Home bookshelf

Frances McDougall, managing editor of Southern Accents magazine, visits some of the lavish homes featured in her magazine with an eye toward color schemes. The chapters are organized by shade and the book shows how subtle differences can take the same shade into various rooms. She loves sage green, so she must be good -- and there more than 200 color photographs. Here is some text from the book:

"Easy on the eyes, almost textural in its softness, sage and celadon bring to mind compatible images. On walls, dressing windows, atop furniture or tables, these greens evoke the earth without getting dingy. As at home with crisp white linen or rich chocolate, celadon is versatile and subtle, and it often evokes with the light -- becoming beige in the morning light and even greener lit by yellow cast lamplight. What makes these colors so easy to live with are the gray tones that soften sage, the subtle browns that make celadon rich."