Creative solutions
Traditional West U house transforms into sophisticated space
JASON and Pam Klein were two left-brained people looking for a couple of right-brainers to bring style to their home. The Kleins, both native Houstonians, had bought a spec house in West U, and they knew they wanted to turn their vanilla traditional home into a more updated and sophisticated place.
Jana Erwin and Audrey Tehauno of Nest Design Group came to help. They started work on the home and then Jason Klein, an executive at Shell, was asked to move to the U.K. for a while. Other assignments have taken the couple to Oman and Brisbane, Australia.
The temporary stay in the U.K. put work on their Houston home on hold until the day Pam Klein called Tehauno to say they were returning.
“When we moved back, the first call was to Audrey,” said Klein, who had worked as a flight controller in Mission Control at NASA. “We said, ‘We need our son’s room done; take care of it. We don’t have to worry about anything else right now. He just needs a place to sleep.’ ”
Erwin and Tehauno got busy. With Klein’s approval, they approached her son’s room with an airplane theme. Vintage-style clocks showing different time zones around the world accent one wall, and a grid of colorful, framed airplane prints looms over his bed. A wire basket for toys and built-in bookshelves with a window seat keep everything organized.
Then they started on the rest of the house. The Kleins didn’t want any remodeling, and they wanted to keep the hard surfaces such as flooring and granite counters.
But Pam Klein thought her 5,200-square-foot home was too plain. So they purchased nearly all new furniture and added new paint or wallpaper throughout; they picked out more artwork and bought all new light fixtures. All of that required a good deal of shopping — ordering custom-made pieces and checking out stores, antiques shops and websites.
“When you paint and change light fixtures, those things are the fastest and easiest, most effective ways to update a space,” said Tehauno, who used her fallback Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore in the Kleins’ downstairs. Form and function
At the front of the home sits the formal living room, which the Kleins used to call their “Christmas tree room.” It came into play once a year when they put up their holiday tree and opened gifts.
“The house had a good layout, but we didn’t like this room. What do you even do with this room?” Pam asked. “But these two turned it into a room you want to sit in.”
Everything in that room came out, on the recommendation of Erwin and Tehauno, then the space was reimagined as a mix of old and new.
Bold wallpaper — black and white in abstract strokes — set the tone. Then came a bluegray mohair sofa, a leather armchair with a white ceramic side table. Against another wall is an antique-style chair.
A two-tone blue wool rug covers much of the hardwood floor; it’s topped by a white cowhide rug. Side tables and a mirrored coffee table hold accessories. The real finish to the room, though, is its artwork. A cluster of nine dome-shaped mirrors complement the wallpaper, and an Austin Allen James abstract painting on wood is so sleek that it looks like art glass.
Klein said she and her husband may have needed help with home décor, but they both appreciated the work when it was finished.
When Erwin and Tejauno fed ideas to the Kleins, they often got definitive answers. But sometimes a “no” was turned into a “yes” as the designers pushed them out of their comfort zone.
“This wallpaper took some trust,” Erwin said.
“We can’t go into a warehouse and pick things out, but we can choose from three things,” Pam Klein said.
There were times that she stood in a room and wondered how it could ever work. When the living-room rugs were placed on the floor, she didn’t get it. As other pieces arrived, the jigsaw puzzle looked better and better.
Erwin and Tehauno smile at the story, reminding each other that clients often think decorating projects will come together as easily as a 30-minute show on HGTV. Focal point
The dining room may be the most dramatic room in the Kleins’ home, with a dark-gray curvy tray ceiling and a darkblue-gray Phillip Jeffries grasscloth wallcovering above white paneling.
On top of a multicolored Persian rug sits a substantial dining table with blue velvet chairs and larger ivory host chairs at each end. The formal look is finished with a custom-made chandelier from Boxwood Interiors, a combination of hand-picked crystals mixed with labradorite stones.
Cushy tan sofas from Restoration Hardware, along with a tan rug and a wooden coffee table topped with a small deerskin rug, make the family room pure comfort, and its art and accessories are a nod to the Kleins’ travels.
Entering the room, you see a dragon-covered cloisonné vase, an Indian rug framed as art and a wooden mask from Tanzania. Closer to home, there’s a huge map of Houston as it was in 1891, purchased from Mecox.
The big open space of the family room blends into the kitchen. Just one fix changed the look of the whole room: The cabinets were painted charcoal gray and glazed, a faux finish by Imago Dei. New table and chairs by Hickory Chair finish the breakfast nook.
New window treatments serve two purposes: shades for functionality and draperies for a pretty touch.
Upstairs are the bedrooms and a TV room, in calm grays, seaglass and muted blue.
Though the master bedroom has hardwood floors with a big geometric rug, the guest rooms are carpeted. The master suite — with walls a darker shade of gray than the downstairs — is filled with a four-poster bed, a black leather footboard sofa covered with decorative pillows, a silver bedside table and a black lacquered writing desk.
Pieces by artist Paige Moore lend a soft, interesting touch.
In the end, the Kleins’ uber-traditional home got a top-tobottom reinvention in a combination of new and old, form and function. And they learned a number of things, including how to use a formal room that seems like a thing of the past.
“We use the living room when adult friends are over,” Klein said as she smiled and gazed around. “We just sit and talk and have a glass of wine. It’s lovely.”