Designer Marie Flanigan tests her own products in Heights home

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James Dawson Inc. made the brass-fronted upper cabinets for the bar.

The space originally intended as a closet for Joe was turned into a small, masculine office with textured wallpaper and saturated color.

Marie Flanigan softly rubs the chiseled edge of the marble that tops the lengthy island in her Heights home and points out that this was a new thing for her, sculpting an edge that feels a little rough and fluted.

"I treated this house like a test kitchen," said the 42-year-old Flanigan, who founded her Marie Flanigan Interiors design firm in 2009 and now designs beautiful homes and structures all over the country. "I wanted to see how that edge would work in a house. I wanted to live with these things to better understand how they live. I have a medium to large family, so we use these things. We live in our home."

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Flanigan's household consists of her and her 43-year-old husband Joe — they recently celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary — and their three childre:, 9-year-old John, 6-year-old William and 4-year-old Eve. Their newest addition is a Bernedoodle puppy that the kids have been wanting.

Joe, a home builder before he shifted to his current job as an asset manager with Worthwhile Capital Management, worked closely with Cronin Builders, who they hired to build the home. Similarly, Flanigan, who has a degree in architecture, drew out her dream house, then handed her work over to architect Kelly Cusimano to "make it better and make it build-able," she said.

The Flanigans had lived just a couple of streets away for a decade, in a house they built before they even had kids. So planning for this new house was something they were fully prepared for. They knew how that home served them as a couple and they also understood its failings — not enough square footage and a tiny yard — for three young children.

They'd bought the lot six or seven years ago, unsure of whether they'd keep it to build on or sell it to someone else. Ultimately, they sold the house that was on the site and built a new, 4,236-square foot home, nearly doubling the 2,300-square-feet they had earlier.

Not only is it a "test kitchen" to try new ideas, it's also a place that Flanigan can live with products she designed for Annie Selke and Visual Comfort. Her Visual Comfort chandeliers, pendants and sconces are found throughout, as are the rugs, bedding and towels she designed for Annie Selke.

"I have rugs with Annie Selke, and I wanted to understand the wear. Part of the design was around durability and they’re very textural, I do a lot of high-low patterns in my products. We have kids so I wanted something that felt very comfortable ... and soft underfoot," she said.

She's drawn to natural materials, so it's full of marble and limestone, brass hardware and plumbing and luxurious wood finishes in a variety of places.

For starters, the home's exterior is covered in reclaimed brick, a mix of reds and browns from light to dark, curated by South Texas Brick. Some bear the "Houston" stamp from an old Houston brick-making company.

At the front of the house is a home office, though neither Marie nor Joe use it for their own work. There's a puzzle in progress on the desktop and their boys often do homework here, too.

Early during construction they walked through the site and felt like this room was going to be really special, so why close it off? They virtually lost a full wall, so the space is completely open to the living room.

Its front and side walls have floor to ceiling windows, the sunshine muted as needed with automated Hartmann and Forbes natural fiber shades and a smidgeon of draperies that frame each end.

The inside wall is covered in quarter-sawn oak in a natural color and cabinets and shelving are made of the same materials.

Also at the front of the home is the dining room, a tidy space made special with Venetian plaster by Segreto Finishes and a barrel vaulted ceiling, plus a wall covered in a Gracie wallpaper mural that disguises hidden shelves behind it. Each panel is actually a secret door that pops open to reveal a place to store place settings and wine glasses.

Beautiful marble was chosen for the kitchen and a small bar between it and the dining room. The beautiful bar has a pair of cabinets that flank open shelves, all fronted with sheets of brass and made by James Dawson Inc., who Marie frequently uses on client projects.

The Flanigans eat at home a lot, so the kitchen gets plenty of use. Joe, who does much of the cooking and outdoor grilling, likes that despite the 10-foot island and substantial size of the kitchen, everything feels close by when it's time to cook or clean up.

Even the unlacquered brass hardware in the kitchen provides information for work. When clients ask about how much the patina can change, she shows them photos of her refrigerator and freezer doors, both of which have door panels with brass pulls. The fridge gets opened a lot more often, so it's much lighter and shinier than the less-used freezer door handle.

The living room has plenty of light colored furniture — though the velvet sofa is a rusty color — and Marie touts the use of performance fabrics and stain prevention treatments for families that fully use every room in the house. No room here is off limits, not this one nor a sun room visible from the side yard that's covered in artificial turf and made for outdoor living.

There's no TV in the living room and the sun room is devoid of them, too. In fact, except for an outdoor TV that rarely gets turned on, there's no TV on the first floor of the home.

A pair of half sofas in navy blue are accompanied by nesting tables and an ottoman from Marie's Annie Selke Collection. The opposite wall has cabinets that hold coloring books, toys and art supplies.

Marie went luxe on bathrooms, using gorgeous tile and wood veneer wallcovering with a fluted wood wall treatment in the powder bathroom. It has a wall-mount sink and the counter's marble front hides the fact that two of the marble pieces are actually drawer fronts. In the primary bathroom, she used marble and limestone tile for a gray-tan checkerboard pattern that blends nicely with the natural oak cabinets and Calacatta marble used for counters and in the shower.

In the primary suite, the home originally was designed so that Marie and Joe would have their own closets, but Joe decided he didn't need that much space, and he'd rather have a small office in the suite so he can work from home once in a while. So they found a section for Joe to tuck in his clothes and set about creating a masculine office with dark brown cabinets and textured wallpaper.

Eve got a girly bedroom with Kelly Ventura blue floral wallpaper, a pretty fringed canopy over her bed and a pink chair with fringe. A big, natural fiber globe-shaped chandelier hangs overhead.

John and William got special treatment in the room they share, with bunk beds and a loft they've devoted to their shared obsession for LEGOs. Behind a small bookcase is a secret room where they can hide and read. The small loft was created by dropping their bathroom ceiling to 8 feet, then using the space above for the loft. It has a 6-inch ledge for safety's sake.

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