DEL.ICIO.USAnsley Park home ready for the spotlight
Artist’s eye for color highlights renovated 100-year-old two-story
For The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
It took 18 months of ripping out walls, building cabinetry, creating staircases and applying gallons of colorful paint to get Susan Gibbs’ Ansley Park home into shape. The end results are one of the highlights of the upcoming neighborhood tour of homes, September 20 and 21.
Gibbs, who moved into the house 18 months ago after the work was completed, is so pleased with the results that she’s determined to make this her last house.
Alison church/Special
Susan Gibbs’ renovated Ansley Park home in Atlanta will be featured in the Ansley Park Tour of Homes starting Sept. 20.
“I built this out so I could stay here the rest of my life,” said Gibbs, who owns the Twinhouse art gallery in Buckhead. “When I move out, it will be feet first.”
The 100-year-old two-story anchors the corner of a curving street in the Midtown neighborhood. Once a pink palace, the home’s brick and stucco exterior is now a classic white with black awnings. Inside, the original footprint is evident in the hall, formal living room, sunroom and dining room, but the back of the house and the second floor were overhauled to make way for a contemporary kitchen, new bathrooms and additional living space.
“The house looks much grander than it really is,” said Gibbs of the three-bedroom abode. “The first floor is really a series of very big rooms. I liked that it wasn’t chopped up.”
The formal living room with its beamed ceiling originally had windows on either side of the fireplace, but Gibbs walled them up to create niches for matching mirrors. Across the hall, the sunroom’s sloping floor was rebuilt and the room restored with three walls of oversized plate glass windows.
Two sets of glass-paned French doors lead into the coffered dining room, where the side wall has three windows and the rear wall has more French doors leading outside to a small covered porch. Just beyond is a courtyard with a granite wall, fireplace and grill for outdoor entertaining.
The back of the house sticks to the original footprint, but gone are the old back porches and butler’s pantries that made for a series of tiny spaces. The new room is an open space with white and gray marble-topped counters, white glass-fronted cabinets, a deep farmhouse sink and an eating area with a stretch of windows. The narrow hall beside the staircase was a dead area, said Gibbs, who turned the space into a library nook with a wall of bookshelves and bench seating.
Upstairs, a fourth bedroom was turned into a master sitting room and the other two bedrooms were each given their own bath. By knocking out a wall, Gibbs had room to add a staircase into the low-ceilinged attic that doubles as her artist’s studio.
That artist’s eye for color shines throughout the house, from the deep mint green in the dining room and the rich burgundy in a bedroom entry to the sky blue in the master bedroom. “I like having the exterior black and white as a base that I can throw color at,” said Gibbs. “I love color and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Tour-goers will also see some inexpensive ways to make a house pop. The double light fixture over the kitchen table was picked up from a junk heap, but Gibbs took it to an auto body repair shop and had it chromed to match the two pendant lamps over the island. On the door of the guest bath is a mirrored three-pronged towel rack Gibbs snatched up for a few dollars. The crescent-shaped make-up table in the master came from a Goodwill store; a club chair by the bed was $15 at a yard sale. The lamps on the night stands were inexpensive metal vases she had wired as lights. The rich hues of the first floor powder room, carved out of an old closet, are swatches of leftover fabric. The black wall clock in the kitchen was a few-dollar find in a home goods store.
Gibbs has also decorated with artworks from many of the artists she represents, as well as antique family photos. Her collection of door knockers are hung on doors throughout the house. And her passion for chairs shows up in paintings, as well as a shadowbox of miniature seats in the kitchen.
“There isn’t a lot of expensive stuff here, but what I do have is heartfelt,” said Gibbs.
One of her prized possessions is a silver dollar from 1908 that fell out of the newel post when it was moved during the renovation. “I’d heard that builders often left a coin in the house where they worked,” said Gibbs. “If we hadn’t moved the post, we never would have found it. It’s something to pass onto the next owners — it stays with the house.”