Tour a Funky Austin Home That's Anything But Cookie Cutter

Designer Maureen Stevens piles on the patterns and oversaturated colors in this delightfully vibrant Austin, Texas, home.

March 18, 2021

By: Kamron Sanders

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Photo By: Lauren Logan

Colorful Interior Design

It's not uncommon for designers to showcase their talents in a variety of cities rather than just one. That geographic flexibility allows them to serve the clients that love their work the most. Designer Maureen Stevens chooses to divide her time between New Orleans and Austin, living and spreading her colorful take on interior design throughout those two unique cities. Her latest Austin project is filled with curated color, tons of texture and perfectly paired patterns.

Tailor-Made Interiors

Maureen tailor-makes each space to both suit her clients' needs and reflect their personalities. The inspiration for this space was “the client's personality mostly — she is young and vibrant and open to bold choices.” Though Maureen’s design lens is wide and capable of a variety of styles, this is where it shines. She didn’t hold back on color and it paid off.

Make a Colorful Statement

Because this room features stark white walls and cold concrete floors, Maureen knew she had to liven it up a bit. Geometric pops of color give visual interest to an otherwise boring wall while tying in with the countless colors found in the pillows and rug. This oversaturation of textures and hues makes the room fun and inviting.

Learn More: Tour a New York City Apartment Drenched in Color

Or, Play With Patterns

Because she was sticking with a chic black-and-white color palette in the dining room, Maureen doubled down on pattern and blanketed the walls with a bold, speckled wallpaper. This wallpaper serves as a base for every other item in the room. From the crystal chandelier to the soft mauve curtains, each item feels intentional and right at home in the space.

Learn More: Pattern Rules in This Fun North Carolina Renovation

Break Through Boring

Maureen cites her favorite design trend as, “Muted Maximalism — fresh, airy, clean but a space grandma would want to chill as well,” which perfectly describes the design choices she made in the dining room as well as the rest of the home. In a world full of minimalist design, she chooses to break through the boring, but not overwhelm the senses.

Strike a Balance

The speckled wallpaper is mirrored beneath the bespoke waterfall bar top in the kitchen, making for a beautiful backdrop behind the glamorous velvet barstools. These design choices work perfectly in this space because Maureen is so intentional with her pairings. As a result, everything feels balanced. The warm butcherblock bar contrasts with the cold concrete floor, with the luxe look of the gold-trimmed barstools adding a touch of glamour.

Never Forget the Fundamentals

Maureen says she is, “always keeping in mind the principles and elements of design of color, rhythm, balance.” This is how she accomplishes muted maximalism without doing too much in a space. When you see her designs, it instantly becomes apparent that she has an innate sense of where to hold back and where to go full steam ahead.

Dare to Be Different

One area where Maureen went full steam ahead was in the home’s living room. Sure, the stunning stairway overtop a climbing gallery wall makes for a breathtaking visual, but the real showstopper here is the Bordeaux sectional. When asked about this piece, she notes, “It's one of the first things we sourced — (the client) was tired of seeing grays, beiges, whites and creams pretty much everywhere — she wanted to be different.”

Curate Your Coffee Table

Maureen often balances bold picks like the bold sectional with equally chic, yet refined pieces like a black coffee table with white accessories. As for her go-to picks for styling a coffee table, she says, “Hardbound beautiful coffee table books definitely belong to a coffee table as well as decorative coasters!”

Learn More: 15 Designer Tips for Styling Your Coffee Table

Create a Design Juxtaposition

True to form, Maureen balances the living room’s bold decor with a soft-textured concrete fireplace and white walls. This smooth concrete fireplace would be right at home in a minimalist setting but works wonders in this color-filled room. This vignette’s hidden secret? The color-coordinated art piece situated above the mantel is actually a TV.

A White Wall Is an Ideal Backdrop for Art

It's well-known that white walls can amplify a room’s natural light. While this is true, it certainly isn’t the only advantage. White walls also act as a blank canvas for whatever you want to hang on them. In this home, Maureen uses this blank canvas as home to a picture-perfect gallery wall, which allows for each of the gallery wall’s individual pieces to stand out and tell a visual story. This nook under the stairs was also the ideal spot to place a gallery wall.

Learn More: How To Create an Art Gallery Wall

Use Art to Complement a Space

So how does an expert designer like Maureen choose what pieces go on a gallery wall? As she puts it, “The inspiration (for the gallery wall) is really the design concept/vision for the room — it directs the style/feel of the art we will be on the lookout for as well as the look/vibe/feel.” In the living room, there is no evident “theme” to the gallery wall, but every piece plays nicely with the piece next to it and complements the room as a whole.

Build a Better Bar Cart

Maureen’s muted-maximalist approach to this space shows itself in every detail throughout the home, even her styling of the bar cart. For her, there is a formula to a perfectly styled bar cart, “Have the functional items first, then the decorative ones — decanters are a must, bar tools and of course the drink containers, and glasses are a must — I tend to always go vintage with bar glasses and goblets. They are just more beautiful than the blah ones of today that tend to go towards minimalism.”

Learn More: How to Style the Perfect Bar Cart for Any Party

Pair Bold With Bolder

All in all, the home’s living room does a great job of encompassing Maureen’s design style and approach for the home as a whole. She balances the space so well that her more daring picks don’t ever seem out of place. Take, for example, this intriguing cabinet. In most vignettes, it would be the star of the show. However, Maureen’s choice of the loud large-format artwork above it allows it to blend in seamlessly.

How to Hide a Problematic Feature

The last stop on this tour is the home’s luxurious main bedroom. While this space is undoubtedly beautiful, there is more to the design decisions than meets the eye. Behind the headboard is a wall of windows awkwardly positioned near the ceiling, making for a difficult decision as to how to dress them. In a stroke of genius, Maureen decided to install velvet black-out curtains covering the entirety of the wall and tying in with the velvet headboard. This decision now sets the tone for the bedroom and is one of the standout features of the home, proving that thinking outside of the box in home renovations can turn strange architectural features into works of art.

Layer Different Patterns

Once opened, the windows flood the bedroom with light and highlight all of the gorgeous pattern, color and texture that fill the space. When you step back and look at the individual pieces, nothing really "matches." However, the bedroom as a whole feels cohesive and natural. Because, even though the pieces don’t match in the traditional sense, they are very thoughtfully curated by Maureen to complement one another.

Say No to Sterile

Opposite the bed is a stunning wood and cane dresser that, along with the hardwood floors, imparts a welcome warmth in the space. Maureen’s choice of hardwood was an intentional means of contrasting the cold concrete found in the main living spaces of the home. “It's cold and warm and makes for a perfect combination," she says of the pairing. "The home is modern, but it doesn't mean it needs to be sterile.”

Lived-In Luxury

The use of the client’s hat collection above the fun, tiger pouf is a perfect representation of Maureen’s influence on this home. It’s lavish meets lived-in. Maximalism meets curated. In this home, she repeatedly makes daring design decisions, but always brings them back to a down-to-earth aesthetic through thoughtful design choices.