A Texas Home With a Touch of Fun in Every Room

After 13 years of bouncing around the country for job transfers, Carissa and Todd Fox finally settled their family of four into a 4,300-square-foot modern prairie-style home in Cypress, TX, and got to work decorating for real. “In our other houses I was always thinking about resale value, but here I can spread my creative wings because we plan to stay a while,” says Carissa.

She and Todd designed the interior with a no-frills base of engineered acacia wood floors, a mostly white kitchen and neutral walls so Carissa could jazz up the place with quirky pieces. Taking after her free-spirited grandmother, who was an artist, Carissa has decorated and redecorated the house over the past five years as her creative outlet. “I don’t want our home to look like a carnival, though with my girls, it sometimes feels like one,” she says. “I just want something to make us smile wherever we look.” 

The nearly 10-foot-long island is the most bustling spot in the house. “Knowing the kids and their friends would be running through the kitchen, I wanted a large island with a pull-up-a-stool vibe,” says Carissa. She had the base painted gray (Galveston Gray by Benjamin Moore) to stand out from all the white, then started on the fun: candy-color accessories and a red fox wood cutout from the Etsy shop Haven America. The multihued stools are from overstock.com, and the white barn light pendants are from Restoration Hardware. 

Todd and Carissa with Campbell, 15, and Riley, 12.

“I’d rather fill a room with a few things that pack a big punch than clutter up a space with lots of little pieces,” says Carissa. For this high-traffic area right off the kitchen, she chose a supersized, peeled-and-chipped blue sideboard by Four Hands that spans the length of the wall and a 5-plus-foot-diameter mirror with a wood-block frame to hang above it. She topped a pair of chunky wood lamp bases from T.J.Maxx with navy-and-white-striped shades from Ballard Designs. Carissa got the pair of cheeky ceramic bust vases from Floral Art in Los Angeles. The 25-inch-diameter pendants and the concrete-top table are from Restoration Hardware.