A Chair Designer's Whimsical Texas Home

Whenever Wendy Conklin is clothes shopping, she runs into the same challenge. “I see a great pattern on a top or a dress and I think, I wish I could upholster something with that!” says Wendy, the designer behind Chair Whimsy. Unique fabric, wallpaper and paint colors abound in the 2,840-square-foot Victorian in Austin, Texas, that she shares with her husband, Blane. To Wendy, every textile, every vintage furniture find, every piece of art tells a story — the knockout wallpaper she discovered after hours of scrolling, the settee she drove across the state to get, the paintings done by her adult daughter. “Life is too short not to surround yourself with spaces you’ve lovingly created and put yourself into,” she says. “It brings a lot of joy.”

To make magic on the staircase, Wendy cut and adhered Matisse-like wallpaper from Spoonflower. The antique settee had a caved-in seat before Wendy resuscitated it. The floral fabric is original to the piece; the hot pink velvet is her handiwork. The art pieces hanging in the stairwell are creations by Wendy's daughter.

“When you fall for a fuchsia rug, one thing leads to another!” says Wendy about the bold color scheme. This beauty, from Manhattan Rugs, brings out the hue in the settee fabric by Clarke & Clarke. The animal print fabric on the chairs basically functions as a neutral here; Wendy hand-painted the frames gold. “The chairs are from the 1890s and have more character than any new ones I could buy,” says Wendy. On the mantel, simple accents bookend a painting by artist Carrie Schmitt that, says Wendy, “is like having fresh flowers every day.”

Would you paint your walls black on a dare? For Wendy, the answer to a freind's challenge was an easy yes. “I knew it would look cool because of all the light and the dynamic patterns,” says Wendy. The settee fabric is by Kravet, and the chair fabric is by Carrie Schmitt.