A black room requires serious confidence or perhaps
a fascination with the occult. Here, thankfully, it's the former, in
Diane Cash's exuberantly exotic Dallas house. All of the elements in
this room ring my bells, from the white upholstery to the zebra rug and the
slightly messy arrangement of real books. I love that she painted the
paneling black. This is a library, where you expect to find paneling, but
it turns glamorous when painted black. The look is not so much Rhodes
scholar as it is Explorer Club scholar. More like Harrison Ford in Raiders
of the Lost Ark than Doris Kearns Goodwin -- sexy, I guess, is the word
I'm after. Now I'm busy looking for a room in my own house to
paint black. But I suppose the key to success with a black room is that it
needs lots of white or reflective surfaces to lighten the mood, and
I'm not in a position to redecorate. The devoted SA reader will
know that I live with a newborn, so alas, white upholstery is not in my
future.
SEE IT IN PRINT: "Globe Trotter,"
Southern Accents, July-August 2006, pages 170-179; interiors by Dianne
Cash; pillow fabric on sofa from Origins, 505/988-2323,
www.originssantafe.com.
|
|
