Love of fashion injects runway style into new décor
The room at the front of Peggy and David Matthews’ Southside Place home has been used for many things in the past 20 years — where children played and teens flopped for, well, whatever it is that teens do, and even for the family’s Christmas tree and gifts.
Through the years, one child or another has claimed the room as a hideout or hangout, but after a design makeover, courtesy of Marie Flanigan Interiors, Peggy Matthews now calls it her own.
Walls and built-in bookshelves were lacquered a deep blue, and a sofa was reupholstered in white fabric. A bold geometric rug with bursts of chartreuse covers the hardwood floor, and a dark-blue tufted ottoman does double duty as a coffee table or an extra place to sit.
“I can sit in here and drink a glass of wine, and no one knows I’m here,” said Peggy, who owns Rapid Record Retrieval, a company that provides legal support for attorneys. “It used to be where the teenagers gathered, but after Marie came in, I reclaimed it — though other people hide in here, too.”
When the Matthewses built their home 20 years ago, their kids were young. They used it for family events, birthday parties and just a great place for
kids to grow up.
“I like to say I’m a Virgo, so I love change. I’m always looking to upgrade and redo and refresh,” Peggy said. “I think, too, living here for 20 years, when we first built and moved in we had three little girls, and then our two boys came later. Our house’s function was a lot different when we first moved in, and the house has changed with us.”
The couple’s five kids range in age from 16 to 28, and in addition to their youngest son, two other college-age kids are back home, finishing their semester online because of the coronavirus pandemic. Peggy and David, an attorney, are working from home, too.
Recently, the Matthewses — who will mark their 30th wedding anniversary later this year — were ready for an interior design face-lift as well as creating a new indoor-outdoor space, enclosing part of a patio with big glass panels.
“We had so many beautiful details to work with. They already had beautiful paneling throughout the front room, and we used blue lacquer to really create this deep tone that cocoons whoever is in that space,” said Marie Flanigan of Marie Flanigan Interiors, who worked with her design director Melanie Hamel on the project.
“Peggy didn’t want an allwhite interior — she wanted rooms to be fun and incorporate pattern and color and match her vibrant lifestyle and family. She encouraged us to take some risks and have fun with it,” Flanigan added.
The couple’s art collection — which includes lithographs from Andy Warhol’s “Cowboys and Indians” series — inspired much of the color. The “Mother and Child” piece hangs in the front room, “Geronimo” looms large over a family-room fireplace, and playful “Kachina Dolls” hangs over a chest of drawers in the front hallway.
The pop-art images’ bursts of color and Peggy’s love of fashion helped focus the project’s color palette.
“The way she had the house before, the pieces of art were the most vivid thing in the house,” Hamel said. “Now, the colors in the home are from the art, rich ochers, beautiful cobalts and that type of thing. We tried to take that inspiration from the art and spread it around in the color palette.”
“She’s very fashion-forward, and one thing she appreciated was finding sophisticated but still useful fabrics that are inspired by the runway. She has
Hermès fabric, Jean Paul Gaultier — and that type of thing,” Hamel continued. “It was wonderful to have someone so influenced by fashion who wanted to incorporate it into her home.”
Though the dining-room table is getting more use by kids studying now, it’s usually reserved for bigger family or holiday dinners, and the Matthewses want plenty of space there.
Flanigan and Hamel reinvented the room with new furniture, but what makes a lasting impression is the customized de Gournay “Willow” wallpaper that has wispy branches seemingly hanging from the ceiling down the walls.
Instead of its previous more rustic style, the new dining room is crisp and tailored, with a Lindsey Adelman Branching Bubble chandelier, skirted end chairs and vintage side chairs that were found on firstdibs.com, though in dramatically different form.
Their frames were a garish green, and the seats and backs still had very old upholstery.
But the carved detail on the legs and backs of the chairs was too perfect to pass up, and they blend perfectly with the leafy feel of the wallpaper.
Hamel had them reupholstered, stripped and faux painted in a gold-bronze finish.
The family room is a big space with two seating areas, one perfect for a big group watching TV and another, near a fireplace and that scowling Geronimo image, is more intimate, with four comfortable chairs just waiting for people and conversation.
Every now and then, when the Matthewses are in a festive mood, they clear out some of the furniture, roll up the rugs and prepare a dance floor.
“We love to entertain, and we all like to dance. We used to have to move furniture and roll up the rug. Now we have a dance floor right there,” Peggy said. “We get out the disco ball and have a party.”
And if a coffee table doesn’t get moved out of the way, that’s OK. Sometimes they and their friends jump on top and dance on the table.
Minor updates in the kitchen included new legs for the island, trading out traditional ones for edgier stainless steel, which tied into the stainlesssteel counter and range hood. They added new barstools, wood frames with different fabric on the backs and seats — a combination that brought warmth to the room.
Sometime after the project, the couple needed to replace their range, prompting the need for a new backsplash there. In keeping with her new décor, Matthews chose a geometric pattern — a minor change that can have a big impact in any kitchen.
The breakfast area got new furniture with a large round table that can expand to an oval to accommodate more people when needed.
Their backyard has a pool and a big patio. When their kids were younger, the Matthewses had all kinds of birthday parties and sports-team meetings.
“I had a grand idea to add glass panels to enclose it, and now we’re out here all of the time,” Peggy said.
Two big panels slide to the corners, giving the space an indoor-outdoor feel if that’s what they want. Or, they can keep it closed and turn on the air conditioning and relax — without the heat.
While Peggy managed the enclosure’s construction with her contractor, Flanigan and Hamel handled the décor.
“We wanted it to feel like an extension of the home. We use performance fabric inside and out nowadays, so we stuck to outdoor fabric. They have pool outside and can open it up and use with that area,” Flanigan said. “I love how the pieces are skirted and feel indoor appropriate because it’s a room on the back of the house.”
Hamel mixed prints in blue and white, upholstering a big ottoman in a bold Martyn Lawrence Bullard Perennials print with a striped chair, solid sofa and a chevron-patterned rug.
“We tried to take that inspiration from the art and spread it around in the color palette.”
Melanie Hamel, design director for Marie Flanigan Interiors