“This beautiful home is located in Northwest Hills, Austin where houses are built into the hilly landscape,” interior designer Jill Bradshaw tells us. “I love this area most of all because of how peaceful it is. Every time I came for a meeting, I would see deer grazing or taking a walk. I loved it.”
Her clients are a married couple with a shared love of Mexican culture and contemporary art. “The wife has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from UT Austin as well as having studied archaeology at UCLA,” Jill recalls. “She spent a few years doing ethnographic research in Central Mexico and also contributed to archaeological digs in Peru where she studied art and ceramics. She’s been collecting Mexican folk art since she was a teenager and has worked with museum collections. It was important to me to honor this connection throughout the design.”
For the first stage of the project, the focus remained on the first floor—the formal living room, dining room, and home office. “Work for these rooms included a new floor plan, new furniture, painting of walls, removal of a barn door and installation of pocket doors as well as custom pieces that I designed,” the designer shares. “They had some beautiful antique furniture in the dining room that we wanted to keep but otherwise we started fresh.”
The living room proved challenging due to its entry points and overall length, so finding a flow was key to maximizing the space. “My favorite detail is the soft velvet sofa in muted blue against the more earthy moss rug from Armadillo—such a good color and textural contrast,” Jill reflects. “I’m also very privy to the pink linen curtains on the cabinet which is a modern update on the sink skirt. And I can’t forget the contrasted trim color on the entryway! We added some corbels and painted the trim in Farrow & Ball’s Churlish Green. It added just the right touch.”
In the dining room, the couple had some beautiful antique furniture pieces. “But they were dark and felt very heavy in tone so I wanted to lift the space up with some color,” Jill admits. “Going back to my client’s love of Mexico, I was inspired by their use of the color pink. I couldn’t find the right pink, so I mixed up a custom color using Benjamin Moore Tuscany + Adobe to get the exact color I dreamed of. I love pink walls—especially against wood!”
To break up the dark table, she added a striped tablecloth from Heather Taylor’s collection with Domino. “I enjoy mixing colors together that are unexpected, and I feel like everything works really well in here,” she says. “Another detail I love is hanging plates on the wall. Here, we sourced mainly vintage plates off Etsy, with the exception of one from Malaika.”
The office is enveloped in Sea Star by Benjamin Moore, with a bold mix of artwork. “I sourced a mélange of vintage folk art paintings to occupy the wall space which balances out the modernity of the custom desk/daybed,” she explains. “We will probably continue to add more paintings to the wall as we find them. A room is never finished!”
She relied on a lot of custom pieces to bring the project to completion. “The custom pieces in this home are some of my favorite things I’ve designed to date,” she tells us—listing the low cabinet in the living room, the sofa, the desk-meets-daybed, and a few other case goods. It’s a great reflection of her own aesthetic. “My style in general is a juxtaposition of old and new, antique and modern, a mixing of styles throughout the years,” Jill says. “I never want something to feel too perfect. You may find a modern piece of furniture, but it’s complemented by the eclectic objects it’s styled with.”
Take a tour in the slideshow.
