In Caitlin Cavagnolo’s dream world, she and her husband, Tyler Randall, would live in an abandoned Italian villa, where large tapestries cover the walls and the furniture is worn-in but beautifully so. Of course, you don’t have to be in your ideal location to channel those same vibes at home. When Tyler and Caitlin bought their one-bedroom apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2016, there weren’t soaring cypress trees out front and frescoes on the ceilings. But it did have an in-unit washer and dryer, a basement, and a balcony. Plus, there was plenty of wall space to hang a tapestry of their own. In the greater New York City area, that’s amore.

For Caitlin, Italian villa equals a space that feels “calming and soothing and a little bit grand,” she says. After making light renovations to their 650-square-foot home over the years, including installing new kitchen counters and swapping the old laminate floors for wood, the couple called on Caitlin’s sister, Hayley Cavagnolo, the designer behind Hayley Bridget Interiors, for help. “When Hayley doesn’t like things, it shows on her face,” says Caitlin. “I definitely saw a look of ‘this could be better’ when she would come over.” 

More kitchen storage was priority number one. Caitlin is an avid cook and—blame it on her Italian heritage—likes to make her pasta from scratch. By extending the marble countertop, they gained shelves for her cookbook collection and an extra workspace that’s perfect for her pasta maker. The new millwork continues on the opposite wall, encompassing deep drawers and cabinets for bulky flour packs and serving platters. “Before, I’d have to pull out a ladder to get to things,” says Caitlin. “Now everything has a home.” 

As if it’s just returned from a summer vacation on the Amalfi coast, the apartment now emits a warm glow. Hayley landed on Farrow & Ball’s Hay, a dusty yellow, for the kitchen cabinets and Benjamin Moore’s Elephant Tusk for all the walls. But when it came to the doors, her sister had a special request: She wanted them to be blue. Hayley presented the couple with two shades, and she wanted to use them both to trick the eye into thinking the panels are deeper than they really are. “I was trying to figure out a way to make the doors more appealing, and adding this trompe l’oeil detail gave them a more decorative look,” says the designer. Despite the painterly touch, the overall color palette for the apartment is definitively tight. “It’s a small space,” continues Hayley. “Cohesiveness is important, especially when you’re layering so much.” 

The splash of dark blue reappears on the bedding. For Tyler, keeping—or at least reimagining—the pieces of furniture they already owned was crucial. “He’s an avid composter and recycler, and he hates waste,” Hayley points out. The couple’s simple wood bed frame fell into the “let’s rethink this” bucket (the headboard is now wrapped in a custom slipcover), as did the dining chairs that now boast round cushions.

“Every time I’d come over, I told [Caitlin] how uncomfortable they were,” Hayley says of the seats. The designer pulled a Rose Tarlow stripe fabric, which plays nicely with the nearby living room armchairs—a Chairish score Hayley re-covered in Loro Piana’s Gritti Midnight. “I just love a stripe; it never goes out of style,” she says. “And when I’m designing something for my brother-in-law, I need to really think about what’s going to be classic for years.” 

Continuing to be mindful of just how small the apartment is, Hayley made a linen slipcover for the TV, that way Tyler and Caitlin don’t have to stare at a black box 24-7. But when they do want to catch up on episodes of Apple TV’s Silo, the piece of fabric can be removed in a flash—just about as fast as their pitbull-boxer mix, Jackson, will claim his space on the sofa. “We’ll sit down and he’ll come up and kick one of us off our spots,” says Caitlin. They’re quick to adjust their seating arrangement to make sure he’s comfy. “Jackson kind of runs the show,” she adds, laughing. Luckily he’s not very furry to begin with, but any hair he does shed is left behind on the durable mohair mat Hayley made to help preserve the couple’s existing couch.  

