hall, the third and fourth are in the study and the bottom two are in the master bedroom and study.

In my next post I will be covering the rest of the downstairs and the upstairs.