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White lights illuminate the side entrance to Sue Mondeau’s home and front garden. The grouping of mismatched planters and urns perched on the steps and filled with pansies, violas and cabbages add to the welcoming ambiance.
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“I have a thing for vessels,” says the floral designer. “I love Champagne buckets in all different sizes and shapes.” Mondeau created the asymmetrical garland, which reminds her of a ballgown swayed to one side.
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One of Mondeau’s favorite spaces in the house, the spacious, light-filled great room provides the perfect spot for a really tall tree. Mondeau says she’s spent years collecting enough Christmas ornaments in her preferred palette of natural colors to fill the tree.
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Set inside a cozy window bay, a farmhouse-style table beckons all to a holiday meal. Mondeau crafted the centerpiece with greenery from the Christmas tree, pine cones and kale. The design, she says, riffs off of the wreath in the window.
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The home’s original dining room doubles as Mondeau’s studio. The vintage sideboard is a Salvation Army find. The wall shelf discovered at Class & Trash displays some of her favorite things.
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“This was the one [room] where my husband really wanted some input,” Mondeau says. “We wanted it to have more of a masculine feel with kind of the Tommy Bahama/Ralph Lauren look … to make it look like a library room.”
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A cabinet in the primary bedroom is filled with meaningful mementos: portraits of Mondeau’s children, a vintage beaded purse made by her great-aunt and namesake, and a collection of sea shells and starfish, which remind her of her girlhood home in Wilmington, North Carolina.
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“I love color, but in my bedroom I have always kept it more controlled so I can rest,” Mondeau says. A plant arrangement of ivy, eucalyptus and hellebores adds a bit of green.
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The bicycle table is “one that I hope to one day have in a flower shop,” says Mondeau, who uses the unique piece as a worktable.
Growing up, Sue Mondeau’s mother kept a cardboard box stocked with special papers, paints and other crafting supplies for any creative idea the two might come up with. Whenever they came across a work of art or an article of clothing or a craft project they loved, her mother would say, “We can make that.”
Over the years, the phrase became a mantra that drove Mondeau’s interests in interior and floral design and led her to open her own design business, Su Su’s Petals. But the words took on a new meaning when Mondeau and her husband, Derek, purchased their first home in Charlottesville.
“When we were first married, we had no money,” she says, “so it became ‘I need to make it.’”
Back then, she would visit high-end stores and try to replicate the items she loved. She also purchased secondhand furniture from the Salvation Army and gave the items new life with a fresh coat of paint and handmade accents.
These days, Mondeau no longer has to revive secondhand furniture, but she still loves to create spaces with a mix of antique furniture, custom-designed pieces and a cohesive vision that drives even the smallest details.
Take the urban farmhouse feel of the home in Manchester where she, Derek and their two children moved five years ago. The house is a similar size and vintage to the one they left behind in Charlottesville — “I have a type,” she says — but the layout of the Richmond house had a more inviting floor plan. Instead of knocking down walls, Mondeau was able to walk in and begin putting her finishing touches on the space.
The open kitchen and great room are sunny and bright, filled with rattan and wicker furniture. Handmade pillows and throw blankets add pops of bright colors and lively patterns. As a counterbalance, warm tones of wood, antique bronze and camel leather bring a sense of coziness.
“To me, the farmhouse style is all about softening the edges,” she says. “The touches of leather and brass warm up a space that could otherwise feel institutional.”
In the front room, she opted for a moodier feel by painting three walls with Sherwin-Williams’ Black Fox, a rich chocolate color she discovered in Common House Charlottesville. A fourth wall in a lighter color brings balance and visual interest.
Mondeau, a self-described maximalist, seeks out antique furniture and found objects that bring a vintage feel without being too traditional.
“I don’t like everything to match perfectly,” she says. “I love the idea of making things that don’t go together work.”
To me, the farmhouse style is all about softening the edges.
—Sue Mondeau
Each object has its own story, like the chandelier in her studio she purchased from an antique shop on her first weekend away with her husband after having children. Mondeau also describes “visiting” a large storage cabinet for four years before purchasing it from a shop in Charlottesville.
“It has a scalloped top, and I kept wondering, ‘How can I make it?’” she says. “You can’t — it’s just one of those pieces.
“After we sold our house, we had a little bit of extra money, and I bought it on our way out of town. The movers picked it up and delivered it to Richmond.”
Mondeau’s farmhouse style extends to her holiday decor, which is all curated around a color palette of brown, green, white and antique brass.
“You have to stick with a theme and be ruthless about what doesn’t fit,” she says. “I’ve done that, and now I have a repertoire of decorations that I use every year.”
Greenery is also a focal point — a nod both to Mondeau’s floral design business and her mother, who would create holiday wreaths from the juniper trees that lined their driveway.
In addition to an oversized tree that fills out her living room’s high ceilings, she has a mix of lush wreaths, garlands and centerpieces of evergreens and magnolia leaves that last for the season. She often mixes in fresh flowers as rotating accents.
For Mondeau, it’s these details — a cozy paint color, a comfy oversized chair with homemade pillows, magnolia leaves grouped with a pheasant feather and blue cedar berries — that elevate a space.
“I see myself as a finisher. I source the details that take a space to completion,” she says. “I get to bring the sparkle.”
‘We Can Make That’
If Mondeau’s mantel inspires you to bring a touch of the outdoors to your holiday tableau, she offers a few tips for creating your own garland.
- Make your base. To create a full and luscious garland, Mondeau starts with faux greenery. It’s less expensive and creates a thick base to build from.
- Layer fresh greenery. Mondeau often sources her greenery from Vogue Flowers, but also says a neighborhood magnolia can also be a good place to start. “The more variety and the more volume you have,” she says, “the better it looks.”
- Bring your personality. Accents of feathers, blue cedar, fresh flowers and magnolia leaves allow your personal touch to shine through.
