Within white walls, shots of black, emerald green and vibrant orange add energy and contrast in this space designed by Tula Summerford
by Ayn-Monique Klahre | photography by Aura Marzouk Lake
When Sunya Crofton and her husband, William, built their new home on St. Marys Street, they knew they’d need a designer. “We sold our previous home furnished, so we were starting from scratch,” she says. “I needed so much help!” For that, she enlisted designer Tula Summerford, whose children had gone to school with the Croftons’ three daughters. “I always loved Tula’s style, and knew that one day I’d like to work with her,” says Sunya.
The outside of the house, which was built by Allure Homes, is more traditional, designed to fit into the neighborhood. But for the inside, Sunya knew she wanted something different. “A lot of color, lots of patterns — they wanted it to be fun and comfortable,” says Summerford. Working closely with Sunya, Summerford suggested a palette of black, emerald and orange that repeats throughout the home in different ways. “I like to pick up one color line to go throughout the entire house and then accent it with texture and art,” says Summerford.
The scheme is established right at the entrance. Along one wall is flocked floral wallpaper from Designers Guild with bold, oversize blossoms on a black background. In front of it, a sculptural settee picks up the blues and aquas from the print in a vertical stripe. Then across the hall is the dining room, where the walls, trim and ceiling are all painted black. “For the curtains, we pulled the bright yellow from the fabric. That color adds depth and sophistication for a tailored, high contrast look,” says Summerford.
The colors continue as you get deeper into the house, which leads into an open-plan living and kitchen area, but in a different composition. “If you start dark, it’s much easier to step those hues down as you move into the next room,” Summerford says. “You need things to flow and feel balanced.”
In the living room, the fireplace surround is the star, outfitted with a black tile with gold striations. “When we saw that, we knew we needed to figure out where to use it so the whole family could enjoy it,” says Summerford. “Once we had that, everything else in that room fell into place.”
With the fireplace as the focal point, Summerford brought in furnishings in neutral tones, shot with emerald green. “I love the whole setup,” says Sunya. “It’s a true family room.” Their daughters are out of the house now, and one was recently married, so the space is designed as a place to gather for special events as their family grows. “It’s so comfortable for a lot of people,” Sunya says.
The gold in the fireplace tile is also a visual echo to the gold elements across the room in the kitchen area: the trim on the vent hood, plumbing fixtures and chandeliers above the island, which are by Louise Gaskill, a local artisan. Sunya has found that she’s been cooking more for herself and her husband since moving in than ever before. “When my kids lived at home, we were running all over and they never wanted to eat the same thing,” she laughs. Now the two of them cozy up to the bar or breakfast table for meals and reserve the dining room for special occasions.
Beyond the kitchen, a dry bar with cabinetry done in a lacquered black ushers you into the breakfast area. “We wanted a lot of drama, and to showcase their fun collection of glasses, tequila and other liquors,” Summerford says. The backsplash is done in small tiles in tones of green and black for a moody oil-slick effect.
Off the living area, the primary bedroom is the lightest and brightest of the rooms, with just a touch of black in the ceiling fan and some burly wood dressers to warm up the space. “We wanted a clean, minimalist modern vibe,” says Summerford. To Sunya, it gives a spa feel. “It’s very calm and soothing,” says Crofton.
But for all the calm in the primary bedroom, the adjoining bathroom offers an energetic remix of the color scheme. The anchor pattern is mid-scale geometric tile that runs northward in overlapping peaks, serving as a wainscoting of sorts.
Above it, large-format tile in a warm, shimmering finish pulls out the lighter tones, while the marble tile in the glass-enclosed shower — jet black with a hint of white veining— offers contrast. The room presented a design challenge because it had three windows over the vanity, which meant there was not wall space for the traditional mirror-and-sconces combo. Summerford solved that by situating two narrow oval mirrors between the windows, with Louise Gaskill Murano glass pendants floating above them. That offered plenty of vanity space, plus access to natural light during the morning routine. On the counter, a white marble with black veining pulls in those darker colors from opposite the room.
Upstairs, the three daughters’ bedrooms work in roughly the same scheme (starting point: black and white), but Summerford worked with each of them to pull out their favorite colors. In one room, they went “color crazy” with a butterfly-print wallpaper and accents of yellow, magenta and electric blue. In another, a bold orange headboard shines against textural black, white and gray elements. For the girls’ bathrooms, they stuck to black, white and gold, playing in the vast range of tiles in that scheme.
Even within the scheme, there are a few rooms that feel like worlds unto themselves. In the powder room, Summerford added a black-lacquered vintage vanity and pulled an antique chandelier from her collection as the final touch. A vibrant green wallpaper and matching Roman shades create a drenching effect. “We get tons of compliments on it — it’s not too wild, it’s just happy,” says Sunya.
Similarly, for Sunya’s office, they leaned into a tangerine scheme. “Sunya wanted it to feel like a lady’s office, something fun that she wouldn’t mind seeing all the time,” says Summerford. To close it off, she designed custom barn doors — stacked hexagons within each panel, banded with gold — for a peekaboo effect from outside.
Throughout the home Sunya credits Summerford with not only making her vision come to life, but stretching her design sense with bold choices. “The foyer, for instance — I love the wallpaper and I love the fabric on the settee, but I never would have put them together on my own,” she says. “Now the settee’s my favorite thing.”
The mostly white kitchen gets some glitz from Louise Gaskill pendants and narrow hexagonal tile in tones of white and gold from Triangle Tile. The Croftons enlisted Summerford as soon as the floor plans were finalized. “We worked with them from soup to nuts, choosing hardware, hinges, windows — the works,” Summerford says. In the breakfast area, navy-blue chairs balance the white walls and white shades; it also features a built-in bar with black-lacquered cabinetry. Behind the kitchen are a wine room and a scullery.
For her office, “I knew I wanted an orange room, and when we were going through wallpapers, I loved the texture on this one,” says Sunya Crofton. “It’s so bright and happy!” The static energy of the wallpaper is balanced by a cut-texture rug and white cabinetry.
Sunya says she always wanted a black dining room: “It seemed crazy, but it’s just paint! I can always paint over it!” She and Summerford found the dining table together at High Point. “I saw it and was like, wow, this is really cool,” Sunya says. Over the table, Summerford hung two chandeliers. “When you have a long rectangular table, it takes the space up a notch,” she says.
For the primary bathroom, Summerford used tile in four different scales and shapes of tile, but all in the same black, white and gold color scheme. “We wanted to create a focal moment from every angle,” she says. Navigating a wall of windows, she used two narrow mirrors and hanging sconces. “They’re small but it works — there’s so much light,” Sunya says.
For the primary bedroom, they went with a lighter, spa-like scheme, incorporating shades of white, cream and warm metallics to add texture and glamour. The fan, bed and rug subtly play with form by repeating rectangles at different scales.
In the scullery, stacked smoky-blue subway tiles with diagonal textures run up the walls, pulling in the blurred geometric feel of the curtains. “I use the scullery more than I thought I ever would,” says Sunya. Summerford did the laundry room floor in shades of navy blue, Sunya’s favorite color.
For their daughters’ bedrooms and bathrooms, they started with black and incorporated fun accents, like wallpaper with an interesting print or splashes of saturated textiles. “Each of the girls chose their own colors,” says Sunya. For the downstairs powder room, Summerford pulled an antique chandelier from her collection as the final touch. “I save things like this for special projects, and this was the one,” she says. In this room, she also used an antique vanity, painted black, to continue the historic feel. The matching print on the wallpaper and shade creates a color drench effect.
This article originally appeared in the May 2026 issue of WALTER magazine.
