Fabric House: Entrancing Textiles

A selection of luminous silk velvets

Name:                      Fabric House

Owner:                     Connie LeFevre

Neighborhood:          Houston Design District

Address:                   7026 Old Katy Rd. Ste 159

                               Houston, TX 77024

Website:                  FabricHouseTX.com

Price Range:             $$-$$$$

Samples of Animal-Print Velvet.

What You’ll Find:     

More than just fabric, FabricHouse carries wallpapers, trims, and drapery hardware. Large swathes of fabric hang from the display racks, so you can see how that embroidered silk would drape if used for curtains in your living room. FabricHouse carries just about every fabric you could want, everything from traditional stripes and velvets to avant-garde digitally printed textiles, Ralph Lauren to Romo. The wallpaper section houses pattern books from the likes of Versace, Raymond Waites, Sanderson, and York.

Wallpaper & Fabric Samples (clockwise from top left: Thibaut by Anna French,
Natural Resource Collection, Parkland in Yellow; JFFabrics Antiquity, Style 5261 99;
  Groundworks, David Hicks by Ashley Hicks, La Fiorentina in Berry;
Versace Home, 962405 in Beige, Green & Metallic; Wind Fabrics Tramontana 0 in Red/Bordeaux)

Why You Should Go:

Three-foot diameter cabbage roses bloom against a black background, courtesy of JFFabrics’ Antiquity line of wallpapers. Hunt Slonem’s rabbit wallpapers greet you from their hanging racks. Hand-painted papers in colors of gold, silver, copper, and carbon beckon you to touch them.

Wind – a fabric line from Belgium – features all things Belgian without becoming a moody gray knock-off of Axel Vervoordt. The line heavily features linens, but these aren’t your boring beige linen: oversized spring green gingham complements a modern, painterly paisley in pink, orange, and sky blue on a background of navy linen.

Ralph Lauren’s Cornelius Velvet defies convention with its almost neon oranges and reds. A group of velvet animal prints hangs near the wallpaper library: five different cheetah prints! Five leopards! Not to mention the tiger-stripes in a range of golden to ivory colorways!

The shop overflows with gorgeous fabrics, beautiful wallpapers, trims & drapery hardware. Definitely take some time to visit FabricHouse: it’s like a candy shop for interior designers & design enthusiasts.

JFFabrics Antiquity Collection

Wind Fabrics (Clockwise from Top: Wind Fabrics, Pasha 1 in Blue;
  Barbados 11 in Pink/Purple; Amazone 3 in Green; Pagode 16 in Orange)

Hunt Slonem for Groundworks Wallpapers
(Clockwise from Top Right: Bunny Wall Small in Red;
Bunny Wall in Black; Bunny Wall Small in Ivory;
Finches in Multi/Gold; Finches in Multi/Ivory;
Bunny Wall Small in Black; Bunny Wall in Ivory;
Bunny Wall Small in Blue)

Ralph Lauren Cornelius Velvet in Madder Red

DesignHouse - More Than You Can Imagine!

Acrylic Klismos Chair 

Name:                     Design House

Owner:                    Connie LeFevre

Neighborhood:          Houston Design Center

Address:                   7026 Old Katy Road

                              Suite 155

                              Houston, TX 77024

                                   

Website:                 DesignHouseTX.com

Price Range:             $$-$$$$

What You’ll Find:     

A dazzling array of products for every room of your home, including outdoor rooms. DesignHouse is both a showroom and a design firm, so they can help you design your home and source the pieces you need to bring your design scheme to life. The showroom offers multiple price points, and carries everything from Sherill furniture – with one of each chair type so you can test how they “sit”! – to mineral specimens. Along with a wide array of performance fabrics (i.e. Perennials & Sunbrella), DesignHouse offers NanoTex textile coatings to make that stunning chenille kid-proof. DesignHouse offers custom bedding, multiple custom carpet manufacturers and an array of art, both decorative and collector-quality.

DesignHouse has existed as a design firm for over 35 years, with a showroom since 2002. The staff can act as extension of your professional design team and offers special consideration for design professionals.

 

Vignette of blue & white pottery and settee upholstered in blue striped ivory linen

Why You Should Go:

Niermann Weeks chandeliers glisten overhead, along with one-of-a-kind fixtures, like 19^th C. Spanish lanterns, retrofitted for your foyer. For high-rise dwellers, DesignHouse offers realistic faux boxwood hedges and other plants, so you don’t have to water them or worry about wind damage. You can buy weather resistant lamps and paintings for your outdoor living room, and the weatherproof furniture they rest on.

There’s a Hall of Mirrors (okay, it’s a Conference Room of Mirrors) to give you an idea of the styles available for order. And to top it all off, owner Connie makes occasional buying trips to Europe to stock up on the antiques scattered around the showroom. (Don’t forget to go upstairs!) Plan to have a long time to browse: we had to make four rounds through the showroom before we really saw everything.

Plan to take your time as you explore DesignHouse, or spread the visits out over a couple of days, because a trip to Design House is an overwhelmingly beautiful experience.

Collection of early 20th C. hat forms

Rattan & linen upholstered chair