Houses are meant to be lived in. There are many beautiful spaces that can exist for the sake of their beauty, but home is where we go to be our most authentic selves. I don’t like the idea that clients would feel like their house was too nice to be used, and that has informed my design philosophy over the life of my career.
In interior design, we think about things like where bathroom electrical outlets are most useful, where the family is going to eat dinner on an ordinary weeknight, what will be the light placement of a favorite reading chair—will the person be using it more during the day, and want natural light, or will the person be using it more at night, and need an outlet for a good lamp on a table close by, or both equally? Interior designers think very carefully about what a person is using the space for, not just any theoretical human, but this particular client.
Yes, I want my client's home to be beautiful, and for the rooms to flow into each other seamlessly, but it’s not just about paint colors and fabric choices. We want to be at ease at home, and for our homes to be serviceable as well as pretty.