A Fine Balance

When a designer known for quiet elegance meets a homeowner who loves the bold and unexpected, the results are the best of both worlds.

- Carisha Swanson

LIVING ROOM

A series of window treatments in a slubby floral linen and hand-woven striped fabric by Guy Goodfellow Collection tie the room together, while lightweight chairs simplify the seating. "Every single one can be picked up by a person, young and old alike," Amber Lewis says.

My clients are so ‘extra’... they wanted everything in their house to be yellow—the kitchen, the trim,” Amber Lewis says of her friends turned clients and their vision for transforming a 19th-century former ship captain’s home into “everybody’s summer house” on Martha’s Vineyard. “I was like, ‘Nope! We’ll get in color, but in a way that makes sense.’”

MUDROOM

At the back of the home, a guest entrance is wrapped in a subtle striped wallpaper from Nicole Fabre Designs that combines abstract floral motifs with delicate line drawings. Tile: Mission Tile West. Trim, ceiling paint: Pigeon, Farrow & Ball. Picture light: Robert Kime.

The owner of lifestyle brand Biscuit Home, Bailey McCarthy, and her husband, Pete, appreciated Lewis’s perspective. They asked her to combine her relaxed-but-refined style with Bailey’s over-the-top flair. (This is a woman who hosts a Pink Poodle Party starring her rose-tinted dog every year.) Lewis had sworn “never to work with friends” but made an exception for the McCarthys, in part because “the whole house was a jumbled mess.”

DINING ROOM

The de Gournay wallcovering allowed McCarthy to "get all of the colors she wanted," Lewis says, in a more "muted yellow" while still maintaining a cohesive aesthetic. Chairs: Nickey Kehoe, in Rogers & Goffigon Ltd. fabric. Chandelier: In Common With.