No boring beige or timid taupe for Maryam Salassi, a Dallas mother, blogger and co-owner of Pouf Salon, which specializes in blow-outs. When she and her husband Jacob bought their 1,600-square-foot ranch-style home near White Rock Lake five years ago, Maryam set about infusing the space with saturated shades, interesting artwork and whimsical objects that reflect her personal style.
“My husband and I don’t always see eye to eye on color in particular, so it’s taken us quite a while to redo the place,” says 30-year-old Maryam, who intends to make 2014 the year for tackling the master suite. “Whatever we wind up doing in our bedroom, we need the wall color to offset all of the vintage paint-by-numbers paintings I’ve been collecting for the last three or four years.” Maryam scours sites like eBay, Etsy and fab.com for scenes depicting lighthouses or the ocean. “I love the stylized look and the distinct lines between the color.”
An array of artwork dominates the Salassi home, which the couple shares with Margaux, who turns 3 in June. Before the May 2013 opening of blow-out bar Pouf and before giving birth to her daughter, Maryam taught art at the elementary level in the DISD; she earned her degree in fine arts from the University of Texas at Arlington, where she met Jacob, an IT guru who works out of their home. Maryam’s own photography adorns almost every room of her three-bedroom, two-bathroom residence in Casa Linda Estates.
“I prefer to frame photos in black with white mats,” she explains. “It lets your eye focus on the artwork.”
Margaux’s lettuce-green room boasts a gallery wall showcasing treasures like a photo of a lighthouse her mother took on a family vacation to Oregon and Alice in Wonderland prints done on vintage book pages by Black Baroque, another Etsy find. Maryam, who grew up in Guam, fashioned an origami crane mobile and hung colorful paper lanterns (decorations from Margaux’s baby shower) from the ceiling. A talented seamstress, Maryam also created much of her daughter’s bedding as well as the “Margaux” fabric letters adorning one wall (for a tutorial, visit her blog at hiandhelloblog.com).
The living room with its sunny yellow walls also serves as a favorite venue for the family of three. “My uncle’s house in Belgium has buttery yellow walls, and I wanted to do something similar,” Maryam says. “But we needed ours a little brighter, because we get so little light from outside. When we painted it from the boring neutral color that was there to the yellow, it felt like the rooms doubled in size.”
A simple gray couch anchors the space while the vibrant artwork on one wall lures the eye from the entertainment center. The yellow walls continue into the adjacent hallway and dining room, where a vintage Heywood-Wakefield table-and-chair set dominates. Margaux often paints and creates projects while seated there.
As a nod to her husband’s more minimalistic inclinations, Maryam decided to keep the walls of the kitchen and den a clean white. Ceramic flooring runs through the kitchen, while the home’s original narrow-plank, maple-stained wood warms the den that doubles as Maryam’s office. She created a reading nook for her daughter in the space, complete with a bright blue chair.
In advance of their daughter’s first birthday party, Maryam and Jacob turned their attention to the backyard, designing a gravel walkway around the perimeter then adding a seating area in a corner. The $600 investment in gravel accounted for nearly half the price tag, as the Salassis cleverly turned existing bricks into edging and leftover fence planks into planters. They nestled existing step stones into the gravel to make a path.
“We often barbecue outside for friends and family,” says Maryam, who relishes the chance to entertain in the shade of a massive live oak tree. “It’s so beautiful out here, it’s hard to believe you’re actually in a city.”
Published February 2014
