My name is M.K. Quinlan and I recently accepted my dream job as senior style editor here at G&G. My family—husband Paul and dog Phil—rambled down I-95 from Washington, D.C., over the weekend with music blaring and our hearts swelling. We are so happy to be back down South.



I’m a southerner, born and bred. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama—my mother a trained opera singer and my dad an entrepreneur. I like to think that my upbringing was quintessentially southern in its contrasts. My mother instilled in me a taste for the finer things—Leontyne Price, fresh water pearls, fine silver, and china. But I was also encouraged to talk football and get my hands dirty—in the yard and in the world at large.

I went off to school at Georgetown University. Summer internships at the New Yorker and The New York Observer gave me a taste for Manhattan and the work of literary heavyweights.

Later, I began writing about interior designers and eventually became one myself. What became clear while working in design was that I was interested less in the new and more in the old: clients’ family photos, inherited artwork, oriental rugs in the attic, children’s growth charts carved into kitchen walls. What drove me to interior design, as it turns out, is what drove me to writing: the love of a good story.

My goal here on Belle Décor is to uncover the unique, story worthy spaces from across the South, and to continue to clue you in to products, places and ideas that will help you to tell your own tale.

That’s number one on my to-do list. Number two: a bathroom renovation. Stay tuned for Thursday’s round-up of bathroom products that are an inspiration for my future reno. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter (@GGBelleDecor) and Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/gardenandgun).