The designer wasn’t the only one thinking scrappy. When Tyler’s job became fully remote, everyone realized he needed a place to post up that wasn’t the Saarinen dining table. Using CAD renderings that Hayley mocked up and some woodworking tools left over from their first renovation, he crafted a wood base for a narrow desk. Hayley later hooked him up with a slab of honed marble to go on top. The one-of-a-kind piece now lives in the couple’s bedroom. You’d never guess the sleek leather and chrome chair in the corner is actually meant to go at the desk or that his calculator and gum are stashed in the decorative box. 

The tiny bathroom, which houses the washer and dryer, was also overdue for a makeover. First up: a vanity cabinet where they can store laundry detergent (before, they’d just plop it in the washer drum after use) and surplus toothpaste. “There would be a lot of things we’d buy again because we couldn’t see how much we had,” says Caitlin. Hayley made the room feel even bigger by shifting the inset medicine cabinet to the side wall and mounting an extra-large mirror. Even the electrical work came second to the mirror plan. The sconces are layered on top of the glass sheet. “I wanted a little jewel box, something you go into and feel like you’re in this beautiful place,” says Caitlin. One might say, Tuscany. 

The Goods

Grand Rug (Sand), Nordic Knots ($795)

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Alexander Walnut Wood Side Table by Jake Arnold, Crate & Barrel ($399)

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Elephant Tusk, Benjamin Moore

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Audrey 03, Madeaux by Richard Smith

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The post This Couple Got the Old Italian Villa of Their Dreams—But in Jersey City appeared first on domino.

Most people don’t believe Sandra Schpoont when she tells them she’s a lawyer. Usually, they assume she’s an artist or some other creative type. “I’m very design conscious,” says Schpoont. She can’t help it: She was raised that way, with a mother who had a strong interest in interiors and an uncle who was an architect. “We had pieces by [George] Nakashima in our house growing up,” she adds. When Schpoont spotted a sleek glass-clad building going up in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, back in 2008, she immediately knew she wanted to live there, even if it meant leaving the Park Slope brownstone she’d lived in for 20 years. 

Once the condo units, better known as 1 Grand Army Plaza, officially opened, Schpoont and her husband, Steve Axelrod, found themselves on the 14th floor in a three-bedroom apartment with sweeping views of Brooklyn. The interior is famously very white, a signature of the architect, Richard Meier. For as much as they loved the space over the years, Schpoont and Axelrod started to take note of the things that bothered them, like the particleboard cabinets, the drab bathroom tile, and the oven that rarely seemed to work. 

Ultimately, the pandemic gave them the push they needed to renovate. With their four kids now out of the house and remote work becoming the norm, the way they lived had drastically changed. Suddenly, they didn’t need all the guest bedrooms to be dedicated solely to sleeping. And, hey, a wet bar would be pretty cool, right? Plus Schpoont realized the opulent space that captured her on day one could benefit from a little more warmth. In fall 2022, a neighbor introduced them to Salle, an architectural design, interiors, and landscape firm helmed by Isobel Herbold and Palmer Thompson-Moss.

First, Herbold made some simple suggestions, like flipping the couple’s existing Poltrona Frau sofa to face the windows. “It never occurred to us to turn it around!” says Schpoont. The shift helped them accomplish another key goal: spotlighting the outdoors. 

The couple had also never thought to put furniture in their entryway. Salle custom-designed a bench with a small drawer where they can stash keys. As you sit there and take off your shoes, you’re greeted by a botanical silk wallpaper by Italian fabricator Elena Carozzi.

The bones of the building constantly posed a challenge when it came to furniture layout. “None of the walls of the exterior are parallel with the interior walls,” Herbold points out. In the case of the bedroom, it made the most sense to create pieces from scratch that match the space’s exact dimensions. Years ago, Schpoont and Axelrod had an angular dresser constructed to fit perfectly in the corner. “When we first got it, I thought it looked like a giant filing cabinet,” says Schpoont. But the piece grew on her over time. In addition to housing clothes, it disguises a pop-up TV lift. “It is extremely useful,” she adds. 

