A boho-Scandinavian fusion weaves through the story of interior designer Christine Turknett's townhome in Austin's hot neighborhood
Christine Turknett excitedly scurries around her downstairs living space, her words running so fast it takes a moment to catch up. She’s not in a hurry, but it’s plainly obvious that she’s excited—excited because she genuinely enjoys telling the story behind every object she has purposefully placed in the room; excited because this is more than just an interior design project for her, it’s what inspired her to finally launch her interior design business; excited because there’s nothing that brings her more joy than thinking about the design decisions she makes in any home, but especially this home, her own.
“That’s actually one of the first things I ever bought,” she says pointing to a flower vase from Anthropologie. “I do love tchotchkes.”
She and her husband, Rob, moved into the home in July 2015—their first real estate purchase together, a row home in Austin’s Mueller neighborhood. The house is one of eight Tilley Row Homes on this particular block designed by renowned Austin architect Michael Hsu—featuring some of the only modern facades in Mueller—and its features are inspired by the brownstones of the Northeast with a modern Texas twist.
The story of Mueller, in fact, is the story of New Urbanism. The neighborhood is a creative catalyst of modern architecture—a master-planned community built with sustainability and walkability in mind—and it’s the largest neighborhood in the world to achieve LEED gold certification. The Turknetts’ home was prewired for solar power, but they say they don’t need it; thick walls with insulation and carefully considered glazing makes their energy bill almost obsolete.
The couple was immediately drawn to this type of neighborhood—in fact, Rob, a software developer, saw the appeal early on when he studied the plans for Mueller in graduate school at the University of Texas. One of the architects influencing the 700-acre former airport, Hsu drew up modern renderings that helped seal the deal for the Turknetts’ first home purchase together. (It didn’t hurt that Hsu’s architecture portfolio includes La Condesa and Uchiko, Christine’s favorite restaurants.)
“I think people are drawn to these townhomes because they remind us of our collective memory of a charming house shape,” Hsu says. “Simple, cozy, clean, welcoming, ready to be lived in.” But for all their sameness on the outside, there’s quite a bit of variety once you step inside—especially after Turknett gave hers a personal touch.
At 1,800 square feet, the three-bedroom home is purposefully designed at every turn. The first personalized architectural detail one notices is tongue-and-groove wood plank walls in the entryway. Doors to a powder room and storage closets are hidden in the walls, which instill a distinctly “modern farmhouse” charm. To warm up the modern aesthetic, the couple opted to install wide-planked wood flooring instead of the concrete their neighbors all chose for their downstairs living spaces. The flooring is made of a local hickory pecan with a matte finish, the same variety that can be found in Hsu’s architecture office, and it’s just rustic enough to make their modern furnishing pop.
Like many designers, Turknett eyed her home as a laboratory of sorts. She experimented by blending her desire for a clean Scandinavian look with the bold, bohemian, free-spirited aesthetic her husband admires, exemplified by rattan chairs, Serena & Lily chevron wallpaper, hanging air plants and a few tribal prints. “I wanted to thread that through for him,” she recalls. “It’s very important for me to collaborate.”
The centerpiece of the home—at the actual center of the downstairs—is a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. It’s painted in Sherwin-Williams’ Georgian Bay blue, a color that stands out among the Scandinavian-inspired white and gray walls and seamlessly connects the open space by matching the living room’s wallpaper. Unlike the majority of bookshelves one encounters in interior design portfolios, this shelf is filled with objects the Turknetts have carried with them for years: textbooks. “I was in a Ph.D. program for six years, and he was in a graduate architecture program for almost four years,” Turknett says. “So between the two of us, we legitimately read the majority of these books.”
Upstairs, Rob’s home office exudes character with his musical instruments proudly on display, including a vintage Wurlitzer electric piano. You can often find him playing in his office on weekends or during lunch breaks. “One of the things he says all the time is, ‘I’m so glad I get to work from home, because it’s so nice to be around,’” Christine says.
In the master bedroom, Turknett is quick to point out two art prints from Austrian painter Egon Schiele—best known for his provocative naked self-portraits. “I bought them when I was a senior in high school, and I just pinned them on the wall with a thumbtack,” she says. “I have carried these things with me for the last 12 years.” Not many can say that about their teenage bedroom. Now, she’s upgraded the framing to simple wood poster rails.
Despite a sliding barn door—a nod to the “modern farmhouse” appeal of the entryway downstairs—the master bedroom feels decidedly more midcentury than the rest of the home. “It’s a genre I really love,” Turknett says. “I didn’t want to mix too many [styles] downstairs since it was open concept.” Most notably, a midcentury dresser stands at the head of the room; Austin-based Vintage Fresh Design refinished the piece’s original wood with gleaming white accents and restored the original pulls. Meanwhile, the en suite master bathroom takes a page out of a European playbook with marble and complementary brass fixtures, though dark gray hex tile ties the space to the modernism of the rest of the home.
Diving headfirst into thoughtfully decorating the home was the inspiration Turknett needed to make a career switch. While spending a decade studying English and literature at UT and the University of Pennsylvania, her college textbooks felt “intellectually rigorous,” she recalls. Design was always an outlet for her. “It never felt like work at the time; it always felt like a realm of happiness.” She senses style and trends in her bones. “In graduate school while she was getting her Ph.D., she was writing a fashion and design blog,” Rob recalls. “And I was like, ‘Wow, this is really a lot of work, and it’s really good, and you’re just doing this for fun… You can probably do this professionally.’”
The idea finally lurched forward into an interior design business when she began taking on clients in 2016. Turknett is even working on a redesign for their neighbors a few doors down. (In the spirit of New Urbanism, these Mueller row homes were intentionally built close together to encourage neighbors to get to know one another, and in this case, it has worked.) While their homes’ layouts are generally identical, they feel distinctly unique in the objects they carry. For her neighbors, Turknett is pairing two typically opposing styles at the homeowners’ request: minimal modernism with tribal accents. “Typically a paradoxical description,” she says, “but it’s really important to me that she gets what she wants.” Turknett replaced her clients’ colonial furniture, for example, with custom white Barcelona chairs.
“For me, rooms tell stories,” she says, returning to her open-concept living room, where the rows of neatly organized textbooks take center stage on the bookshelf. It’s easy to understand why these books were so important to her own home’s decor—they represent not only her occupational transition but also speak volumes about her design technique. “Sometimes I feel like I’m a storyteller,” she says. “I’m crafting a narrative with objects rather than words.”
Original article and pictures take www.austinmonthly.com site
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