All Dressed in White

Balance is only noticeable when it’s absent. That’s why designer Yvonne R. McFadden and colleague Ed Belding of Summerour Interiors seamlessly go from light to dark, modern to traditional, smooth to nubby in the same space.

Their clients, a couple in the Peachtree Battle neighborhood, wanted a neutral palette. “We used shades of white, gray and taupe combined with natural elements,” McFadden says. Carefully chosen materials and elements, such as reclaimed beams in the dining room, a hand-knotted Tabriz rug in the living room and teak lounge chairs on the screened porch, add warmth and texture all around.

Soft hues reign in the ultra-glamorous sitting room, where McFadden designed an octagonal paneled wall that conceals the television and bar as well as a hidden door that leads to the living room. And a contemporary limestone fireplace surround complements the platinum-leaf accents of the paneled wall. “The space is lightly dressed for a holiday gathering,” McFadden notes, referring to the coffee table arrangement of oversize mercury glass ornaments and glass cylinder vases filled with stems of Arabian star.

Subtle seasonal touches are carried through to the formal living room, where holiday-appropriate green and red berries pop amid more antiqued mercury glass. The room's soft and simple white palette is complemented with furniture and floors in a dark Jacobean finish. “The living room is traditionally detailed, more so than any other space in the residence,” McFadden explains. Still, a carbon pigment inkjet print of a Mexican wall hangs unpredictably above the buffet, where it adds an artful and contemporary element to the mix.

Once a screened-in porch, the dining room was enclosed and the ceiling raised to increase the volume of the light-washed space. Like the living room, it's far from conventional, with a round table from the owners' previous residence surrounded by high-backed Verellen chairs. The centerpiece on the table is simple yet festive, with mercury glass ornaments and urns mingling with milk-glass globes and moss. Yet, it doesn't take a holiday for one to appreciate that it's the weaving of rustic and refined, old and new throughout the home that forms a luxurious whole immeasurably better than its parts.

Summerour Interiors, (404) 603-8585; summerour.net