“I want to create spaces where memories are found and moments are created and nurtured—it’s the idea that home is a sacred place where we have cherished memories with our children,” she says. “I feel so passionate about the backdrop of these memories being happy, colorful, and memorable.”
“I wanted people to walk in and feel comfortable, like they could sit down or walk into the pantry to grab a snack.”
Krista Tanner, homeowner
It comes as no surprise, then, that the first interior she designed in Texas is bursting with cheerful shades of blue, pink, and white (three hues found often in her repertoire). Prints and pattern are used with abandon, creating joyfully enchanting spaces in the University Park house belonging to her childhood friend Krista Tanner, her husband, Dallas, and their five children.
That Caitlin would design the Tanners’ home is nothing short of fortuitous. As young girls living in the Bay Area, Caitlin and Krista crafted art projects together while their mothers played tennis. They reunited in college, and later, Caitlin introduced Krista to her husband. “We are family—we grew up in one another’s houses,” Krista says.
In 2015, the Tanners moved to University Park from Arizona into a new, 6,000-square-foot, two-story transitional by Booth Brothers Homes, which Krista found within a day alongside Realtor Allie Beth Allman. She loved the details, including 200-year-old beams from a Virginia tobacco farm, checkerboard floors in the mudroom, and an all-white kitchen with a waterfall marble island. “It has a big kitchen, which is what we needed,” Krista says. “We cook and bake a lot together as a family and spend so much time in the kitchen.”
It was spacious, but a little too modern—Krista was struggling to incorporate more classic furnishings. “I wanted people to walk in and feel comfortable, like they could sit down or walk into the pantry and grab a snack,” Krista says. “A gracious, warm space livable for the family; I wanted things my children could climb on and play on.”
Then came a visit in 2017 from Caitlin and her husband, Brigham. Not only did the Wilsons fall in love with the Park Cities, Caitlin agreed to design Krista’s home. Her interiors team typically handles house projects, but “I saw an opportunity for this amazing house, and it was a chance for me to help a friend,” Caitlin says.
Caitlin settled on a primarily blue palette and left the basics untouched, save for replacing light fixtures. She designed custom rugs, wallpapers, and fabrics—many of which she now sells in stores and in her online shop, such as her Peony Garden in French Blue wallpaper, a magical pattern for “a magical girl.” She created her Block Print in French Blue fabric solely for Krista’s kitchen draperies. “My style is classic and timeless, and I tried to use traditional pieces that have a twist, which is the way I combine patterns,” Caitlin says.
The playroom, meanwhile, is papered in floor-to-ceiling swaths of her Grande Stripe wallpaper; Penny’s room received twin canopy beds painstakingly covered in Schumacher blush stripe fabric; and Madeleine Counter Stools in French Blue line the kitchen bar. The home blends the Tanners’ new southern homestead with West Coast roots—an ideal setting for their family. “The other day, my 10-year-old announced that he says ‘y’all,’ now,” Krista says, and laughs. “We couldn’t be happier in this house.”
