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Open House: Dallas

Jo Saltz: OK, let’s jump in. When a room is feeling bare and boring, what’s your go-to for making it more fun?

Monica Wilcox: Art, art, art—original art. Find an artist to create something individual, unique, one-of-a-kind. Intro-duce your clients to art, and you will never ever go wrong.

Brant McFarlain: I like to arrange furniture in a way that’s not typical. You get architectural plans and it seems to be the same layout

all the time, but mine would never look like that. For me it’s more about the placement of things, rather than color.

Jean Liu: I’ve had clients com-pletely change the way they felt about a room just because we took the existing pieces of furniture and tweaked the layout of them.

Amy Berry: Right. And there needs to be a playfulness, like, “You can live here! Yeah, you can move that chair, it’s OK!”

Denise McGaha: It’s our job to take this perfect little bow that interior design has been tied with and kind of blow it up.

Jo: Is it more fun to have tons of money for a project, or to have to get creative on a budget?

Amy: It’s fun to have a fun client. With one client, there was a closet where I said, “We should make it a dollhouse!” They have a little girl, so we did a whole hidden bookcase she can walk into. There’s a little light fixture, a little kitchen. The dad was like, “What are you doing to my closet?” And I was like, “It will be fine, and we can turn it back into a closet later.” That’s how trusting they were.

Jean: Totally agree. The clients who trust you—who are so trusting they don’t even check in with you—can make a project come in a lot smoother, and

For the daughter of some adventurous clients, Amy turned an empty closet into a child-size dollhouse.

“I’ll say, ‘I love dark rooms!’ to kind of guide a client toward a bold deci-sion,” Brant says. Case in point: these suede-like Venetian-plaster walls in one of his projects.

Amy Berry @amylberry

Joanna Saltz @josaltz

Want to talk? E-mail me at editor@housebeautiful.com.

Brant McFarlain @rbrantdesign

Decorating is so often about inject-ing life into snoozy situations. As Editorial Director Joanna Saltz finds out, these five Dallas designers are all about having some fun.

8

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Open House: Dallas

even under budget, because they’re not micromanaging every decision.

Brant: That said, a huge bud-get is fun. One project I finished last year was the penthouse of the Ritz. It’s 5,000 square feet, he’s a bachelor, and he just trusted me to do my thing.

Denise: Is that your perfect client profile?

Brant: Perfect client. He had grandma furniture in there, and

I was like, “Let’s move this out!”

Denise: People get to see themselves in a completely dif-ferent light when you change their interiors.

Brant: Well, now he’s cool.

Jean: Ha! At the same time, we’ve had some great things

come out of the tightest budgets. We’re working on the new showroom for KOCH, a clothing line. This project does not have a crazy budget, so every single fabric we’re using is actually a remnant from their current collections.

Monica: That’s amazing!

Monica matches the music she plays at a reveal to the mood of the room, so this chilled-out living area was presented with jazz.

Jean’s mood board for the new KOCH showroom, where all the fabric she’s using is left over from their clothing lines.

Jo: What is the most fun part of your job? [Note to transcriber: We are now two glasses of wine deep.]

Denise: I love presenting to the client and make a really big deal out of it. We serve their favorite treats, and I know what they like to drink. I had a client last week say, “Oh my God, do you have people who are addicted to this like plastic surgery?” Then she looked at her husband and said, “When do we get to do the next part of the house?”

Brant: I mean, I do like present-ing—but not as much as you do.

Denise: I love it.

Monica: For me, the most fun part is definitely the reveal. We have bets in my office on who’s going to cry—our goal is actually to make people cry! We do every-thing we can. We light candles. We even have music.

Denise: It’s an experience!

Monica: Yes! A celebration.

Amy: It’s kind of your moment to be like, “I was listening.”

Jean: The most fun for me personally is the process. I love working with the different trades, because I think that they’re the most unsung part of any project. They’re the ones who have to get it done!

Jo: So true. And what a diverse mix of answers.

Denise: We’re Texans! We’re individuals.

Denise McGaha @denisemcgaha

Jean Liu @jeanliudesign

Monica Wilcox @mwilcoxdesign

“People get to see themselves in a completely different light when you change their interiors. They get a whole new persona!”—DENISE MCGAHA

10 H O U S E B E A U T I F U L

3938 H O U S E B E A U T I F U L

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It was August when photographer Gray Malin and his husband, Jeff Richardson, learned they were expecting twins in the late fall, so they planned a shower

and hired a designer to speed-decorate. Start the clock.... By Shoko Wanger

How to Design a Nursery Suite in 90 Days

In Dove’s room, Berry opted for wallpaper from Farrow & Ball and a custom daybed from her own Amy Berry Home. Ottoman, Gray Malin x Cloth & Company, One Kings Lane. Curtain fabric, ClassicCloth from Dessin Fournir.

A bonus room downstairs is decked out with a cane daybed, a gliding chair, a changing table, and animal heads from Serena & Lily.

A print from Gray Malin at the Parker, a series that

inspired the photographer’s first furniture line with

Cloth & Company.

A daybed can double as a bed

for overnight guests and a

place to perch while the kids

play.

Blackout Curtains“The closer to a

cave, the better,” Berry says. “You

need that baby to sleep, sleep, sleep!”

Outdoor FabricUpholster furniture

in spill-proof materials, and it’ll look like new for

longer.

Extra SeatingIf space allows, get

two gliders or rocking chairs so

story time can be a family affair.

3 Things Every Kids’

Room NeedsFor the sanity

of both you and your child.

Above: Richardson (standing) holds Dove while Malin holds Max. Left: Both babies will share Max’s nursery until they’re old enough to sleep separately. Crib, Ducduc. Curtain fabric, Schumacher. Wallpaper, Scalaman-dré. Rug, Stark.

3 MONTHS OUT “I immediately

started brainstorming,” says Dallas-based designer Amy Berry, who got the call from Malin to design the twins’ nurseries. To accommodate the tight time line, she prioritized quick vendors and readily available materials—when pulling swatches, for example, she chose fabrics that were “in stock and on reserve.”

2½ MONTHS OUT

The first concept board was complete within a few weeks. Malin and Berry agreed that the rooms would be clean and classic, designed to grow up with the children. They would also feature Malin’s fine art photography. “I wanted a space that

would feel undeniably happy,” he says. “My brand is about bringing joy to other people, and I wanted to bring joy to my family with this special project.”

2 MONTHS OUT Berry placed rush

orders for furniture, timing each shipment to arrive at the same time. She opted for a mix: store-bought pieces from retailers like Serena & Lily and Land of Nod (now Crate & Kids), and custom decor, including high-quality blackout curtains (“with kids, you’re going to want it as dark as possible”) and chairs in perfor-mance fabrics.

1½ MONTHS OUT

While the orders were being processed, Berry completed a “cosmetic face-lift” on-site. In the boy’s room, a brand-new set of closet doors was lacquered and

installed. In the girl’s room, a built-in shelf was removed to make space for a crib. Both nurseries were painted, wallpapered, and trimmed in grosgrain ribbon—a sweet alternative to traditional molding.

48 HOURS OUT Installation

began just two days before the baby shower—and within weeks of the twins’ arrival: Dove Muzzy and Max Talbott joined the family on December 2, 2018. “Fatherhood is so much better than I ever could have imagined,” Malin says. And so is the nursery suite: “It’s unbelievable,” he says. “The space is not only functional, but it has the sense of magic we were aiming for, plus so much more.”

THE PLAYROOM

DOVE’S ROOM

MAX’S ROOM