While most might stick a chaise in the corner of the bedroom closest to the glass bathroom wall, Salle opted for a simple plant pedestal so as to not interrupt the sight lines. “We kept everything quite minimal,” says Herbold. “We chose that clear blown-glass light fixture over the tub to relate to that view and layered glass.” 

Then there were the construction-heavy updates that required the couple to temporarily move into a rental in nearby Clinton Hill. They splurged on all new electrical, mostly because the old recessed fixtures would chip around the edges every time they went to change a bulb, but also so they could add minimalist pendant lights in the kitchen over the dining areas. 

Speaking of the cookspace, Salle introduced warmth in the form of a copper backsplash (the fridge handle and faucet are the same pink-tinged metal) and white oak lower cabinet doors. The designers also plopped in a bonus island near the windows that serves as cookbook storage and Schpoont’s baking station. “I’m known for my Thanksgiving desserts,” she says. “I don’t bake as much as I would like to, because then I would just eat it all the time.”

Axelrod is the cook. Every Friday night, he comes home early and gets dinner started (a much more pleasant task these days with a new Viking range on hand). “It’s a nice way to start the weekend,” says Schpoont. With each of their kids (and their significant others) in the area, there’s never a shortage of guests to sit around the teak dining table on the terrace.  

On quieter evenings, Schpoont will post up in one of the pink chairs next to the newly appointed bar. Previously, there was a glassed-in home office in this corner of the apartment. But with the kids out of the house, Salle moved the couple’s WFH space to a guest bedroom, designing a mid-century-inspired modular desk unit in the process. “When I’m sitting in one of these swivel chairs, I’ll look out at the apartment and it’s beautiful; it’s a nice place to be. I didn’t always feel that way,” Schpoont says.  

The Goods

Paulistano Armchair, DWR ($1,996)

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Lamina LED Linear Suspension, Lumens (from $1,495)

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Copper Faucet, Nivito ($969)

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Gray Allita Outdoor Chaise Lounge, Wayfair ($1,625)

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The post White Oak, Floral Wallpaper, and a Wet Bar: How Empty Nesters Reworked Their All-White Apartment appeared first on domino.

Eliza Gran’s earliest memories of her family’s Ghent, New York, property stretch back to before her father, architect Warren Gran, even designed and built their perfectly simple cabin in 1979. Every summer for the first decade of her life, Eliza remembers squishing together with her parents, sister, and gigantic Irish setter into a tent on the plot of land where their home was destined to stand. It was a good introduction to tight quarters. 

What is now a four-bedroom house started as just a 400-square-foot, four-rooms-in-total structure, with interiors clad entirely in cheap pine and two sliding glass doors that were always open.

With just two bedrooms on the second floor and an open plan on the first, the home possessed characteristics that Warren embraced over the course of his career. He went from drawing up plans for large houses in the Hamptons and Connecticut to being the go-to guy for New York City’s public schools in the 1970s and ’80s. He also devised housing for the homeless and single-room occupancy dwellings, and worked on historic preservation projects throughout the city. “He didn’t want to design mansions…he wanted to design for people in New York,” Eliza says. “He wanted everyone to be able to live, whether they were rich or poor.” 

The impact of these experiences is evident in the Ghent cabin. Warren was committed to nothing excessive, nothing wasteful—plus he was broke throughout the building process, so he hired just one local guy to help him construct it. “Here we are 50 years later, and it’s all completely held up,” Eliza marvels.

It was also a place of respite from the family’s chaotic, circa-1800s brownstone. “It was incredible, but it was decrepit and falling apart,” recalls Eliza. The cabin’s location is isolated at the end of a winding road in the middle of the woods, a good thing in her view. “Nobody knows it’s there,” she says wistfully. “And there was nothing to do. There still isn’t. It’s like enforced boredom.” When she was a kid, the house was so small, they couldn’t have guests. Instead, all they had, and needed, were the essentials: hamburgers for dinner, long swims in the pond, and lots of reading.

