The Joy of Home
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
Creating homes that bring families together, where they can celebrate life’s joys.
Interior designer Ashley Gilbreath’s fresh approach to Southern decorating is guided by her respect for family and tradition with an eye on practicality and warmheartedness. Her first book reveals the breadth of her casually elegant style. Whether it’s in town, on the water, or in the countryside, each home exhibits thoughtful planning and attention to detail in harmony with the client’s vision.
Gilbreath gives readers insight into her design process, striking a balance between functionality, comfort, and beauty. From using a client’s favorite color as a unifying thread throughout, to offering guidance on designing a forever home that can mature with the family over time, every space is influenced by her passion for gracious everyday living. Inviting readers into her family beach home, Ashley explores the impact of small architectural updates, and the use of thoughtful injection of color and pattern to achieve the perfect mix. Ashley’s signature design strategies are distinguishable in each home. She artfully mixes new and old pieces and utilizes favorite custom treatments to create a welcoming spirit grounded in tradition.
Bringing family together is the reason Gilbreath designs. “Balancing form and function with memory and emotion, home is a place for people to embrace family and celebrate life’s joys,” she says. The Joy of Home gives readers insight and inspiration to create their own joyful home.
Home locations:
• Auburn, Alabama
• Lake Martin in Alabama
• Mobile, Alabama
• Watersound Beach, Florida
• Alpharetta, Georgia
• Columbus, Georgia
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Murfreesboro, Tennessee
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Interior designer Gilbreath outlines her "genteel" approach to decorating in her stylish debut. She credits her mother for giving her an eye for "practicality and warmheartedness" and her father for "respect for tradition," and shows how these principles guide her designs. Balance, Gilbreath contends, is essential, and she details how she combined elegance and functionality in a dining room by pairing fabric that's stain and wear resistant on host chairs with leather side chairs that are tasteful while being durable enough to survive "spaghetti nights and chocolate-covered fingers." Preaching moderation when it comes to color ("A little can go a long way!"), she shows how she incorporated coral pink accents throughout a house (a rug in the kitchen, lamps in the dining room, and drapes near the backdoor) to "create cohesion while also injecting a bit of levity." Gilbreath emphasizes that she likes to draw on "clients' histories and memories" and reflect their personal styles in her work, but she offers disappointingly few details on how client tastes and background influenced the houses depicted. Still, the designs are handsome and restrained, and her breakdown of her thought process enlightens ("Visual separation of an open plan is key," she writes about using a dining table to split two sitting areas in a living room). It's an attractive volume, if one hobbled by some notable omissions.