Couple opts for contemporary style in Clear Lake home with pool
When Tuyet Nguyen participates in Zoom calls for work, someone always compliments the bold abstract wallpaper that decorates her home office. At breakfast and dinner, she and her husband, Daniel, share meals at a Saarinen Tulip dining table with very modern wood chairs in the breakfast nook.
This new look speaks to the couple, who bought an existing home in the Clear Lake neighborhood of Bay Oaks and decided to revamp their style when they moved from a traditional home they’d lived in for more than 20 years.
In the pandemic, they simply felt that it was time for an upgrade to a bigger house — four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms in 3,300 square feet — with a nice patio and pool in the backyard, but it was also an opportunity to shift their style to be more modern, a style that Daniel is drawn to after seeing so much of it in overseas travel related to his job as a contracts manager for a NASA contractor.
Their son is a freshman in college and their schnauzer, Coco, spends a fair amount of time chasing their Rumba vacuum cleaner around the house, but Tuyet and Daniel Nguyen have fully adapted to their new home.
In their old home, in a neighborhood across the street from Bay Oaks, the Nguyens had collected antiques and traditional Ethan Allen furniture that they used for many years. The style was darker, so the
Nguyens were ready for a fresh start.
Daniel thought they could simply repaint the inside of the home, but Tuyet told him that if they were really going to start over, they were going all in. They didn’t know any interior designers and didn’t have friends who’d used one, so they looked on homeadvisor.com, answered some questions and were connected to designers Vy Truong and Han Dang, both of whom were born in Vietnam and met as design students at the University of Houston. Truong had worked for a firm that did hospitality-related design work and Dang’s prior job focused on school design. When they launched their own firm — Very Handsome Studio — they shifted to residential
work.
The Nguyens were both born in Vietnam, came to the U.S. as children in the late 1970s and later graduated from UH, so they bonded with the young women whose life journeys seemed so similar, even if they’re from different generations.
“When we first met Han and Vy, I had just gotten home from work downtown, and the first thing I told them was, ‘Whatever my wife wants, give it to her because a happy wife means a happy life,’ ” Daniel said, certain that the truism would make the path easier. “We bought the home, and it’s a beautiful and well-maintained home, but it’s older and dark from a color standpoint. I thought, ‘Repaint it and we’re done, bring in furniture and we’re done.’ Obviously, that was not the plan at all.”
Tuyet enjoys watching home design and remodeling shows on TV, and while they inspired her to want more, they also informed her that she really couldn’t do it herself.
“I’m not good at putting things together. I figured this would be our last home, so why not? Let’s get someone to come in and help us,” she said. “We couldn’t do that in our other home because we were too busy working, starting our family and careers. We spent 20 some years in our old house, so let’s take it up a notch in this one and we’ll have have another 20 to 30 years to enjoy it.
Truong and Dang brought ideas for making their home transitional, but with some very modern touches and even a few surprises.
An early discussion was about wall paint, with the designers urging the Nguyens to paint most of the interiors white — Sherwin Williams “Tocque White,” a versatile warm white — for a neutral background. Initially, Daniel needed to be convinced.
“White? Who owns a white car? If you buy a white car, you just gave up at the dealership. To me, white just doesn’t do anything,” Daniel said, hoping for a laugh. “In our old home, every room had a color, and I thought that made sense. Truth be told, when we looked at different shades of white, I said, ‘No one will pay attention to this.’ Now I know there’s a white for the wall and a white for the trim and another white for the ceiling.”
Daniel also learned something that his wife already knew: that wallpaper has changed a lot in recent years.
They get big style points for wallpaper choices, using a botanical pattern with trees and cranes on a dark navy blue background in the dining room, a room that doesn’t get used very often but will make an impression when they do have family over.
The home office is used by Tuyet, who asked for something interesting. Truong and Dang found a bold abstract pattern that could overwhelm a room, but they opted to keep a chair rail and paint the lower portion of the wall a bold ochre color, which appears as accents in the wallpaper. The primary bedroom has an accent wall with a wallpaper mural that looks like a swirling watercolor painting. The powder bathroom’s update brought in another wallpaper pattern, this one a landscape scene with an Asian flair.
The Nguyens brought the dining room furniture from their prior home, though they reupholstered the chairs and brought in a new rug and light fixture. But much of the home’s furniture is new. The only other furnishings they brought with them were a bed for the guest bedroom, a night stand, grandfather clock and a couple of end tables for the living room.
Decisions about blending old with new focus on style and what they’re trying to accomplish in a new house, Truong and Dang said.
“For us, the main way to assess how to shift or carry over existing furniture is a real honest conversation with clients. When somebody loves something versus likes something, they talk about it in a completely different way,” Truong said.
In the living room, removing heavy draperies but keeping white plantation shutters and painting a pair of dark, built-in cabinets white lightened up a room that gets a lot of use. While on vacation in Maui, the Nguyens bought a pair of abstract paintings that will be hung over the cabinets, taking up space where there used to be wall cabinets.
An upstairs game room got a little more color, with the lower portion of walls painted Sherwin Williams “Dovetail,” a taupe color, and the new sofa in the room is emerald green. When family visits, nieces and nephews hang out here to have their own TV and some space from the adults who are downstairs.
A big change for the Nguyens in this house is the backyard, already finished with a patio, pool and landscaping. Their prior home had nothing in the backyard and they hardly ever used it.
For the new house, they bought patio furniture that includes a settee and a pair of chairs, plus a round table and umbrella for al fresco dining.
“Our old home had a large backyard, but it wasn’t livable in any form or fashion,” Daniel said. “This one is a whole lot more enjoyable. My wife never stepped outside to water or plant anything before, but she’s constantly doing that now with multiple flower baskets. On weekends, if it’s cool enough, I’ll just go outside with Coco on my lap and take a nap on the loveseat. We really use that space.”