Jay Iarussi stood on scaffolding as he painted long strokes of greens and golds, flowing across the ceiling as if they were a moving current.
The palette for this artistic ceiling treatment was inspired by the unique Bocci chandelier already hanging in the space, the upstairs game room in a home just finishing construction in West University Place. This home, which began construction by Sugar Creek Homes as a spec house, was purchased by a family with young children and almost simultaneously became this year’s show house for the American Society of Interior Designers Texas Gulf Coast chapter.
The show house will be open to the public for the next two weekends, Dec. 8-11 and 15-18. General admission tickets are $35 for adults and $15 for children. Interior designer Victoria Sheffield is the show home’s chair — coincidentally, the builder had already hired her to help finish out the home — and her co-chairs are ASID’s new president, designer Candice Rogers, and Cambria sales director Jason Grigar. A dozen other local interior designers and a handful of design students participated in the project.
Show homes and home tours are fun to attend, if for no other reason than to peek inside the homes of folks with substantial budgets for building materials and furnishings. There is, though, a significant take-away for anyone who’s thinking about building, remodeling or even tackling simpler decorating projects: lots of ideas.
It’s an opportunity to see how interior designers do their magic, combining colors, materials and textures and using things that are often hard to find or only available through designers. You’ll also get a chance to see the work of local workrooms and artisans since many designers shopped and sourced locally to avoid supply chain issues that prevent home goods from being delivered on time.
Here’s a sample of what you’ll see:
Mixing furnishings
Furniture, art and accessories are the last things brought into a show home — or any home, for that matter. You’ll see great examples of high and low, mixing antiques, midcentury modern and more current pieces that are traditional and transitional in style.
This home is 5,890 square feet, so you’ll see bedroom treatments that cover a nursery, young boy, a primary suite and two guest suites. There’s a play room, expansive kitchen with two oversized islands and two pantries, one a butler’s pantry and the other a walk-in food pantry. There’s also a study and a game room with a wet bar, providing inspiration for just about any project you’re considering.
Lighting
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 8-11 and 15-18 (last entry at 4:30 p.m.)
Where: 3807 Westerman
Tickets: general admission $35 for adults and $15 for children; $75 for VIP first look (11 a.m.-2 p.m. Dec. 6); eventbrite.com
Information: txgc.asid.org
One of the best advances in interior design of the last handful of years is the enormous impact of great-looking lighting. Not only has technology improved, but manufacturers have hired top designers who have taken the finished product to another level. You’ll see some of the best lighting on the market in this home, from that Bocci chandelier in the game room to sconces and other lighting in the home’s 7 — 5 full baths and 2 powder bathrooms — bathrooms. There are beautiful chandeliers in big open areas, too, and homeowners should pay attention to the larger sizes.
Lighting is — quite literally — bigger than ever. One common mistake homeowners make is choosing lighting that is too small because it really is hard to imagine what something will look like in a room. Chandeliers are big, and so are pendants. Sconces are imaginative and sometimes end up being the jewelry in the room. Two standouts are the cactus-like chandelier in the primary bathroom, part of a suite by interior designer Christine Ho, and the series of paper lanterns that cover the ceiling in a flex room at the back of the house, a space created by designer Imelda Escatell.
Finishes
Cambria and Silestone, two companies that make manufactured slabs for counters, are sponsors of the event, and Cambria offered up its newest collection of quartz to use. Slabs used on the kitchen islands are its new Beckington quartz, a creamy base with cool gray and soft tan veining, and this is the first change anyone has to see this design installed in a home. There’s also an Ann Sacks black-and-white Terrazzo counter and green glazed lava rock tiles on the upstairs wet bar, a place where you can use more dramatic materials.
Designers went bold with wallpaper and color, so you’ll see how a home can have deep green, blue and terracotta shades and not look overwhelming.
