The Peace Keeper
Designer Darryl Carter modernizes his 19th-century Virginia farmhouse with bold gestures and a soothing palette

Room/Style: Dining Room, Country

Notes: An oak gate leg wake table by Red Schoolhouse Antiques, antique armchairs, a Baroque-style chandelier and a painted barn door in the dining room

Carter’s rustic-meets-refined escape is a textbook example of the neutral palette and strong silhouettes he has made his professional hallmarks since giving up practicing law for interior design a decade ago. Stucco hearths and primitive wood benches contrast with an occasional rarefied English or Italian antique. Weathered barn doors have been repurposed into cabinets, espresso-color cotton curtains warm up the living and dining rooms, and a narrow 12-foot dining table made of reclaimed wood seats 16 friends for the house speciality: chicken potpie.