A Decorator’s Garden-View Kitchen in a Mount Vernon-Inspired Home

Decorator and artist Maridonna Rogers walks us through the kitchen of Windsong Farm, her restored historic home on 20 acres in Collierville, Tennessee — a house loosely inspired by Mount Vernon that she and her husband Bob rescued from abandonment, holes in the roof and all.

The kitchen was Maridonna's reward for taking on the enormous restoration, and she designed it, as she puts it, from the inside out — placing floor-to-ceiling windows exactly where she wanted beautiful views, so she could watch birds take baths in the garden she planned around them.

She's a detail person: she loves the framed ceiling and the light-filled outlook. Lanterns she'd kept in storage for years, bought simply because she loved them, finally found their perfect spot here, alongside a copper hood original to the house that she was determined to reuse.

Rather than pay for a full slab-marble wall, she got creative, using Calacatta gold marble where it counts and hanging fancy mirrors that reflect the garden and add sparkle — jewelry for the room, like her nickel faucet.

Because she likes everything neat and tidy in the heart of the home, back in 2013 she built what she later learned is called a scullery — a pantry kitchen with a door she can close to hide messes when company comes.

She calls it Bob's Kitchen, stocked with everything he needs for his specialties of instant coffee and toast, complete with its own dishwasher, fridge, and freezer.

It holds French coffee pots, an old French butcher block gifted by her mother, collections brought back from France, and taxidermy she cheerfully claims as her own.