Beauty Mogul and Social Media Star Courtney Shields Reveals How She Built ‘Powerful and Chill’ Escape From Online Fame Inside Austin Home

Social media sensation Courtney Shields is no stranger to opening up her Austin home to millions of people, having spent years documenting her day-to-day life with her two million social media followers.

On any given day, the DIBS Beauty founder can be seen filming a beauty tutorial from inside her bathroom or sharing a candid confessional while perched in her bed—all while simultaneously running her popular beauty brand from inside her house.

But having a house that serves as a film set, boardroom, and, most importantly, a home for Shields, 37, and her daughter, Kinsley, is not an easy balance to strike.

Yet it is one that the online star has slowly managed to perfect over the years, turning her dwelling into an “escape” from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, even as that same hustle and bustle fills its rooms.

According to Shields, creating a sanctuary in the home she and her daughter share was all about finding the right “energy”—and refusing to adhere to a specific aesthetic or trend in the hopes of making it look perfect or Instagrammable.

Now, the beauty mogul has opened up her home and, more specifically, her personal oasis within it, in the first installment in the Realtor.com® Celebrity Sanctuary series, explaining how she carved out a piece of paradise where she can rest, relax, and unplug at the end of a working day.

For me, the living room in my home is a sanctuary. It is the space that everybody always congregates in, and so I feel like it has the most love in the house. It’s the space that people gravitate towards, and I love it for that reason. 

I’ve been living in my home for six years—and I primarily work from home, when I’m not traveling. When I moved in, I had a vision for creating a Vogue-style boardroom in one space in the house, but that just didn’t happen.

My life and my work are very intertwined. I co-founded DIBS Beauty, and that’s what I do most of the time now; but at the same time, I started sharing my life, and I still do that every day. And you can’t share your life without… being willing to share your life!

But I’ve learned there are other ways to separate my work life and my personal life—and the living room is somewhere that I feel I can truly unplug. I put my phone down at the end of the day and just focus on being present.

My mom was an interior designer when I was growing up and, because of that, I’ve always had such a love of decor and the power that it has to make your house into a home.

One of the most important tips I learned from my mom was that, if you want your space to feel elevated and beautiful, you can’t get everything from one place. The worst thing you can do is to go into one store and order everything, all at once. You have to make sure your home doesn’t look like a one-stop shop.

Some of the pieces that make my living room so special to me are the ones that weren’t bought at a store and don’t fit a certain “look,” but rather the one-of-a-kind items that mean so much to me.

One of my favorite pieces in the room is a painting that my daughter, Kinsley, did when she was 4 or 5. I had bought this painting from Home Goods that I used in my old house, but I was over it. So I painted the whole thing white, picked out five or so paint colors that I loved, and told her to paint whatever she wanted.

She put so many cool things in there. Some people will know that, to me, rainbows are a sign of my dad, and she put that into the painting. It’s so incredibly special to me—and I get asked any time I am in this room which artist painted it.

I think things like that are so important in a home—the things that other people can’t just go out and buy. Incorporating children’s art and their things into spaces throughout the house is also really essential for creating a space that the whole family loves. I might have picked out the rug and the chairs, but Kinsley’s art and the things she’s made also help to fill the room. 

I may have curated my living room shelves to make them look chic and well done, but my daughter’s art is in there, which makes them that much more meaningful to me. 

You have to let kids be kids: Don’t be scared of color, it’s a form of self expression. It’s not my vibe to force my kids to fit in with a certain aesthetic. It’s all about working their personalities into your home in interesting ways. 

You can make a project out of it, choose colors that you like that go with a room, then allow them to paint something fun with them. You get a creative activity out of it, and they feel more at home in the space because they have added to it in a meaningful way. 

I also think that you have to acquire things over time. I didn’t just walk into my house six years ago and have it be ready and done. It took a while to get everything and to turn the space into what it is today.

When I saw the house for the first time, it felt like home as soon as I walked in. The finishes were so well done and the quality was just so beautiful. These days, I think so many houses are done really quickly, and they just don’t have that quality to them.

But this house has these incredible Texas oak floors, arches in the doorways, and there are built-ins everywhere. I also love the high ceilings, particularly in the living room, which gives the space such a feeling of openness.

Ceiling height is a big thing for me, even though I’m small, because I grew up in a house with tall ceilings and I think, even if a house isn’t massive, having that height just makes you feel like it’s a space you can breathe in.

When I started decorating, I knew I wanted to play off those rich tones that are such a big part of the house. I feel like you see a lot of white everywhere these days and, while I do like that crisp finish, I wanted grounding elements that add to that richness of the space.

I have white walls and a white couch, but then my rug has a lot of navy blues and emerald tones, and the art on the walls has those same deep hues.

Texture was also an important thing for me to incorporate into the space, whether it’s the leather cognac chair that complements the oak floors, or these furry stools that I found in North Carolina, it’s all about adding layers to a room to really make it come alive.

My home is an escape for me from the hustle and bustle of life in the city. I don’t live in the heart of the city, so it feels like a sanctuary.

The best compliment that I ever receive is that the energy in the house is really good. And I feel like it is. It’s both powerful and chill, and I feel like people want to be here. So people will always be coming and going, they’re always here. But that’s what makes it so homey.