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What are the attributes that define Southern Style?
Southern Style is different to deferent people. Southern style also looks distinctive in different parts of the South. Deep South Southern style is different then East Coast Southern. Southern style includes, architecture, Southern hospitality, decorating, entertaining, antiques, landscape, and history perfectly blended altogether. Growing up in the deep South I know it well. Southern Style is Coin silver, Wedding band Old Paris porcelain, Freshly starched monogrammed linens, A ice cold mint julep, a rich cup of Café au lait, a rosewood carved sofa. age old ancestor portraits, Rocking chairs on a large porch. A traditional jazz band. Live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. I could go on and on.
Some of our best examples of this are Grand Southern style decorating that have been in the same Family over a hundred and fifty years. I have been fortune enough to see many of theses romantic time capsules all over the South. Unfortunately some of theses exquisite collections & homes have been broken up and sold off. People die, children sell of long collected family Heirlooms and put the house up for sell. And life go's on.
Most of theses age old lived in Homes have a mix look that works well. From English influence Baltimore, Maryland down to Deep South Mobile, Alabama over to French Creole New Orleans, Louisiana and up the river to Anglo-Saxon Natchez, Mississippi. Most of theses small farms, plantations, Town homes topically have Rococo Revival carved rosewood parlor furniture mixed with Classical polished mahogany Empire card tables ornate gilt mantel and pier mirrors. A square piano from up North.
The eyes of well painted Ancestral portraits follow you around the room as they hang in there ornate gold gilt frames. Large Rococo Old Paris porcelain vases on marble mantels. Dinning rooms have Federal & classical furniture and a large family Old Paris porcelain dinner service that has a different flower and fruit handpainted on each piece. Bedrooms have massive four poster Empire beds and Rococo Revival beds by New Orleans French cabinetmaker Prudence Mallard. Center Halls have a mixture of furniture. Armoires, sofas, Pier tables, Huntboards, paintings and mirrors.
Southern Style can also be created with building up a fine collection of antiques. I myself collect Southern Antiques and have friends that have purchased antebellum homes and decorated them with fine Southern pieces. This photo blog is a collection of photo's of what Southern style is to me, Some photo's or of items I own other of found. What is Southern style to you?
A Southern Coin Silver coffee pot
A ancestral home with porch and columns at the end of a century's old live oak alley
A Baltimore Empire Secretary Bookcase desk
A Neoclassical bronze urn whale oil chandelier
A Rosewood Belter sofa
A large 1850's Mobile, Alabama portrait of children
A ice cold mint julep
A Old Paris porcelain dessert place with trompe líoeil fruit
A friends fresh backed worm White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies on a Old Paris porcelain plate
A wide hall with hand-blocked French panoramic wallpaper and classical furniture
A Baltimore classical sofa painted Pompeii red with gilt and flower
A Old Paris Porcelain clock
A Napoleon lll Boulle tortoiseshell and ebony cabinet
A 18th century Old Master painting
A East Coast Classical pier table with Old Paris porcelain.
A Rosewood square piano
A pineapple post Empire bed
A Audubon pink Flamingo
A pair of Old Paris porcelain fruit coolers
A Federal Tennessee sugar chest
A Rococo Revival gilt pier mirror
A pair of Baltimore Rosewood slipper chairs
A Neoclassical Aubusson carpet
18th century Cornflower Old Paris porcelain
A South Carolina inlaid Huntboard
A Federal miniature on ivory
A rosewood Prudent-Mallard-Half-Tester bed
A pair of Napoleon lll Papier-mâché face fans
A 1850's portrait of a boy in a dress holding a gun
A 1850's Rococo Revival gilt mantel mirror
A ornate 1850's carved Carrara Marble mantel
A pair of ornate Old Paris porcelain vases
A English Regency tortoiseshell tea caddy
A Federal double parlor
A collection of Old Paris porcelain
A Grand Tour painting of The eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius
A Empire Mahogany Sleigh bed
A Old Paris porcelain dessert service hand painted with trompe líoeil fruit
A Antebellum portrait of a girl holding a rabbit
A 18th century West Indies cabriole leg armoire
A Pair of Gilded Bohemian Cranberry Glass Lustres
A set of custom made Old Paris porcelain with the name of the family home on each piece
A Georgian Sentimental brooch painted with a lovers eye surrounded with pearls
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A Southern double parlor 
A Grand tour Old Master painting of a saint
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A Southern porch with columns and sky blue ceiling And a lot, lot more. What is Southern Style to you?
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