<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"When Jimmy and Trish Lyle considered buying a home outside Jackson, Mississippi, they asked Jimmy&amp;#039;s brother, John, to weigh in on the purchase. A Manhattan-based designer of furniture and interiors, John Lyle shared his brother and sister-in-law&amp;#039;s enthusiasm for the home&amp;#039;s floor plan and location, but didn&amp;#039;t think the Acadian cottage&amp;#039;s country aesthetic really reflected their taste. &amp;quot;People in Jackson tend to be very traditional,&amp;quot; says John, a Mississippi native. &amp;quot;But my brother and his wife really like modern. We decided to tweak the house and make it a little more unusual than what&amp;#039;s normally found here.&amp;quot;  Lyle relied on cosmetics, instead of construction, to release the home&amp;#039;s inner diva. He covered mottled brick walls with creamy white paint, stained the floors a sultry espresso color and glammed up rustic doorways with glossy black paint. To furnish the house, he culled pieces from his travels and his own Lyle and Umbach home collection, grounding each room in variations of black and white. &amp;quot;The rooms flow into each other, so there had to be a common thread to link them,&amp;quot; Lyle explains.   Bright bursts of color distinguish each space without compromising the overall continuity. In the living room, Lyle paid homage to legendary English decorator Nancy Lancaster with bright yellow walls that light up the space like a solar flare. &amp;quot;Of course, black and white and yellow look sensational together,&amp;quot; notes the designer. Chinoiserie accents include a pair of vintage Chinese chairs and two 19th-century urns that flank the fireplace.  Lyle established the tone of his brother and sister-in-law&amp;#039;s home at the entry, bracketing the foyer between a glossy black archway and an expanse of ebony wallpaper. (&amp;quot;There aren&amp;#039;t a lot of black walls in the South,&amp;quot; the designer observes.) He used wallpaper throughout the house\u2014even in rooms with solid-color walls. &amp;quot;Wallpaper transforms a room in a way that paint cannot,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It adds depth and texture that you don&amp;#039;t get otherwise.&amp;quot;  He covered the dining room walls with a black-and-greige floral but countered any little-old-lady connotations with vintage stainless steel chairs clad in lipstick-red leather. Lyle and his sister-in-law Trish spied the starburst chandelier in the window of a Manhattan store, then circled back a few hours later to take another look and e-mail images to Jimmy\u2014who suspects the sighting was not accidental. &amp;quot;I guarantee you John knew that chandelier was there and set the whole thing up,&amp;quot; laughs Jimmy, a co-owner of the family&amp;#039;s construction equipment dealership.  Figuring the screened porch wouldn&amp;#039;t get much use in steamy Mississippi, Lyle enclosed the room with glass, painted the concrete floor black and commissioned artist Michael Stromar to cover the chimney in a serpentine zebra stripe. The designer underscored the Austin Powers ambiance with vintage Russell Woodard patio chairs dressed up in a saucy polka-dot print. The room is a magnet for Jimmy, Trish, son Taylor, 10, and daughter Alex, 5, who share meals and games there as deer and wild turkeys scamper across the yard.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Updating Southern Style&amp;quot;.  When Trish needs a respite from family activity, she retreats to the master bedroom, where armchairs nestle in a window bay wrapped in voluminous yellow drapes. &amp;quot;During the day, the sun comes beating through those curtains, creating this wonderful golden haze,&amp;quot; says John Lyle. (He designed the armchairs and covered them in fabric by Holly Hunt; the table between them was found on eBay.) While the geometric silk carpet\u2014modeled after tiles the designer spied in Venice\u2014might seem busy for a boudoir, the designer insists it&amp;#039;s not distracting: &amp;quot;If you use enough pattern, it becomes a neutral.&amp;quot;  A self-described control freak, Jimmy started questioning his brother&amp;#039;s choices right from the start, leading to tension between the siblings. &amp;quot;I realized I was going to lose a brother over this, so I just backed off and said I wouldn&amp;#039;t look at anything until it&amp;#039;s done,&amp;quot; Jimmy recalls. Finding this hard to believe, John bet his brother he wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to stay away. Six months later, Jimmy strolled through the completed house for the first time as tears welled up in his eyes. &amp;quot;I was completely overwhelmed,&amp;quot; he recalls. &amp;quot;You gotta understand, I&amp;#039;ve been in Mississippi my entire life, and this is just so much different from anything I&amp;#039;ve ever seen.&amp;quot;  Having won the wager, Jimmy placed his prize\u2014a single dollar bill\u2014inside a picture frame in the den. &amp;quot;I look at that dollar every day,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m really proud of what John did. And I&amp;#039;m really, really proud I won the bet.&amp;quot; Key to the Style \u2022 Designer John Lyle covered mottled brick walls with creamy white paint and applied dark finishes to the wood floors, doors and trim, producing a sophisticated backdrop that belies the home&amp;#039;s country origins. \u2022 Lyle didn&amp;#039;t want the same furniture you&amp;#039;d see down the block, so he purchased pieces out of town and added items he&amp;#039;d collected from vintage shops and flea markets. \u2022 Most furnishings are confined to shades of black or white, creating a common thread that connects the rooms and keeps the house from feeling like a collection of disparate spaces. \u2022 Blasts of pure color lend character to every room without betraying the black-and-white motif. \u2022 Walls were covered with paper instead of paint to give them extra visual depth. \u2022 Mirrors were an attractive and costeffective way to fill blank walls and hide undesirable surfaces. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Updating Southern Style&amp;quot;. Click here to see the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/tips/a3952/updating-southern-style-a-59622/>