Southern Home September/October 2021

Before the first leaves of autumn even begin to fall, our excitement and nostalgia for the changing season has already begun. The sundrenched days of summer fade away, and we find ourselves looking indoors for a cozy, comfortable atmosphere. Warmer tones and colors come into play along with soft fabrics and textures while we look to our own backyards for seasonal accents. We also move our sights away from beach vacations and trips to the lake and begin to think of gathering around the table with family and friends—believe it or not, the holidays are just around the corner. The Southern Home team and I hope this new issue will inspire you to look around your spaces and see what autumnal additions you can make to your interiors. As you peruse…

Southern Home (SH): What was your aha moment, when you knew you were destined to decorate? Will Huff (WH): I never really had a specific one. My father was an interior decorator, and I was always interested. I constantly rearranged my room and even rearranged houses for some of my friends’ parents. My dad discouraged me from going into the business, because he knew that being a successful designer is much more than picking fabrics and furniture—he used to tell me it was 10% creative and 90% business. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s and I tried a few other career options that he finally helped steer me into the direction to become an interior designer. Once I actually started working in the field I’d been around my whole…

Acclaimed Southern designer Janie Molster presents her new book—House Dressing: Interiors for Colorful Living—a lively collection of vibrant interiors and advice. Molster is known for creating family homes that are bold, sophisticated, inviting, and practical. She believes spaces should be individually tailored to your lifestyle and should express your personality. In this new volume, the designer reveals her secrets for crafting dreamy rooms and shares her down-to-earth ideas for creating your own beautiful home. Showcasing a variety of projects, Molster invites her readers into country cottages, a riverside retreat, and her own farmhouse that she uses as her personal design lab. Molster describes her process behind each of her designs while exploring different styles such as glamorous, soulful, contemporary, and eclectic. Through House Dressing, Janie gives a master class in working…

The Well-Loved House: Creating Homes with Color, Comfort, and Drama is the first book from decorator Ashley Whittaker. Classic and sophisticated yet inviting and warm, Whittaker is known for her colorful, pattern-filled rooms that still remain classic. The book features a selection of homes from Connecticut estates to Manhattan apartments and waterfront beach houses on the Florida coast. Whittaker firmly believes homes are meant to be not only beautiful but also easy to live in and enjoy. Within each house, Whittaker offers her guidance on furniture plans, complementing a space’s architecture, playing with color, and mixing patterns. She also explains why it is important to have consistency throughout a home but also a creative contrast. Her houses all share a sense of drama and comfort and are homes that welcome you…

Prior to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, household furniture intended for storage could be rather rudimentary: practical in theory, but not always very functional. Clothing and linen, for example, were often stored in coffers or blanket-style chests, which, although spacious, were not particularly convenient when it came time to retrieving those unfortunate items buried at the bottom of the chest. But with the increasing sophistication of furniture-making and an enhanced desire for ease of use, furniture designed for both comfort and convenience became the norm, with one form in particular proving to be a storage game changer—the chest of drawers. A form that was developed mostly in England and France during the seventeenth century, the chest of drawers became sought-after for use in bedrooms and dressing rooms during the eighteenth century,…