Sandy Springs couple gets more look for less

If TV’s “Antiques Roadshow” and “Design on a Dime” spawned an offspring, the resulting program could be hosted by Nathan and Suzzannah Gittner.

The couple have successfully created an “English manor” from their Sandy Springs colonial and so adore decorating — with antiques in particular — that they’ll patiently apply their hunting and handiwork skills to get a look for less.

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Sean Drakes/Special

Nathan and Suzzannah Gittner, with son Will, have incorporated their love of antiques into their ‘English manor’ home.

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Sean Drakes/Special

In the living room, busts found at T.J. Maxx are displayed alongside a Delft clock and Staffordshire porcelain dogs.

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For a long while, “we had more time than we had money,” says Nathan, who’s periodically recovered the dining room chairs and whose wife has stitched many throw pillows. Today, he says, “We’ll splurge on the wallpaper, but we’ll hang it ourselves to save.”

The Gittners’ early fondness for antiques — she comes from a family of collectors; he was working for an antiques shop — inspired a friend to introduce the two as North Carolina college students.

“Who else at that age wanted to go to antique shops?” Suzzannah says. “So we were equally weird.”

In creating a home full of antiques, the Gittners got a head start. Much of what’s displayed comes from Suzzannah’s parents and grandparents and carries important memories, especially those pieces linked to her grandmother, with whom she strongly identifies.

“I don’t believe in hiding your good stuff. It’s either on display or I use it,” Suzannah says while discussing her grandmother’s china: a pink and gold Meissen set featuring a courtship scene. Like her grandmother showed her, Suzannah will set out these favorite items for special occasions but remove them for dining.

There’s also the German clock that hung in her grandparents’ kitchen. It now hangs in theirs. And the silver tea set her father won for sales with a denim company.

But some of the decor, like Suzzannah’s collection of blue-and-white porcelain, simply reflects the couple’s taste.

Take, for example, the foyer. The Gittners don’t personally know the nobility whose portraits climb their staircase wall. “I think we were born in the wrong century,” Suzzannah jokes, though she quickly adds: “I would have had to be rich.”

These days, as the Gittners have proven, you don’t need riches, just a good eye, savvy and an industrious bent.

They mix inexpensive items among their valuables, so that busts found at T.J. Maxx are displayed alongside a Delft clock and Staffordshire porcelain dogs. And the couple constructs their own furnishings, even matting and framing their artwork. Her dressing table, for example, features a skirt of knock-off fabric and inexpensive lamps she adorned with a fine, beaded trim.

The only hiccup to all this effort is that once a place is finished, the Gittners, who flip homes, get antsy.

They’ve occupied their “manor house” for five years already.

“We don’t stay in a house that long,” she says. “I like the process.”

Most ingenious handiwork: The 9,000-piece puzzle of a world map hung in their son Will’s bedroom. Nathan assembled the puzzle, mounted it on a red-painted board and framed the roughly 5-foot-wide item himself for $200.

Coolest feature: An armoire in the guest bedroom contains dozens of Suzzannah’s grandmother’s flamboyant hats in all their felt and feathered glory.

Fabulous find: The living room sofa. A Baker piece worth $3,000, Suzzannah got it for $500 at an estate sale and had it recovered with fabric on sale at Calico Corners. “I know quality, but I can’t always afford it,” she says.

Next project: They plan to incorporate their English look into a home built like a French chateau by adding crystal chandeliers and gold-leaf mirrors. Suzannah calls the look “a little bit more flashy.”

Tips for decorating on a budget: “Look at higher-end magazines and see what they’re doing, how they’re arranging their accessories,” Suzzannah says. Instead of a crystal vase, you might use a glass one found for $10 at Michael’s crafts stores, she says. And splurge for labor, she says. Good workmanship “can make cheap fabric look better.”

And finally, a tip from her grandma: “Always educate yourself on the most expensive product.” That way you’ll know where to fake it.