Southern Home January/February 2023

A Fresh Take As we welcome in a new year, we find ourselves looking forward to what’s ahead and the fresh start 2023 will bring. Our special Before and After issue serves as the perfect inspiration as it showcases designers and homeowners that visualized new life for their spaces and made those dreams reality through renovation and redesign. As you journey through these pages, the Southern Home team wishes you excitement and joy as you dream about the year to come and the updates you may want to make to your own home. Travel to Virginia on page 31 where classic architecture and personal style combine to update an abode in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In Georgia, a Sea Island vacation home gets a colorful, cheerful update (page 51) while in…

Southern Home (SH): In the past, you’ve shared that you designed your first house when you were five, so you obviously discovered your calling at a tender age. We’re curious—if you hadn’t become an architect, what do you think you would have been? Bobby McAlpine (BMc): I’ve really never even entertained that thought. I’ve been asked before what I’d like to come back as in my next life, and my very quick answer is I’d want to come back briefly as a tornado. And after that, perhaps a singer-songwriter. SH: That’s an intriguing answer, given you’re a creative rather than destructive person! BMc: I’m not, but I think of a tornado as being a giant electric eraser, and I’d be able to remove so much ugly stuff—with no loss of life, of course—and…

Known for her creative use of texture, light, and color, designer Suzanne Tucker presents her third book, Extraordinary Interiors. The volume features a selection of Tucker’s most recent work, including a mountain retreat dressed in natural tones, a Bay Area pied-à-terre with international influences, a Manhattan apartment with a breathtaking art collection, a beach house that blends casual living with sophisticated style, a San Francisco townhouse with Italian flair, and the designer’s own oasis-like home in Montecito, California. Tucker’s personal approach to design can be seen through her enduring style, mastery of detail, and passion for architecture. She describes her artistic process as part anthropology, part archaeology, and part psychology as she uncovers her clients’ dreams for their homes. She then applies her vast knowledge of decorative arts and antiques to…

In her previous books, The Perfect Bath and The Perfect Kitchen, Waterworks cofounder Barbara Sallick took readers on a journey through her creation of stylish yet functional spaces. In her newest book, The Ultimate Bath, Sallick focuses on the importance of home and the luxury of beautifully designed bathrooms. From a wide range of contributors including Nate Berkus, Gil Schafer, Nickey Kehoe, Brigette Romanek, Suzanne Kasler, Ray Booth, and Miles Redd, these baths are not only grounded by timeless elements, but they also manage to surprise and enchant. Whether grand spaces dressed in mirrored and marble surfaces, bold rooms filled with rich color and pattern, or tailored ones exuding serenity, these baths serve as a visual blueprint for readers looking to create restful yet beautiful interiors. The Ultimate Bath celebrates the…

Part decoration and part optical curiosity, convex mirrors have a history that is as much a reflection of human ingenuity as it is artistic expression. Some of the earliest documented examples of these circular wall mirrors can be found in 15th-century Early Netherlandish art, including the work of Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, whose well-known fascination with optical illusion might explain the mirror’s prominent presence in his famous Arnolfini Portrait. Although to the casual observer of these paintings, 15th-century convex mirrors may look similar to those with which we are now familiar, there is possibly one major difference: some historians believe that their reflective surfaces were made from highly polished metal rather than mirrored glass, which was not fully developed until the following century. During the 1700s, framed mirrors (or looking…