comfort of design (2)

Popular US Decorator Discusses

The Comfort of Design (2)

Howard spoke to us by phone from Jacksonville about decorating and her favorite paint colors, pallets and furniture pieces.

Q: How would you describe your style ?

A: It has a timeless quality, because I mix antiques with modern pieces. A hallmark of my style is that use

color in a monochromatic way. When you limit color contrast, it brings a sense of calm, order and serenity

to a room, even if the colors are vibrant.

Q: What is your decorating philosophy ?

A: Keep it pretty. I want people to love the way they feel when they walk into a room, rather than have their

eye drawn to one thing in a room.

If someone walk into a room and says, “ Oh I love that painting.” I think I’ve failed. I’d rather they say. “I

love that room, I love being in there.”

Q: What is the simplest way to update space?

A: Paint. That’s the easiest. It is inexpensive, it only takes a day, and it’s guaranteed to bring about big impact

Q: What colors are you most drawn to when decorating?

A: I’m personally drawn to a soft, neutral palette or blues, greens and sands. This kind of palette is something

that’s soothing and calming to me. I think because I grew up on the beach those colors always make me at

home. I like to say, I’m married to beige, but I have affairs with color.

Q: Do you have favorite paint colors ?

A: Glass Slipper, Healing Aloe, Vale Mist, Cream Fleece, Winter Wheat.

Q: What are some easy ways to freshen up a home for the summer ?

A: The first thing you should do every summer is give your house a really good cleaning. The second thing is

to add fresh, live greenery, like post of ivy, orchids-they last forever and are easy to maintain, in the

bedroom, you could update your bedding. In the dining room, take a look at your chairs and make sure

they’re comfortable. Do you need new ones? Can your existing ones be slipcovered? In the living room,

add pillows or lamps. A new coffee table can usually greatly improve a living room.

Q: Are there furniture pieces and accessories you turn to again and again ?

A: My signature favorites are starburst mirrors (I dig around for antiques). Bridgewater club chairs (English

arms, delicately turned legs and high, tight back) modern coffee tables, painted beds, upholstered dining

room chairs, antiques that have a modern silhouette. For accessories glass hurricanes, glass lamps with

colored shades, brass accessories and I always love antique boxes and books.

Q: Is there a design trend that you dislike ?

A: People are to cought up in mid-century furniture, I like it in small doses, but I don’t know if it has staying

power. People randomly make purchases without careful consideration and thought, then call the look

“eclectic”. Furniture and decorating is an expensive investment and I think it should be treated with

importance.

Q: Do you have favorite design blogs?

A: Things. That I inspire (freshpalette.blogspot.com), the Peak of Chic ( thepeakofchic.blogspot.com ),

Style Court (stylecourt.blogspot.com), Habitually Chic (habituallychic.blogspot.com) and Absolutely

Beautiful Things (absolutelybeautifulthings.blogspot.com)

The Washington Post/Josh Gibson

LA ZZIDOroom&artdesign

oil...

OIL WRESTLING

The Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Festival is considered the oldest wrestling event in the world and is said to have started as a sport for Ottoman raiders during the mid-14^th century.

The style was then developed as a training method for the sultan’s elite Jannisary guards.

Now held annually in the Sarayici arena in Edirne, northwestern Turkey, the festival attracts thousands of wrestlers, known as pehlivan, and many more spectators.

( Photo Reuters/Murad Sezer,AFP/Mustafa Ozer )

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comfort of design..

Popular US Decorator Discusses

The Comfort of Design

Phobe Howard was 38-year-old stay-at-home mother when she decided to start decorating. Years later, she began taking private clients and her first project landed on the September 2006 cover of House Beautiful magazine.

Today, Howard’s name is widely recognized in the design world and her work has become synonymous with Southern style: rooms so comfortable and inviting they make you want to sit down and stay a while. She has been featured in countless shelter publications, including Elle Décor, Southern Accents and Traditional Home and images of her soft, pretty spaces turn up almost weekly on design blogs. She and her husband, Jim, also an interior decorator, are owners of eight home furnishings stores in four Southern cities: Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Atlanta and, as of next month, Charlotte, North Carolina.

