Southern hospitality meets Back Bay

The condo of Annsley McAleer (with dog Sebastian) includes turquoise and cream pillows and bamboo chairs reupholstered with a cotton floral print. (Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff)

When Annsley McAleer moved into her Back Bay condo three years ago, she was delighted there was an entire wall of built-in bookshelves in her office/ guest bedroom waiting to be filled with fashion and design books by industry giants like Carolina Herrera and Parish-Hadley.

"I go to my books a lot for inspiration and to pull pictures for clients so they can understand how colors go together or maybe to see a certain style of curtain," said the interior designer, who founded her firm Annsley Interiors three years ago. "Books are the best accessory you can have. They add lots of color and you can stack them vertically or horizontally. You can get a nice accent out of them."

McAleer, 33, was named a "young decorator on the verge" last year by Domino magazine. The designer, who has worked for Ralph Harvard Inc. in New York and Carter & Co. in Boston, now operates her own firm, working mostly with suburban couples in their 30s and 40s with families.

The designer has a family of her own: husband Robert, 6-month-old daughter Frances, and Sebastian, a very active Welsh Pembroke Corgi. She took a chance decorating her workspace/guest bedroom in stain-inviting colors: beige and white. "I had the couch stain-protected," she said. "I'm all for lots of color. But I do like bedrooms to be calm. It's where you unwind."

McAleer's design sensibility leans toward the traditional, mostly because she grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, she said. "I think the South is a lot more traditional than other parts of the country," she said. "My style is based in tradition but I update things with fun fabrics and colors. I have an appreciation for antiques because I grew up with them in the house. And I'm crazy about monogramming. That's definitely a Southern thing."

McAleer approached her Boston assignment by first picking a geometrical print wool dhurrie carpet. "I saw it in Elle Decor and I fixated on it," she said. The Elson & Co. rug was shown in pink and cream but McAleer ordered it in beige and cream.

Next, she chose a traditional Lawson style off-white sleeper sofa made by Furniture Concepts in Malden using linen from Henry Calvin Fabrics in the Boston Design Center. "They are the best source for linens," she said. "They have several different weights of linen and also lots of colors to choose from."

She accented her couch with turquoise and cream pillows made of linen fabric from Furn & Co. at the Design Center.

To light up the room, she purchased a white Tole chandelier from Hiden Galleries Antique Complex in Stamford, Conn. "It's an old fixture from the 1960s," she said. The light, which she repainted, resembles bamboo. She also found two porcelain Gord table lamps with paper shades from CircaLighting.com. They rest on Lucite nesting tables from CB2.com.

McAleer's square coffee table, from West Elm, is covered in white lacquer. It's in arm's reach of her bamboo chairs, which she bought at the Antique and Artisan Center in Stamford. She had them repainted in white and reupholstered using an old Albert Hadley cotton floral print purchased from Webster & Co. at the Design Center.

McAleer's desk is also made of bamboo. Its top has a woven texture but the designer is able to rest her laptop and printer atop it with no problem. "I love my desk so much," she said. "It came from a store in New Orleans that didn't reopen after [Hurricane] Katrina."

In front of her desk is a large bulletin board from Carole Bruce where McAleer has pinned pictures of family and friends, her old boss Michael Carter from Carter & Company ("I love Michael," she said), as well as pictures of objects she desires, including a Cartier watch. "Maybe if it sits up there long enough, my husband will think to buy it," she jokes. "I love its simple, classic design."