Home with a British Accent
Patricia McLean left her heart in London when she first visited 24 years ago, but she's brought as much of Great Britain back to her native Atlanta as her cozy condo will hold.
An interior designer known for her Anglophile look, she has filled her home chockablock with imported tea caddies, tufted footstools, and Regency-style antiques, making it the perfect place to sink into a velvet English sofa for a spot of tea.
"English style is about things collected along the way through your travels," says Tricia, as she's known. "The character of the room changes as you add bits and pieces, but even as it evolves, it always feels like home."
One of the keys to transforming her condo from nondescript box to stylish British abode is the strategic use of animal accents, so evocative of the late 19th century when the English began exploring Africa and other exotic lands. Tricia laid the groundwork for that look by running leopard-print carpeting up her stairs. She also replaced downstairs carpet with wall-to-wall sisal topped by a zebra-print rug in the dining room.
English adventurers might have thrown a cheetah pelt over an old wing chair, but Tricia updates that idea in her living room by dressing a French armchair in a favorite cut-velvet animal print. An English footstool, one of three in the room, sports the same fabric and is lavishly trimmed with tassels. "It's sort of like the Cosmo version of British Colonial," she says with a laugh.
