← Design & Staging
Riverside · Full buildout

Sunset Saloon

The Sunset Saloon backyard at dusk: a wooden deck with loungers under a fringed umbrella, a ping-pong table, and an outdoor movie screen on the fence
NeighborhoodRiverside
ScopeFull buildout
GuestsSleeps 8

The house had everything going for it. A pool, two lawns, a deck, a patio with an outdoor kitchen, and a location on the riverside a few minutes from downtown Austin. None of it was being used. The listing photographs showed a house that could have been anywhere, furnished with pieces that had arrived at different times for different reasons and never been asked to agree with each other.

We kept the bed frames. Everything else went.

The direction we took was modern western, which is a thing Austin does well and most rentals don't attempt. New paint throughout, wallpaper chosen room by room, and a full refurnish built around that idea rather than around filling space. The house now has a point of view, which is the thing a guest is actually choosing between when every listing on the page has the same square footage and a similar rate.

A gravel fire pit area built from nothing, an outdoor projector installed, proper lounging around the pool, and games in the yard. The deck, the pool and the outdoor kitchen now read as one place rather than three that nobody had connected. In Austin that matters more than almost anything indoors.

It was earning $50,000 a year when we took it on. It now earns $162,000.

The house
11 photographs
An entry console with a cowboy hat on a hook and a red "Howdy" sign above a mid-century wooden table
A dining table with rattan chairs under a woven pendant light, beside sliding doors to the garden
The living room after the redesign: a cognac leather sofa, a round white coffee table on a cowhide rug, and the dining area beyond
A bedroom with a white bed, a western horse print above the headboard and a ceiling fan
A bedroom with pink botanical wallpaper, a "Yeehaw" sign above the bed and a striped throw
A bedroom with a green tiled feature wall behind a wooden headboard and a rust-colored wall hanging
A bedroom with a sage green accent wall, a "Howdy" sign above the bed and a red striped rug
A cold plunge pool and stone steps at dusk under string lights, facing an outdoor screen showing a cowboy on horseback
Red Adirondack chairs around a fire pit on a white gravel circle, with string lights along the fence at dusk
An upright wooden piano beneath framed pink cowboy-boot and "Yee Haw" prints
The living room opening onto the dining area, with a potted cactus, a leather sofa and a woven pendant light
Next project
ArtHaus →
Design & Staging

Tell us about your house. We'll tell you what it could be.