Designer Opens Shop to Share Her Aesthetics
Interior designer Kristin Mullen has lived in and traveled to several design hubs throughout her life: Chicago, New York, Tokyo, and London, to name a few. But since 2005, she has set her roots in Dallas; most recently by opening her own home decor and accessories boutique, Curated by Kristin Mullen, in Snider Plaza.
Some may recognize the name from her interior design business Kristin Mullen Designs, formerly called Covetable Designs.
While Mullen enjoys making her clients’ visions come to life, the store provides the opportunity to reflect and share her personal taste with customers. “All my life experiences, plus the travel I’ve been fortunate enough to do, and the various places that I’ve lived really inform my design aesthetic,” Mullen said. That, and the fact that she has four kids and two dogs, she added. All these moving parts in her life have helped her develop her style and taste.
Mullen describes the items in her store as comfortable luxury. Upholstered seating combines a finer touch with practicality, she said.
She is also strongly influenced by nature. Faux bois (false wood) wallpaper and shell décor make clients feel more calm and comfortable, she said. “I would say I’m very clean-lined traditional in my aesthetic,” Mullen said. “I don’t like too much detail. Too elaborate, too frou-frou, doesn’t particularly appeal to me. The things that I’m drawn to tend to be more clean, have cleaner lines.”
As indicated in the name of the store, Mullen curates the shop herself, mostly from pieces she finds at antique stores and shows she visits on her travels. This means that as patrons browse her store, she can answer questions about most of the pieces’ histories. “If I’m at an antique show in the middle of nowhere, and [I] see what [I] believe to be the perfect piece …, now I don’t have to pass it up,” Mullen said. “I can get it for the shop, and if [a] client loves it as much as I do, they can have it. If not, it can join its friends here in the shop.”
Mullen only got into interior decorating about nine years ago. Before helping people turn their homes into masterpieces, Mullen had her own business designing table linens, and helped found an independent school. All the while she renovated multiple homes, helped friends – and the designing part stuck.
“It was sort of a natural thing for me to go into business,” Mullen said. Part of Mullen’s charm is that she loves to make her clients happy, she said. That and no two homes she design will ever look the same.
“I would say the best thing about my design is they reflect my clients personalities and tastes and likes much more than they reflect mine,” Mullen said. “So, if you walk into a home I designed, you’re really not going to know it’s me. It’s really important that when I finish a project, my clients feel their homes speak to and of them.”
Mullen compares her work to that of a ghostwriter’s. She’s just there to help her clients tell their stories through their décor.
“It’s a bit of a juggling act, but I’m finding my stride,” Mullen said.