It all started when Howard, now 51, suggested to her husband that they open a store. Her idea was a place to showcase Jim’s design work (he designs the spaces, lays out the rooms, and selects the flooring and lighting) and to show customers how to property place furniture.

“It’s all about helping customers figure out the mysteries of scale, proportion and balance,” Howard says. The result was a high-end home furnishings shop that opened in 1996 in their home town, Jacksonville. They name the store Mrs. Howard (www.phoebehoward.net). “It was an instant hit,” she says.

Phoebe Howard’s design for the home has become synonymous with US Shoutern style,

with rooms so comfortable and inviting they make you want to sit down and stay awhile.

Washington Post Photos/Josh Gibson

Five years later, they opened a more modern and moderately proceed shop, Max & Company (named after Phoebe’s son).

Mrs. Howard is more classic and traditional, with upscale furniture, upholstery, rugs and antiques, the offerings at Max & Company are more casual and affordable to appeal to a younger crowd.

“Max & Company is like walking through a beach house,” says Howard is like walking through a grand Southern home.”

For nine years, the self-taught decorator used the store as a training ground and the experience eventually led to her taking on clients of her own. “That’s how I taught myself how to decorate,” Howard says. “When you sell off the floor, you have to fill that space fast.”

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book smart..

BOOK SMART

Neat Ways to Stash Your Stacks of Reading Material

Studio Shelves by Pottery Barn, above. Top right, modular white bookcases line a wall in the DC condo of David Joy and Offy Ismojo Washington Post/Pottery Barn, Marge Ely

Floor to-ceiling windows, steel appliances and stick floors meant that the Washington.DC, condo that lawyer David Joy and diplomat Offy Ismojo bought in 2007 looked mod the second they moved in. Well, except for the boxes of books, which the duo packed into the den. “We had more room in our last place,” says Ismojo,” But here, we didn’t want bookshelves everywhere. That would look like the Library of Congress.” So the pair consulted designer Shannon Wang of Apartment Zero, who picked out a pair of modular white book cases and placed them behind the room’s grey wool sofa. Now, Joy and Ismojo’s cookbooks, Michael Chabon novels and travel guides fill the bookcase cubbies, along with vases and family photos. “It encourages us not to collect junk,” says Joy. Until everyone gives up book for Kindies, storage will challenge most nesters, be they college students cramming textbooks onto Ikea Billy shelves or recovering English majors lusting for home libraries. Ironically, part of loving books is learning to let them go. “Some people hold on to every book they’ve ever read.” Says Libby Langdon, an interior designer and author of “Libby Langdon’s Small Space Solutions.” If keeping organized is tough, thin out your collection. Keep hardcovers that mean a lot; donate the zillion little paperbacks. Still, many people aren’t happy unless they live surrounded by old novels and new art books. “Books add warmth to a home.” Says DC interior designer Sarrah Wessel, whose plush library at this spring’s DC Design House featured built-in bookcases painted white. On the shelves, hardbacks covered in wallpaper scraps mingled with artwork and shells, creating a room both bookish and beautiful. Coordinating storage system, either by building shelves into walls or using matching bookcases from Ikea or Design Within Reach, can make a mass of books seem like a meaningful collection. “Instead of having a million bookshelves all over the house put them in one area,” Langdon says. “It’ll look like a library.” You don’t even have to stash books on shelves. Instead, artfully pile them on a table or ottoman. “One client had these neat vintage leather benches,” Langdon says. “We stacked them on top of each other for very cool book storage.” Another task for bookworms is organizing. You can alphabetize by author or group by subject matter. Design fans have been known to display books by color, though some pros and bibliophiles dislike that idea. “How do you find what you’re looking for?” Wang says. “It seems like lots of work.” Place your most prized books, be they along the lines of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” or “The Iliad,” between bookends near a cushy armchair. “Some readers have a chaotic order that no one in the outside world understands,” says John Thomson, co-owner of Bartlebys Books. “It’s just important for them to keep the books they love close.” Washington Post LA ZZIDOroom&artdesign