Falling in love with a house can feel a bit like being cast under a spell. One Dallas family experienced such enchantment when photos of this abode popped up in the wife’s inbox. The couple had no intention of moving their young children from the home they had recently completed with interior designer Kara Adam. But once they saw its double-height foyer, they simply couldn’t resist. “You’re greeted by a Cinderella spiral staircase,” the wife describes. “I immediately knew it was going to be difficult to walk away. It gave me that ‘feeling.’ ”
News of their move surprised Adam, but she became equally enamored. Architecturally, “The house was in such great shape,” the designer says, pointing to the formal living and dining areas and family room, where light pours in through vast arched windows. With no major structural changes needed, she focused on tailoring the interior design to the owners, leaning into the romantic verve that so captured their imagination. Adam and her project assistant, Ashley Ifert, added colorful, feminine touches, using the dining room’s existing blossom wallpaper as a jumping off point. “I said, ‘Let’s lighten things up,’ and began layering in textures and patterns,” she notes. Most of the walls and kitchen cabinetry received a coat of fresh white paint. And, like brushstrokes on a canvas, lively prints and flushes of color appear throughout.
Some spaces remained restrained in their palette, including the serene primary bedroom cushioned in creamy comfort with an upholstered bed and wool carpeting. Others go deeper, such as the library with an atmospheric blue shade on its walls and bookshelves. The formal living room leans into the soft, dreamy tones of a Claude Monet garden, grounded by cool green walls and twin velvet loveseats—not to mention floral notes from the lilac linen armchairs and a tufted pink leather ottoman. The rugs and draperies share similar intersecting lines. “I love patterns in relation to each other,” Adam adds. Yet, in a surprising move, she paired the dining room’s flowering walls with a bold zebra-print rug.
More wallpaper choices create varying moods within the home, from the hand-painted pink-and-indigo design in the powder room to the abstract lavender swirls in the daughter’s bathroom. For a bar area adjacent to the dining room, “We wanted a moody jewel box,” says Adam, who cocooned it in a dark geometric pattern with chocolate-gray lacquer on the ceiling and cabinetry. Cubist wallpaper brings a contemporary counterpoint to the breakfast nook framed by grand arched windows. Against the more formal architectural elements, the modern print “feels chic and cool,” the designer explains. “I love mixing a little bit of contemporary into a traditional setting to add interest.”
A similar push and pull guided the furnishings, which contrast genres in silhouettes and materials. In the same breakfast nook, a lantern pendant lights a classic Eero Saarinen dining table and cane Marcel Breuer seats. Meanwhile, the family room features two sculptural armchairs and an old-fashioned English roll-arm sofa upholstered in a friendly plaid—a charming yet practical choice for everyday use. “Patterns are your friend when you have small children,” the designer says with a knowing smile. Against the more traditional architecture, graphic-leaning paintings by artists like Ethan Cook, Rachel Perry and Alex Kwartler—acquired with guidance from art advisor Lynsey Provost—feel “fun and contemporary,” the wife explains.
Rear doors open onto a backyard pool area crawling with ivy and covered by a canopy of mature magnolia trees, alongside a trickling lion-head fountain. Here, Adam cultivated outdoor gathering spaces with dining and seating arrangements, and poolside chaise lounges from which the parents can watch their children swim. The choice of crisp white for the sculptural concrete tables and wicker-style chairs stands out against the lush greenery. “They love to entertain outside,” Adam explains. “So we wanted areas where everyone has a spot, no matter if it’s for an intimate conversation or a larger group.”
Inside and out, the spaces are imbued with a little extra magic: whether it’s everyday moments with the children doing homework in the breakfast nook, or the holidays with family draping garland along the fairy-tale staircase that forever rerouted this couple’s life. “When you put your stamp on a house, it really feels like home—and you can create those memories forever,” the wife muses.
