Bob and Donna Sherrick might have been branded typical Texans 20 years ago. They were high school sweethearts at Bryan Adams in east Dallas and later went through UT Austin together. When they bought their home in Merriman Park in 1980, Donna was expecting the couple’s third child and looking forward to settling into her new neighborhood. However, Bob was climbing the corporate ladder and almost immediately after purchasing the house, a transfer to England came through. Donna barely had time to catch her breath.

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With the house leased out and newborn Adam pronounced old enough to travel, the young family headed overseas for a two-year stint that, among other things, would change their home décor forever.

 

"We came back and had acquired a lot of furniture, along with new tastes and new interests," Donna says. "The house became a reflection of all the things we collected and learned to love while we lived there. We did a lot of navy and dark woods when we came back that were really English at the time."

 

The years passed quickly and eventually the family found their tastes and needs changing again. They still loved the English furniture they’d collected, but the kids had almost no memory of their time spent abroad. In addition, the family’s strong Texas roots weren’t expressed anywhere in the British setting.

 

"We changed it all, starting at the front door, six years ago when we did the addition. We lived here while we did it, which I would never do again," Donna laughingly recalls. "We decided that since everything else in the house is so English, and Texas is such a part of our lives, we wanted a room that would reflect that."

 

The Texas Room, as it’s now dubbed, was added upstairs and includes many touches that aren’t seen elsewhere in the house — UT Longhorns, cowboys (the steer-roping kind), bluebonnets and the like. Now that both British and Texas lifestyles are equally represented, Donna finally feels comfortably settled.

 

"The house has really evolved over the last 19 years as the family has grown up and our interests have changed," she says. "I never visualized that I would live in a house that looked like this on the outside, but the inside is exactly the way I like it. I love Lake Highlands and I can’t imagine us ever leaving here."