At House Beautiful’s Whole Home 2025 showhouse in Austin, design is more than aesthetics—it’s emotion translated into form. This year’s home, created in partnership with Sherwin-Williams, celebrates how intentional color and material choices can transform everyday spaces into experiences of sentiment and story. The powerhouse team of designers tasked with this project was made up of eight women, reimagining what it means to gather, rest, and reconnect—each using color as language to express identity, culture, and feeling.

Designer Sara Malek Barney of BANDD/DESIGN—who led the overall design development of the home, including the kitchen, all bathrooms, laundry room, mudroom, front porch, and entry—describes the property as “the ultimate modern treehouse,” shaped by its setting among heritage oak trees. “I really wanted the space to feel like a blend with the nature surrounding the home,” she says.

Within a home designed for entertaining, several designers chose to balance that energy with moments of calm—rooms that invite pause, reflection, and presence. That sense of harmony was foundational to Sara’s approach as well. “Every space is meant to both have its own personality, but play nicely amongst the other rooms around it,” she explains. “There were several considerations for softer curves, which naturally lend themselves to more movement around the space.”

For her main-floor flex space, designer Amber Guyton of Blessed Little Bungalow created what she calls the “Pause Parlor”: a multi-purpose creative retreat inspired by Austin’s artistic spirit. “When people walked in, I wanted them to feel a transformative experience—escaping the noise and entering a tranquil space of song and solitude,” she says.

Rooted in the warmth of Texas sunlight and Austin’s notorious “stay weird” authenticity, Amber’s palette draws inspiration directly from the well-known song “Texas Sun” by Khruangbin and Leon Bridges, both Texas natives. Walls in Dark Night SW 6237 (222-C7) and a ceiling in Henna Shade SW 6326 (114-C5) envelop visitors in color that feels at once moody and radiant. “When I think of Texas, I think of heat—but also of how enjoyable the sunshine is 365 days a year,” she says. “Austin gives you a sense of freedom, where anything is possible if you’re willing to be authentically you.”

Art, pattern, and texture layer throughout—proof that maximalism can still be meditative. “It’s the perfect multi-purpose room to free your mind,” Amber adds. “Good design should feel like that.”

Across the hall, Amber Lewis of Amber Interiors translated calm hues and grounding textures into an overall sense of thoughtful respite. What began as a home gym became her “Lady Loft”—a space to sip a cocktail, read a book, or linger in conversation. “I wanted it to be an escape,” Amber says. “Somewhere you could relax, have a drink with friends, read, or just exhale.”

She layered tonal greens and tactile finishes to achieve what she calls an “elevated, layered, lived-in look.” Grassland SW 6163 (212-C2) pairs with grasscloth walls and natural fibers to ground the space. “There wasn’t one hue or material that set the tone,” she explains. “The combination of color and texture created that calm, lived-in feel I always chase.”

For others, storytelling itself became the design directive, serving as proof that color and material can hold narrative weight, not just visual appeal. Sara’s design story also began with color—specifically, with the exterior of the house. “The initial inspiration for the color palette came from the exterior material selections,” she says. “A deep gray stucco paired with moody black shou sugi ban siding. I wanted the home to blend in amongst the nature and not fight against it.” From there, deep greens, blues, and purples came forward as anchoring hues throughout the interiors.

Kathy Kuo of Kathy Kuo Home envisioned her primary suite as a story brought to life. “The design is anchored by a fictional muse, Rupert Penhaligon, an explorer and collector of curiosities,” she says. “Rupert is a wanderer guided by curiosity and a deep reverence for the natural world. His constant companion is his sheep, Seamus, and together they have traversed landscapes near and far, gathering beloved artifacts along the way.”

The result is an immersive sanctuary layered in organic texture, vintage patina, and moody greens that speak of memories of a well-traveled life, restoration in the present, and dreams of future journeys. “I knew I wanted a hue rooted in nature—something organic, timeless, and inherently calming,” she explains. “Green quickly emerged as the obvious choice; it embodies renewal, balance, and serenity. From there, we gravitated toward a moody, nostalgic palette from Sherwin-Williams that evokes the feeling of a bygone era, layered with depth and memory. It was less about choosing a paint color and more about capturing an emotion—a sense of quiet beauty that feels both familiar and enduring.”

Designing remotely presented challenges, like re-working design on the fly—but Kathy’s team delivered a space that feels effortless. The canopy bed anchors the narrative: a cocoon of safety where reflection and imagination meet. “To me, great design isn’t about perfection or extravagance—it’s about transformation,” she says. “It’s the idea that you can create something magical from almost nothing, that beauty can emerge from thoughtfulness, curiosity, and care. And ultimately, great design makes you feel something. It lingers with you—you think about the textures, the light, the details, and how it all made you feel.”

If Kathy’s room is an imaginative whisper of adventures past, Kim Lewis’ (Kim Lewis Designs) living and dining areas are a confident chord—an homage to feminine strength expressed through color, memory, and fashion. “Our vision was centered around storytelling and honoring the narrative of the strong women in our lives,” she explains. “I wanted people to feel a bit sexy, sophisticated, while still being approachable and classic.”

Her concept was deeply personal. “I had just lost my aunt when we started the design process for this project,” Kim shares. “My aunt was the person who guided me after my mom passed when I was 10, so in many ways I wanted this space to honor those that have raised us.”

That emotional foundation translated into a tactile palette: masculine patterns tempered by a feminine color story. A chartreuse sofa, burgundy and rust rug, and plaid-upholstered chrome chairs infuse life into white walls that link the open plan. Mid-century icons—a 1930s radio, a 1960s Italian leather sofa, and stacked vintage House Beautifuls—connect past and present.

“At our studio, we are huge Sherwin-Williams fans,” Kim says. “Our brand is very color-centric—we believe in the psychology of color and the emotion it alone can bring to any space. For this project, we stayed more neutral on the walls but saturated the furniture with color.”

For her, collaboration on this project was both practical and poetic, and she describes it as “fate” that the Whole Home team was all women. “Collaboration is always the best way to create—it’s actually the only way.”

Sara echoes that sentiment, describing the entire process as unexpectedly energizing. “I’ve never designed alongside other designers like this before, so I didn’t know what to expect—but it was such a fun, collaborative process,” she says. “It was incredibly exciting to watch each space come to life and to see how the other women interpreted their rooms.”

Together, these rooms form a dialogue about what design can do—and who it’s for. Each speaks in its own dialect of color: Amber Guyton’s musical warmth, Amber Lewis’ tonal serenity, Kathy’s nostalgic green calm, and Kim’s expressive vibrancy, all woven seamlessly into the overarching palette and flow shaped by Sara’s nature-rooted design vision.

“Every element—whether it comes from an antique shop, a beloved supplier, a craftsman, or a builder—plays a part in creating something larger than itself,” Kathy reflects. “When these pieces come together with intention, they form a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, where the sum is so much greater than the parts.”

In Whole Home 2025, Sherwin-Williams color becomes the connective thread between these perspectives—tying together culture, emotion, and craft. The result is more than a showhouse; it’s a study in how designers translate story into space and feeling into form. Every hue in this inspired space reminds us why we design in the first place: to create places that reflect who we are, where we’ve been, and how we want to feel.

Sherwin-Williams is proud to partner with the visionaries behind House Beautiful’s Whole Home 2025. Order complimentary large-sized samples of the full palette of hues these designers selected, using your PRO+ account.

Top image: Roycroft Bronze Green SW 2846 (Historic) in Satin. Design by Sara Malek Barney. All photos by Andrea Calo. Styling by Lucy Bamman.