Some women appreciate jewelry to mark birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Not Marti Lundy. She collects art. Her taste, knack for acquiring certain pieces and display savvy has allowed her to create her own masterpiece – her home.

While the art is the highlight of the home, it is only one of the elements that make this Graywood home in the Indigo neighborhood a stand out.

The large double gallery home with massive columns has an air of neoclassic influence. The home was built to make the most of the view of the rolling greens of the Graywood Plantation Golf Course.

Lundy has out-of-the ordinary furnishings from designers with whom she became acquainted when she owned and operated a Houston, Texas fine furniture, d?cor and accessories store that included fine art. And as important to the look and the feel of the Lundy home as the design features and the artwork is

Lundy’s focus on the comfort of family, pets and friends.

This house has art, but it’s not a museum.

Nor is it a look-but-don’t-touch showplace. It is a child, dog and cat-friendly home.

Lundy doesn’t claim to be an artist or art aficionado. Her background is broadcast journalism. Her husband Matt, a local attorney, proposed to her in an Atlanta CNN newsroom. They met at LSU. The Georgia native came to the door for the American Press interview in a stylish, but casual flannel shirt led by her overzealous puggle, Bodi. Cats Skittles and Bear made appearances later.

Like a kaleidoscope — the title of one of the several Nechita Alexandra paintings in the Lundy collection — the Lundy home allows the visitor plenty of visual combinations to study at every turn. Individual works of art are eye-catching. The overall effect is sumptuous. Gold-toned picture frames help unify work as diverse as an original Bullwinkle sketch signed by Al Kilgore and an original Vasily Kafanov painting.

Alexandra Nechita is a Romanian American cubist who started painting at age 2. She is often referred to as the Petite Picasso. She painted Kaleidoscope at age 12, and Nechita told Marti it represents the ever-changing way she appeared to her grandparents during a time when children seem to grow and change almost overnight. Kafanov was born in Russia in the 1950s and works in various mediums. He is the artist responsible for the visual imagery in the Smashing Pumpkin Machina/Machines of God album booklet and was influenced by Picasso and Marc Chagall.

The Lundys have a Picasso serograph and Matt gifted Marti with a Chagall etching on her birthday.

“He had to go out of town for work and he left me the etching(drawing) on the bed, along with the Bible, opened to the Psalm it represented,” she said.

Chagall was born in Russia and moved to France in 1910. Later he spent time in the United States. He illustrated many of the Psalms and visited the Middle East for inspiration.

Marti Lundy also has the work of Theo Tobias and William Toliver. Her taste runs to cubism. Also displayed in the Lundy home is work by local artists Vickie Singletary and Kim Trent.

Kim Trent advised Lundy to paint the walls of her living area in the almost black Benjamin Moore paint labeled Silhouette. The dark color allows the art to be the focus.

“When my father-in-law saw the paint color, he thought I had lost my mind,” she said.

The kitchen area has recently been refurbished. Wood-stained cabinets were covered with a cream paint color and lightly gel stained. Lundy left the cypress stained kitchen-ceiling beams. The flooring is brick pavers polished to a shiny finish. The chandeliers over the dining table and the island are the stars of this area where Lundy said family and visitors spend a good bit of time.

The long fixture over the kitchen table uses old railroad ties and wrought iron and is a companion piece to the large rectangular burlap covered fixture over the island. The bar chairs are Inessa Stewart. The kitchen table and the bed in Lundy’s daughter’s room are Jan Barboglio. The bed is dressed with Austin Horn. The kitchen table bench is from Bella Cosa.

The house was holiday-ready for the interview and Marti said it was a good feeling to have it done. She will soon be hosting a Cotillion event. The Christmas tree with its whimsical Seuss hats was decorated with her children in mind. Her husband’s extensive nutcracker collection, started after his mother gave him his first when he was 15, lines the stairs.

Despite Lundy’s stint as an owner of a furnishings and d?cor store, she doesn’t rely on her eye alone for making her house a home. She calls in experts for help, but makes her own purchases.

“Some homeowners get their designers to buy for them, but I don’t do that,” she said. “I buy what I love. A good designer can make it work and they’ll probably be better at making paint, window covering and wall paper selections,” she said.