How an unexpected redesign in Old Goodwood helped welcome two young grandparents’ bold, new era
It all started with wallpaper, recalls interior designer Brinley Trent.
But, as home projects often do, her recent job in Old Goodwood quickly grew.
Trent, who worked for 10 years in Baton Rouge before launching her own studio in her hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was initially asked to help refresh a family friend’s powder bathroom and dining room in late 2024. The plan was to order a few bolts of wallpaper to “jazz up” the spaces. But a year later, Trent had completely transformed most of the couple’s first-floor, bringing bold colors, textures and nature-inspired elements to match their changing family dynamics and vibrant personalities.
“As I kept suggesting things, [the client] kept saying yes,” Trent says. “It literally snowballed from ‘I want wallpaper in two spaces,’ to ‘let’s fully redesign the living room, the powder bath, the dining room, the keeping room and the primary bedroom.’ She was just very willing to keep it going.”
Prior to Trent’s arrival on the scene, the home on Finchley Court had a more traditional, museum-like quality. But following the birth of their first grandchildren, Trent says the couple knew it was time for a change.
The living room was a point of contention. Spacious but largely unused, the couple wanted the space to be more welcoming for their growing brood. The all-white furniture would have to go to welcome grubby hands prone to spills. Trent replaced the cream sofas with a giant emerald green sectional, great for gatherings and more reflective of the fun, lively times the couple shares with family and friends.
Trent pulled the room’s rich color scheme from artwork the couple already owned, including a muted old-world tapestry and a moody, impressionist cityscape. She then centered the space around a large abstract painting to give it a slightly more modern feel.
“I love a collective look,” Trent says. “The client has great style, and she already had great pieces that I was able to work with.”
The keeping room off the kitchen, where the couple spends most of their daily downtime, was also made to be more inviting, while still balancing the old with the new.
Trent replaced a wicker bench under the picture window, known to be the most uncomfortable spot in the house, with a long, upholstered banquette and flanked it with blue velvet swivel chairs the couple had previously purchased. Cushioned, rotating bar stools were added at the island across from the seating area, encouraging connection among kitchen and keeping room dwellers and helping to accommodate the whole family in the heart of the home.
In the more formal dining room—one of the original line items on the list—Trent took a leap of faith and landed.
Though they originally planned to spruce up the space with a robin’s egg grasscloth wallpaper, Trent says she and her client, a bird lover, couldn’t resist Phillip Jeffries’ “Flight” in colorway “peacock,” where inky-blue herons swirl among a mural of handpainted clouds.
“I showed it to her, and the vision was there,” Trent recalls. “She was like, ‘No, we have to do the birds. We have to do it.’”
Over in the couple’s primary bedroom, Trent replaced a traditional wrought-iron bed with a chic terra cotta velvet upholstered canopy. A stitched white quilt and plush geometric pillows added to the high-end hotel vibe. Trent says the custom-made lumbar pillow, featuring an abundance of flora and fauna, was the finishing touch.
“It was really a light [redesign],” Trent says. “But it had a huge impact.”
Still, the refresh to the tiny powder bathroom might have yielded the most dramatic effect, a capsule of the project’s personality and unexpected nature.
Inspired by the chocolate-colored office Trent’s client had previously redesigned down the hall, Trent doused the ceiling and cabinetry in the powder bath with a dark urbane bronze paint and wrapped the walls in a graphic pink, gold and brown floral wallpaper. Pops of mid-century modern fixtures and cheeky artwork push the envelope even further, making it hard to believe the room or the home it resides in had ever been white-washed or conventional.
“We set out with kind of a blank canvas and clients that are really fun and had a really great outlook on life. But their house, although beautiful, was not meeting their needs or their creative vision for it,” Trent says. “They trusted me completely to bring that to fruition … They were very open to everything that I did, and in the end, we got a great product because of their willingness.”
A testament, one might say, to the power of “yes.”
