Atlanta 

Yes, it seems I have had many digressions in my posts, but not today.  Today I am on target and visiting a much respected southern designer based in Atlanta - Jackye Lanham.  Her design work is very English, often very antique, and always very beautiful.

Susan Sully wrote a book entitled Charleston.  I bought it and loved it, so knew I would enjoy her newest book on southern style.  Jackye Lanham's rooms are always full of charm so let's take a look at the ones Sully chooses to include in her Houses with Charm.

Where possible, Sully's own words will explain the images below.

The owners of this home also use their entryway as a dining space when needed - such a great use of an oft neglected space.

As Sully writes above, southerners respect family traditions and include heirlooms in their decor.  The two homes I posted about earlier had this same respect.  The room below is reminiscent of the earlier libraries in Charleston and Kiawah.  All so pretty.

Don't you just love niches like this one?

Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles also featured this home in July of 2012.  Below are its images which reveal further details and rooms.

Library.

Beautiful antiques displayed so well in front of the white paneled wall and oval window which even opens.

I know, I know, it's August and no one even wants to think about snow and Christmas now, but by Christmas, I will be on another topic and will have misplaced this magazine.  So, bear with me and see how nicely Lanham does Christmas.  (Did you notice this issue mentions its "showhouse tour"? Apropos of nothing,  I find show houses and decorator houses annoying.  Different designers do each room so there is no continuity, and I like continuity.  Just one of my idiosyncrasies.)  Lanham has continuity always.

I much prefer Lanham's colors below to Southern Accent's cover colors.

Love how Lanham arranges her tablescapes. 

The only time I was in Atlanta, my husband and I went to Ryan Gainey's shop and toured his garden.  A real inspiration for this gardener.

Thought you might be interested in her tips.  I was.  (Am I a shallow person?  Perhaps I should do volunteer work and not worry about tips and tablescapes.)

Onto another Southern Accents issue.  This time from Christmas 2006, it covered Jackye's home in Charleston  Even though this series is about Atlanta, I had to include Jackye's beautiful Charleston home.  Don't you love the poinsettias in the bike's basket?

And it is such a "gem".

While making trips to Charleston for a client, Atlanta-based Lanham "began to dream about finding a little pied-a-terre to call her own."

She found one and filled it with her beautiful antiques and fine taste.

Discussion of this room is atop next image.

This has always been one of the "kitchens I have loved".  It's so compact and perfect.  "Lanham made the kitchen/dining room feel less kitchenlike by choosing a sophisticated deep gray-brown paint and creating a streamlined galley kitchen on just one wall.  The open shelves show off the white ironstone pitchers and tureens Lanham collects." (It really is so fun to revisit some of my favorite homes in this blog.  My dilemma, as I've said before, is that I like so many different styles, and I have only one house.)

And I'll end today's post with another of the Lanham-designed kitchens I have loved.

Hope you liked reading this one as much as I enjoyed posting it.

Till next time onto another Atlanta designer.

b

And Then There's Kiawah 

I have never been to Kiawah island, but think I would like to visit just to view the homes there.  If they are like the one we visit here today, it must be a very beautiful place indeed.  Off the coast of South Carolina, it is where some city residents frequently flee to escape the heat. The images below are from a copy of Traditional Home sent to me by the Charleston home owner of my last post.

And I did so enjoy it.  Many of her Kiawah rooms are reminiscent of her oh-so-beautiful Charleston home.  The same creative hand is evident in both.

If you cannot read the small print, it explains that the owners worked with Mitch Laplante in designing this home, but the door surround was a combined effort.  Notice how similar it is to their Charleston home.

Sorry to cut it off, but now you can see the most beautiful door and hardware.

Small print on the right reads, "Library based on a previous room in a previous Peters home."  Could it be the Charleston home 40 miles away?  Notice the keystone molding at the top of the bookcase and notice the black lamp shades, the porcelain, the leather books, the art.

And tablescapes so similar to the Charleston ones too.  I love the drapery-less window in this home.

Living room.

The paintings and their placement also reveal the tasteful hand that created the Charleston home.

The husband's study.  Love the paisley throw on beautiful leather chair.

This home, like their Charleston home, shows a real reverence for the past.  Antique carpets here are beautiful and were only present on the second floor of their city home.

Windows without curtains capture the island views.  And again the repetition of black shades for the continuity the owner loves.

No brick floors in this kitchen but still so lovely.

Pinky also sent  this image of the second home they built on the island.  There are no interior pictures here, but we know it would be just as lovely as the other homes designed by this creative woman.  She was so kind to share so much of herself with such a stranger, but a very appreciative stranger and now we are "new best friends".

To end, just  some random images of elements I loved in Charleston - all showing the reverence southerners have for their homes, their city and their past.

The architecture.

The ironwork with peeps of old brick and greenery.

The gaslights.  (Could we ever do this in colder climates or would they freeze? I love these lights so much.)

The interior shutters which prevent peepers like me peeping.

The antiquity of the city and Charleston-ians appreciation of it.

And the gardens.

Oh, the gardens. 

Everywhere.

Gaslights and gardens together.

It was all wonderful.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Next time, somewhere else in the south, and I think now it will be Atlanta.  Stay tuned.
-b