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Approachable Glamour“The living room is just a wild success,” says interior designer Kenneth Byrd. “It’s completely beautiful, but at the same time you can fit 10 or 12 people in there and everyone is comfortable. You can kick your feet up if you want to.” Light furniture is treated with Teflon to protect it from sticky little fingers. The art above the fireplace is by local artist Emma Knight. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Winter’s Light
The sunroom features the original teal, herringbone glazed-brick floor. The Seiberts purchased the original furniture from the home’s previous owners and had it re-covered because it was perfect for the room. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Formal not Fussy
The glamorous dining room features a coffered ceiling,wallpaper and silk drapery panels in a soothing blueand gray palette. Subtle holiday decorations make abig impact: fresh greenery, live plants, festive ribbonand metallic accents all signal celebration. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Set for Celebration
Aimee Seibert sets a simple but sophisticated table with white and silver Lenox Tribeca china and Kate Spade polka dot Larabee Road platinum plates. Natural accents including silver pine cone rosettes, mini wreaths and paper whites planted in silver julep cups add a festive touch. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Form and Function
The Seiberts remodeled the kitchen, but kept and repainted the oak cabinets, which were last updated in the 1990s. Simple greenery gives the room a festive air. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Holiday Décor
Aimee Seibert decorates for the holidays using fresh greenery, flowers and understated wreaths for a simple, sophisticated look. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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This festive wreath is fun but not fussy; the arrangement of white lilies is spruced up with red berries at the base. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Family Room
At the request of the Seiberts, Byrd designed the cozy family room with a Midcentury vibe. The home’s original wood paneling and trim are contrasted with grasscloth wallpaper anda plush shag rug. “Every time we have the opportunity to play with [Midcentury] we will go as far as we can take it,” Byrd says. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Randy’s Retreat
Byrd’s favorite room is Randy’s office. “It was the most dramatic transformation for the entire house,” he says. “It’s a complete departure from the rest of the house, yet it feels relevant.” (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Festive Touches
In a home with such a subdued palette, touches of classic red — in cranberry decorations and cozy red pillows — signal holiday cheer.
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Guesthouse
The Seiberts turned a former detached two-car garage into a California style two-bedroom 800-square-foot guesthouse so luxe that their guests may never leave. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
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Here to Stay
The Seiberts don’t plan to leave their classic frame Colonial for a very long time. “It was very easy for me to see how we could be here for 40 years,” Aimee says. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
After organizing Church Hill’s annual holiday house tour for five years, Aimee Seibert knows it takes a lot of work to prepare a house to be seen by hundreds of people during an unfailingly hectic time of year. So, after she moved to Windsor Farms and was asked to open her home during St. Catherine’s 2014 holiday house tour, she knew what she was getting into. “I know how hard it is to get people to agree to be on a tour,” she says. “I couldn’t say ‘no.’
This, despite the fact she and her husband, Randy, had only recently moved in, with a newborn baby and young child, while she was on maternity leave.
But Aimee, owner of the Hillbridge Group, a lobbying firm, and Randy, an executive with n1Health, know how to get things done. They also know when to delegate. “If I am not an expert at something,” Aimee says, “I let someone who is [an expert] handle it.”
Enter interior designer Kenneth Byrd, who orchestrated a total home makeover in less than six months, with a holiday house tour deadline looming. “We were under a significant time crunch,” Byrd recalls, “and that really lit a fire under everyone. It was an ordeal, but it all came together [in time for the tour].”
A Forever Home
Here to Stay The Seiberts don’t plan to leave their classic frame Colonial for a very long time. “It was very easy for me to see how we could be here for 40 years,” Aimee says. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
The house, a 4,500-square-foot Colonial built in 1925, sits on a nearly two-acre lot with terraced gardens designed by landscape architect Charles Gillette in the 1940s. The white frame house, with its slate driveway and black shutters, is within city limits but feels miles away. “This is the best of both worlds,” Aimee says. “We have deer and owls in the side yard but we are minutes from Carytown.”
With their family growing, the Seiberts needed more room than their 2,000-square-foot Church Hill home provided. “We really tried to stay in Church Hill, but we needed more outdoor space,” she says. Not only were the Seiberts taken with the elegant yet comfortable house, its pool and wooded lot, they were also captivated by the stories real estate agent Jody Hughes shared about the home, which had been owned by her parents.
“Jody has such great stories about growing up in the house,” Aimee says. “Her parents lived here for 40 years. It was very easy for me to see how we could be here for 40 years. We wanted this to be our forever house. … It was important to me that we move somewhere that had a good family feel. I just thought it would be a fun place to be a kid.”
Comfort First, Glamour Second
Approachable Glamour“The living room is just a wild success,” says interior designer Kenneth Byrd. “It’s completely beautiful, but at the same time you can fit 10 or 12 people in there and everyone is comfortable. You can kick your feet up if you want to.” Light furniture is treated with Teflon to protect it from sticky little fingers. The art above the fireplace is by local artist Emma Knight. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
The Seiberts love to entertain friends, and comfort was a driving force behind the home’s interior design. “They didn’t want the typical Windsor Farms, extra-traditional, stuffy type thing,” Byrd explains. “They didn’t want a museum.”
Because many of the antiques they brought with them from their 1880s Church Hill house did not fit the scale and period of their new home, the Seiberts started from scratch.
The house now blends old and new in a design that has a gentle Hollywood Regency vibe. Reflective surfaces and a soft pastel palette of gentle grays and blues contrast with dark floors and rich, heavy wood furniture. A hint of Chinoiserie — conveyed beautifully through Mary McDonald’s Chinois Palais fabric for Schumacher — combined with bold patterns and art give the house a refined, sophisticated feel.
“Working with Randy and Amy was awesome,” Byrd says. “Personally, they were a vast inspiration. Their strong business prowess led to the rooms being crisp, solidly tailored and sophisticated. Each and every room is gently different from the last but it is all completely cohesive.”
The Seiberts two young children, Amelia Cate, 7, and Jane Randolph, 2, also influenced the design. “The light furniture is treated with Teflon to repel stains,” Aimee says. “I wanted to make everything kid friendly. I didn’t want one of those living rooms like I had when I was growing up.”
Byrd’s favorite part of the project: transforming the former garage into a two bedroom, two bathroom free-standing guest house, complete with upscale kitchen, marble bathrooms and a great room with living and dining room — all in about 800 square feet.
For inspiration, Byrd looked to Southern California, giving the guest house a Mediterranean spin with dark floors and crisp white upholstery. “It is unrecognizable from what it was originally,” he says. “I think it worked really well.”
Natural Beauty
Holiday DécorAimee Seibert decorates for the holidays using fresh greenery, flowers and understated wreaths for a simple, sophisticated look. (Photo by Ansel Olson)
Aimee has fond memories of gathering greenery in the woods with her father to help her mother decorate for the holidays when she was growing up. When decorating for the house tour, she revived this talent, clipping boughs from her own yard and those of family and friends. “Nothing was purchased,” she says, with the exception of a few boxwood wreaths.
“I made the wreaths outside myself, and spray painted the pine cones on the table,” she says. “I found them in someone’s backyard, cut them, and created rosettes.”
Simple garlands and wreaths, potted paperwhites and amaryllis, and sparkling glass ornaments are festive, without being fussy.
“I feel like it’s not Christmas unless you have all the greens everywhere. I like to bring the outside in,” Aimee says.
“The look is classic and timeless,” Byrd adds. “You can’t go wrong with fresh greens and shine.”
