Photo by Yuvie Styles
Photography courtesy of Justin Rasco | Mustard Seed Media Productions
Photography courtesy of Justin Rasco | Mustard Seed Media Productions
Photography courtesy of Justin Rasco | Mustard Seed Media Productions
Photography courtesy of Justin Rasco | Mustard Seed Media Productions
Photography courtesy of Justin Rasco | Mustard Seed Media Productions
Brittany Lyons’ job as an interior designer originally began as a side hustle, but now, she’s turning ’80s-style homes into full-on contemporaries and creating astonishing transformations.
The 35-year-old Oak Cliff resident quit her job in September 2020 to focus on the design career she never intended to have.
Her first commission came in 2015 after she moved into her first place, fixed it up the way she wanted and posted pictures to Instagram. A friend from high school saw it and asked her to make over her house, and that began a steady stream of clients gained through word-of-mouth.
Lyons and her husband moved to Dallas in 2016, and she used social media to market herself here.
She works on everything from massive suburban homes to in-town apartments.
An article previously published in the Oak Cliff Advocate led to Lyons booking her biggest project of 2024 in Kessler Place. The 2,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath home was in desperate need of a makeover for an owner who wanted to be able to enjoy her home in retirement.
“It was a complete overhaul,” Lyons says. “We completely renovated the house. We gutted it out. We moved walls. She went from a three-bedroom, two-bath to a two-bedroom, two-bath, but we did a very large primary suite.”
Bedrooms were combined, with one becoming a closet, and entryways were changed and created.
The kitchen was updated with all new appliances and flooring, and a laundry room and pantry were created.
It was a complete transformation of the home.
“We did the reveal, and she had family and friends come,” Lyons says. “Normally, it’s just me and the clients, but she had all these people come, and they were like, ‘This is not the same house.’ We do renderings and design boards and samples and all that. It looks good there, but actually seeing it and being in it, living in it, it really kind of makes it surreal.”
She described the home before as being ’80s style and outdated. The goal was to create a more functional home with a contemporary design.
The biggest change was the custom cabinetry work in the home due to a lack of storage.
“Any time I go into a client’s house, I always tell them, ‘Don’t feel the need to clean up and have your house be spotless, because I need to be able to see the pain points,’” Lyons says. “So if you have shoes collecting at the door, I need to be able to see that, because you need something for that. Or, if you aren’t able to put your pots and pans and plates away, or your kids are doing homework at the kitchen table. I need to be able to see all of that so I can help you with the issues. And so there was a huge storage issue in the home, and we brought in tons of cabinetry to be able to combat that.”
One bedroom features touches of pink, and the bedroom that was turned into a closet features tons of shelving and space for clothes.
“Everything definitely looks different, and it’s pretty but also functional,” Lyons says. “If you can have a beautiful space, but if it doesn’t work the way that you need it to work, what’s the point?”
The home was also updated with retextured walls, which were originally outdated crow’s feet texture, and the flooring was redone.
They also turned an old garage space that was being used as storage into a livable space.
“So we enclosed (the garage space), we moved the entry farther down to the end of that space and we created a laundry room, mud room and a pantry there,” Lyons says.
Working on such a large project has many moving parts. Scheduling with the plumber, the electrician and the painter, getting permits and having inspectors come out — a lot of coordination goes into any project.
“As we’re moving along the project, there’s always some sort of issue that arises,” Lyons says. “We get it fixed, then we move on. And it can be a slow process. Like I always tell clients, it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint.”
One of the most rewarding parts of Lyons’ job, she says, is the final reveal.
“Seeing demo day, having everything be cleared out and then bringing them in at the end for that final reveal is always very nice,” Lyons says. “That makes all the hard work worth it.”
