Wild for Wood in Central Texas

Wild for Wood in Central Texas

When you cover a great deal of floor space with rich mesquite, you have to be especially careful when adding additional kinds of wood to the mix, lest you produce a ski-cabin nightmare. However, Mark Lind, a designer at CG&S Design-Build, obliterates any notion that a house can’t have a great deal of wood and still look good.

For the material palette in this four-bedroom Austin, Texas house, the designer smartly featured a mix of cherry, white oak and medium density fiberboard (MDF) — an engineered product made from wood pulp — and kicked up it with little openings of poured concrete and granite counter. The end result is a bold, wealthy, sophisticated style that’s warm and comfy yet triumphantly contemporary.

at a Glance
Who lives here: A family of 4
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: About 4,900 square feet; 4 bedrooms; 5 bathrooms

CG&S Design-Build

Mesquite, among the hardest woods in the world, is neighborhood in Texas and makes stunning, durable floors. The homeowners have a large dog, so strong floors were crucial. “Mesquite includes a whole lot of character,” says Lind. “There’s a beautiful glow. It is the first thing people notice when they enter this home.”

But it’s the staircase which prevents guests from their tracks. Steel measures are wrapped in mesquite boxes. The stair wall is constructed from MDF panels whose grain layout gives the impression of leather. “It is always great when you’re able to choose an inexpensive, almost industrial material and make it look expensive and exotic,” the designer says.

CG&S Design-Build

The stairs sit a steel I-beam that is patinated.

CG&S Design-Build

Farther back, a saltwater aquarium rests to a slab of attractively manicured concrete, surrounded by waterproof MDF panels. The front door, seen here in the background, is cedar.

CG&S Design-Build

A sizable custom-designed island topped with Black Galaxy gold-flaked granite controls attention in the kitchen. “It is about as large as we can make out of a single piece of stone,” says Lind. Because of its size, the designer wished to break up the materials, therefore he used MDF panels for cabinetry one side and cherry, the same material used for its wall cabinets, on the other. Steel shelves hanging from steel rods attached to the granite hold cookbooks.

Backsplash: Weave Series (Harvest), Walker Zanger; light: Jesco Lighting Group

CG&S Design-Build

A raised bar of poured concrete offsets the wood floors and black granite island shirt. However, this is not your normal concrete for making street curbs; this glass-fiber-reinforced version from Newbold Stone, who did all of the cement work, is easy to the touch. The wood panel beneath the bar is cherry with a burled design. The dining furniture is from Collectic Home.

CG&S Design-Build

Lind stripped the fireplace of its first painted brick and colonial-style mantel, including materials that correspond elsewhere in the home: patinated steel, black walnut and a poured concrete hearth that’s cantilevered out.

The TV cabinets follow the same approach, appearing to hover across the ground. The same cherry from the kitchen is used here, as are more stained MDF panels. A bank of backlit glass cabinets at the top nod to a nearby breakfast area that’s likewise detailed.

CG&S Design-Build

The fireplace is double sided, continuing around to the entry of a guest bedroom. The material linking it to the wall looks like stone but is actually glass tile.

CG&S Design-Build

Lind likes doing drop-off regions in homes. Here every family member has cubby holes for mail, keys, purses and more.

CG&S Design-Build

Another drop-off area leads the way to the master bedroom on the second floor. Here white oak cabinets produce a lighter contrast to the dark wood which dominates the first floor.

CG&S Design-Build

More black granite reigns supreme in the master bathroom. Here it is paired with more white oak cabinets.

Lighting: Prima Lighting

CG&S Design-Build

The homeowners wanted a bathtub “big enough to get a party in,” says Lind. The space is covered in Walker Zanger’s Xilo Smoke tile, which features fine multicolored lines. Interceramic’s colored glass tiles act as accents.

CG&S Design-Build

The outside of the home is local stone. Because the structure stays low on the property and was vulnerable to flooding, Lind needed to think of an innovative approach to keep out water.

CG&S Design-Build

His answer was to bring an arroyo, a deep, dry trench landscaped with river pebbles that channels water from the front part of the home to a creek out back.

In reaction to this arroyo, Lind created an ipe wood bridge using a steel cable railing that contributes to the front doorway. The nearby cantilevered shade trellises over the windows keep the western sun.

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