Room of the Day: Color-Coded Bookcase Spiffs Up a Nashville Library

Not everyone knows what their decor style is. The professional athlete who recently purchased this Nashville home had no clue what he wanted the inside to look like. He didn’t even own a single piece of furniture. He handed the reins to interior designer Hannah Crowell, who worked with the homeowner and his girlfriend to home in on a fun, contemporary look that’s one part Hollywood glamour and one part traditional turned on its head. Blue velvet chesterfield sofa, anyone?

Room at a Glance: Library
Location: Nashville
Who lives here: A professional athlete and his girlfriend
Size: About 20 by 40 feet (6 by 12 meters)

Crowell, of Crowell + Co. Interiors, recently finished the couple’s library, where she battled soaring 20-foot arched ceilings and a massive bookcase with 120 shelves. The latter she filled by buying books by the foot from Strand and color coordinating them in ombré patterns.

She had started buying really nice art books to fill the space but quickly realized it would take thousands of dollars to fill it. Ordering 500 feet of books — 50 feet of white books here, 30 feet of orange books there — seemed more economical, with one caveat. “You’re not getting the best books; who knows what you’re going to get?” she says. “It becomes completely about filling the bookshelf. You don’t want to look too closely, or you’ll find weird mystery books, Oprah’s biography and stuff you might buy at an airport in the 1980s.”

Crowell’s husband helped her color code the library. “It took about 14 hours to get the ombré situation that goes through the whole rainbow,” she says. “At the end of that day, I was like, ‘Get me a drink.’”






To figure out the style that the homeowner and his girlfriend would like, Crowell began by sending them images from Houzz and narrowing things down from there. When they responded enthusiastically to a blue velvet chesterfield sofa, she built the room around that.

While the bookcase was already wired for lighting, the medieval-style fixtures that were in place didn’t sit well with Crowell. She swapped them out with modern candle-like sconces.

She and her clients also didn’t like the Santa Fe-style plaster finish on the walls that had been installed by previous homeowners. So the first thing she did to the space was add drywall and paint. For the walls, she chose Cornforth White from Farrow & Ball. “It’s the perfect light gray,” she says. “I probably use it in every single house I do. It doesn’t read blue, green or purple, which is easy with gray paint.”

She used Lamp Room Gray by Farrow & Ball, which has a little bit of green in it, to darken the bookcase backing.

Through the back-and-forth with Houzz images, Crowell knew the homeowner’s girlfriend liked Hollywood glamorous style, so she brought in a couple of noir dome chairs.

The rest of her approach focused on mixing. A marble-topped coffee table with silver legs is mixed with brass side tables. “I just love mixing metals like that,” the designer says. Meanwhile, a cowhide rug is layered on top of a jute rug. “Jute is so inexpensive,” Crowell says. “I like to do something inexpensive and then something nice on top.”

She chose simple, neutral drapes with studded fabric at the bottom that wouldn’t dominate the high-ceilinged space. “I didn’t want to have 20 feet of pattern,” she says.

Coffee table: Surf, Worlds Away; sconces: Currey & Co.; side tables: Gabby


To fill the expanse above the adjacent fireplace, Crowell framed a large piece of what she says was “crazy expensive” wallpaper on a piece of bluish-green silk. “[It would have] cost me a kidney” to do the whole room in it, she says.


In the nearby dining area, she changed out the the lighting and added a large wooden dining table surrounded by white chairs. The host and hostess seats are backed in metallic Osborne & Little fabric. “It gave a subtle pop and shimmer that I liked,” she says.

Crowell is a big fan of using photography for art pieces, and suggested the artist Danny Clinch to her clients. They bought three pieces, one of which was of Ringo Starr. Crowell learned that Starr had to approve the sale of Clinch’s image to Crowell and her clients, so she spent two anxious weeks waiting to hear if they were approved. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, are we going to be cool enough for Ringo to let us hang his artwork?’” she says. He approved, and the piece now hangs at the bottom of the staircase.

Table: Z Gallerie; chairs: Lee Industries; chandelier: Currey & Co.

See more Rooms of the Day

URL: Room of the Day: Color-Coded Bookcase Spiffs Up a Nashville Library http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-26464.html