THE BEST JUICE

Remember those Tropicana commercials, where the woman wandering the aisles of her supermarket discovers a lush Floridian orange grove behind the shelves, from which brawny orange pickers hand her freshly squeezed cartons of juice? Amazing place, Florida. All those lovely cardboard trees, growing such pretty cartons...

Anyway, the point of the ad is that Tropicana, unlike all those OTHER juices, uses a "real" orange. But they're perhaps in for some competition. At least that's what I thought when I hit the master bathroom of the 2010 Atlanta Showhouse and Gardens, and saw Raymond Goins' undiluted, 100% not-from-concentrate orange laquer walls. The shade was somewhere between an Hermes hatbox and an equatorial sunset. And it was STUNNING. 

Bright, frothy, fun... a visual mimosa. And the rest of the space was no less inebriating. 

Atlanta designer Raymond Goins is a painter as well as an interior designer. The painting - and the tufted leather bench - are his own work. Note below that the decorative geometric shapes on the bench's side are actually extending pieces that can hold a candle or cup. Clever! (But don't knock your shins into it.)

Geometric forms are reflected in - and around - the mirror. The grain in the marble throughout is angular, edgy, rather like those old pixilated graphs printers churned out in the 80s. It's certainly not your mother's Venetian marble bathroom.

Other Mediterranean themes prevail in citron yellows, Mykonos sky ceilings, and a domestic scene of ancient Trojan life (really, with shades this bright, the overhead light is almost superfluous).

Images, Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles, www.rlgoins.com.