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Editorial Features
Connecticut Cottages & Gardens
November, 2011
Sandra
Morgan's Dining Room Redesign for the People's Project
by Allegra Muzzillo
photographs by Keith Scott Morton
lighting by Eric Richards
For one-time Farmington resident
and Wadsworth Atheneum docent Sandra Morgan, renewing the dining room felt like
going home again. Also in the Greenwich designer's hindsight was her former
home. Dated 1790, it underwent continual renovations.
Morgan was first struck by how
old the Residence's dining room felt. ''There was a tone of serious formality,
as if you were standing in a museum. The furniture was dark, the walls above the
chair rail were heavy - -even the artwork was somber,'' she says. ''I wanted to
give it an energy that would lock it into history, yet marry it to the present
day.''
The bamboo-trellis wall covering
was vital in the room's transformation. Inspired by Claude Monet's
yellow-and-blue dining room in Giverny, as well as Thomas Jefferson's bright
yellow dining parlor at Monticello, Morgan wanted to ''bring in the
feeling of sunlight, joy and optimism that yellow is known for.''
As for the designer's decision
to cover the ceiling, too, in a graphic print? ''I had to,'' she says. ''It
wouldn't have been believable to put paint up there-regardless of the color.''
Now, with the 1940s table
bedecked with luxe flatware and linens, ''the room exudes life - even though the
guests haven't arrived,'' says Morgan.
Sandra Morgan Interiors & SMHome
70 Arch Street
Greenwich, Connecticut
(203) 629-8121
www.sandramorganinteriors.com |
