HOME & GARDEN
JUNE 2017 / SOUTHERNLIVING.COM
14W
HEN ATLANTA architect
Brandon Ingram was
tasked with designing a
small cottage 30 minutes
outside Tallahassee,
Florida, he knew it
needed to be two things:
“extremely efficient and super Southern.”
Extremely efficient because this is the
second building on the property and
county laws mandated that it be no
more than 800 square feet. And super
Southern because of its setting, a bucolic
17 ½ acres of land studded with live oak,
pine, and magnolia trees, perfect for
afternoons spent on breezy porches.
To manage the home’s tiny footprint,
Ingram was meticulous with scale.
“When designing little homes, you run
the risk of them looking like playhouses
unless you take the proportions really
seriously,” he says. So he played to
a grander scale wherever he could,
including the size of the windows and
the front-and-center positioning of the
porch. From there, it was a matter of
adding classic Southern details—a blue
porch ceiling, a metal roof, and lap
siding. For inspiration, Ingram lookedto both local history and examples
from across the South. “We wanted this
house to be an imaginative interpreta-
tion of several varieties of historical
precedent,” he says, noting influential
sources such as the iconic porches of
Charleston, South Carolina, and oldplantations. “We called on the whole
spectrum of Southern architecture to
create our own ideal for this property,
but it’s the porches that immediately
say this is a Southern home.” Take
a look at how Ingram melded modern
efficiencies with old Southern charm.A PROPER FRONT PORCH
In keeping with Southern
traditions, Ingram opted for
a “haint blue” ceiling. He used
Waterscape by Sherwin-Williams
there and complemented it with
a soft gray (Samovar Silver by
Sherwin-Williams) on the floor.
He left the porch unscreened to
allow for maximum sunlight. “No
matter how good the screen is,
it will always cast at least a little
bit of shade. Here, I wanted the
shadows and the sunlight to
play on the front,” he says.