Houston interior designer Amy Kummer was thrilled to be asked to participate in the Hampton Designer Showhouse in the prestigious vacation community of Southampton, N.Y., even if she had just six weeks to plan and install her assignment: a child’s bedroom suite.
Kummer had participated in HGTV’s virtual holiday showhouse – she decorated her own dining room – where she was spotted by Hampton Showhouse marketing manager Tony Manning. The Hampton showhouse is under way now through Sept. 25, and raises money for the Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.
In most showhouses, designers are assigned a specific room and are allowed to do whatever they want as long as their room is ready at showtime. They pay for everything out of their own pocket in hopes a visitor or a homeowner will want to buy some of the goods, and have to leave the room in the same condition they found it. So if they install wallpaper for the run of the show, they have to strip it out when it’s over unless an owner wants to keep and pay for it.
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This particular home was for sale, and in the course of preparing the house, it sold to a family who happened to have a young daughter, loved Kummer’s room and decided to keep much of it.
The bedroom is filled with pink and blue, in a sophisticated way, so the room could just as easily be a beautiful – and, yes, feminine – guest bedroom. Kummer’s chinoiserie-pattern Scalamandre wallpapaper (Jardin de Chine in its Ciel colorway) in blue and white with some chartreuse accents is easy to love, and in a companion ceiling treatment she added trellis work painted Sherwin-Williams’ Smoky Salmon.
She soured mainly in the northeast to cut down on shipping costs, but sometimes had to purchase things at places who had items in stock or could turn them around in short order. Plenty of her usual vendors loaned or donated things, too.
The bedroom windows aren’t centered, so Kummer’s design trick was to use the same pattern for the wallpaper and window treatments so the lack of symmetry is less obvious.
Isobel’s Deco Strip pattern in Buttery Blue on Belgian linen – a pattern and color that mixes well with the wallpaper – was used on the bed’s headboard and to cover its platform base. Bedding came from the Houston-based Longoria Collection, topped with Jacquelyn Reese Linens’ monogrammed pillows.
Beautiful touches in the room include antique French glass opaline lamps on bedside chests made of burled wood. The bedroom’s en suite bathroom was refreshed with a Schumacher wallpaper in green with trim painted the same pink as the bedroom.
Plenty of Houstonians have vacation homes in the Hamptons or visit New York in the fall to see the change of seasons. If you’re not in that lucky group, there are several other design events happening in Houston and elsewhere in Texas, now through mid-November, so save a few spots on your calendar.
Here’s the fall design calendar:
Sept. 23-Oct. 23: The third annual Kips Bay Showhouse Dallas features Houston designer Lucinda Loya of Lucinda Loya Interiors. This showhouse is always full of ideas from the nation’s top designers, including Anthony Baratta, Leah Alexander of Beauty is Abundant and Chad Graci, who pull out all of the stops on every room. It’s definitely worth the drive to Dallas.
Oct. 10-14: The Houston Design District’s Fall Design Week has a busy schedule Oct. 10-14 with architecture and design speakers such as Ken Newberry, Lauren Rottet and Susanna Salk. Purchase your $150 full-week ticket before Oct. 7, when the price goes up to $200.
Oct. 14: The quarterly Access Design event – co-hosted by the Design District and the Houston Chronicle – will be the Friday programming for Design Week. Houston interior designer Veronica Solomon of Casa Vilora Interiors will discuss design changes during the pandemic and designer Joani Scaff of Paisley House will talk about designing vacation homes.
Oct. 15-16: The Norhill Historic District will hold its biannual Bungalow Home Tour in mid-October with six historic homes. The neighborhood of mostly Craftsman-style homes was developed in the 1920s and still holds its original feel.
Oct. 15-16: Eastwood’s annual Home Tour is a chance to see one of the largest groups of intact Craftsman, Arts & Crafts, American Foursquare and Mission style homes — the styles that were popular in 1911 and the decade that followed. Eastwood was developed by William A. Wilson, who also developed Woodland Heights.
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Oct. 22-23: Eight homes will fill out the AIA Houston Home Tour in late October. Tickets ($30 in advance) are available now on aiahouston.org. Work by Mcintyre + Robinowitz Architects, Albany Studio, Architangent, m+a architecture studio, studioMET, Mirador Group, CONTENT Architecture and Arc Three Studio are represented.
Oct. 24-29: Fayette and Washington counties burst with visitors each spring and fall for Texas Antiques Week. This fall’s event runs late October, with the two main events, the Original Round Top Antiques Fair running Oct. 24-29 and the Marburger Farm Antique Show running Oct. 25-29. The Compound will be open Oct. 15-29 and smaller venues and pop-up tents all along Texas 237 will open in mid-October. If you love shopping for antiques and vintage items – or even some good quality reproductions – plan on a day-long trip.
Nov. 5-6: Preservation Houston’s annual Good Brick Tour is always a treat. Each home is an architectural marvel and a history lesson all in one. The tour always offers a range, from sweet bungalows that have been lovingly restored to mansions built in some of the city’s earliest exclusive neighborhoods.
Nov. 10-13 and 17-20: ASID Texas Gulf Coast Chapter’s annual Showhouse will run two weekends, opening a new construction home in the West U area, fully decorated by some of Houston’s top interior design firms. This is a great opportunity to gather ideas for your next decorating, remodeling or new construction project.
The published article can be found here: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/home-design/article/Save-the-date-Design-events-fill-the-fall