You’ll also get a look at some great plumbing fixtures and hardware, as designers chose a variety of finishes throughout the home. There’s pewter, nickel and brass, and you’ll see those finishes in lighting as well.
Wallpaper
Wallpaper has made a comeback in recent years and this home puts the best of what’s out there on display. In a home this size, the wallpaper budget — materials and installation — could easily reach $100,000 if you’re using top-tier brands and patterns in several rooms. Remember, though, everything gets reinterpreted, so you can find about any style or pattern in a variety of price points. Let this house’s many wallpaper uses inspire you to try something new.
Great applications are a pretty pink floral on the ceiling of the nursery (by Laura Manchee Designs), hand-painted wallpaper that shows a tree frog peeking around bright stripes in the boy’s bedroom (by Cassandra Brand Interiors) and Arte International’s gorgeous tropical pattern, Flor Imaginaria, on the foyer wall (by Candice Rogers Interior Design.)
Considering art
Art is an essential part of home design, bringing color, form and visual interest to every room. This showhome showcases local artists, and you’ll see paintings throughout the home. If you see one you like, ask who the artist is, since there will be lists of materials throughout. Much of the art is on loan for the event, and the homeowners are purchasing some of the furniture. That means, just about everything is for sale, so if you like the fancy sofa in the game room or the vintage rug in the foyer, ask if it’s for sale.
When touring this home, think of art as more than paintings on the walls. The game room ceiling treatment marries a hand-painted mural with a beautiful chandelier, and I’d dare anyone who sees it to tell me it’s not art. Throughout the home you’ll see things that are so beautiful and have a high level of craftsmanship that they qualify as works of art.
Details
The work of interior designers is highly detailed, and that’s what can make a room look so polished. Little things to look for — and potentially copy in your own home — are bathroom stone/slab backsplash cut into interesting shapes (downstairs powder bathroom by Cassandra Brand Interiors), a reeded wood finish on kitchen island doors and end pieces (by Victoria Sheffield Design) and a full wall of fretwork by Fuller Architectural Panels in the nursery (by Laura Manchee Designs.)
The play room at the back of the house factors in the family cat, too. The room’s designer, Imelda Escatell built in a series of steps and hammocks that run up the wall so the cat can climb, play and hide up high. The feline also has a built-in cat door so it can come and go from this room to the backyard as it pleases. The homeowner’s young son gets a terrific room, too, with bunkbeds made to look like a treehouse fort.
The home is large and the lot isn’t, so outdoor space has to be used wisely. The small-ish backyard will be covered in artificial turf, a great choice for yards that aren’t huge and have a lot of shade. In the front of the home, the builder and designers were challenged with finding a way to have an extra car parked out front. The lot isn’t deep, so the driveway extended sideways toward the doorway in a pattern that’s all concrete but will have indentations for artificial turf. It will have the appearance of a porous driveway without any of the maintenance.
Local artisans
The show homes that have revived in the past year or so have found challenges with getting materials designers want on a short turn-around, forcing them to turn to the artisans and work rooms in each community. That’s true for this ASID project, so you’ll see things made right here in Houston, from the wall of preserved plants in the master bedroom by Priscilla Saynay’s Ms. Moss Potter to custom-made metal shelving in the living room by James Dawson Design.
Integrating plants into living and working spaces has become popular in recent years, and the preserved plants that Saynay uses range from mosses to mushrooms, even ferns and amaranthus, that look as green and fresh as live ones. Over some 20 hours or so, she painstakingly added each piece of preserved plant to a wall feature behind the bed in the primary bedroom. It’s so unusual and refreshing that it’s likely to make you stop and think about where you could put something like this in your own home.
Designer Cheryl Baker used Dawson’s metalwork bookshelves on each side of the fireplace in the main living area, one ingredient in a great combination of materials: limestone floors, a cast stone mantel and wood panels that run up the portion of the wall where the fireplace is. Each material plays a role in the visual and physical story of this room.
diane.cowen@chron.com