The same solitude exists today, but over time, the house expanded as Eliza’s family did. Warren began tacking on bedroom after bedroom to accommodate Eliza, her husband, and their three children, as well as a hallway and closets. It still only has one bathroom, and the kitchen got smaller, but nobody minds. While the additions were made more than 20 years after the cabin was initially built, it looks like it was always intended to be this way. That was thanks to Warren’s established style of residential architecture, which was similarly angular and clad in clapboard.

After spending more than a decade in Los Angeles with her family, her parents’ passing called Eliza home to New York for good; she now resides primarily in nearby Hudson. But she had her work cut out for her when she returned. Medical issues prevented her mom and dad (and really, anyone else) from visiting the house for a few years, and mice and vines took over in their absence. 

Fast-forward a few summers (and many, many garbage bags later) and Eliza, a designer and stylist, had a blank canvas to work with. Her goal with the furnishings was to keep things as her parents would have: functional, simple, and everything with a purpose. That translated to incorporating touches of Scandinavian design (peep the Marimekko outdoor chair and lots of IKEA) and secondhand items like the living room coffee table and various lamps and textiles. Color and texture come in doses by way of vintage dishes and cookware from Second Show in Hudson, patterned bedding from Kerry Cassill, throw pillows from Minna, and the great outdoors. The living room’s original wood-burning fireplace is still in place, as are a set of oversize lightbulbs that have never been changed. “Nobody can explain this,” says Eliza with a laugh. An example of one can be seen over the bunk beds. “I don’t know why they’ve lasted for 50 years,” she adds.

Eliza feels a certain responsibility for seeing the structure through to the next generation, in part because it connects her to her parents and their love for the home (and each other). “They really created something beautiful,” she says of the escape. Thankfully, her kids feel the same way as she does. 

The post This Designer’s Hudson Valley Cabin Tripled in Square Footage Over 3 Generations appeared first on domino.

Krista Mileva and Jared Frank have become so accustomed to their bicoastal relationship that, this spring, they’re having two weddings. The first: an intimate family gathering on the East Coast, close to Massachusetts, where Mileva is currently enrolled in MIT’s History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art program. The second will take place in Los Angeles, where Frank lives and runs his eponymous interior design firm, Jared Frank Studio. “I think it’s very representative of us…that we’re having long-distance weddings,” says Mileva. 

With the exception of the pandemic bringing them together under Frank’s roof for a few months, the couple has largely been apart since they met in 2017. Once she wrapped her undergrad studies, Mileva moved to the U.K. to get her master’s at Cambridge, and then, in 2020, moved to the other Cambridge (the one just outside of Boston) to secure her Ph.D. Now three years into her five-year program, what keeps the pair most connected is her airy, modern apartment: It was designed by her fiancé. “Even when he isn’t there, I see these objects he chose knowing I would appreciate them, and it feels like he’s with me,” says Mileva. 

They did happen to be together in L.A. when the apartment hit the market, and they needed to make a decision ASAP. Mileva’s broker offered them a lo-fi FaceTime tour of the listing. “She didn’t have Internet, so it was on 3G, and every time she showed a window, it would blow out [the picture],” recalls Frank. But they didn’t need a ton of visual reassurance: On paper alone, they could tell it was a gem. The Georgian Revival building was designed in 1922 by Hamilton Harlow, an MIT-trained architect, and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But this particular unit had another layer of history to it—it had been remodeled in the late 1970s by Harlow’s son, who added oak built-ins and terracotta tile, and essentially ditched the interior hallways to create a sense of flow. 

The apartment’s layout was also a major draw. It had windows looking out onto a front courtyard and a back garden—an unusual arrangement for Cambridge’s residential buildings. Every single room had views and access to light, essentials for the two Angelenos. They didn’t need to see the unit in real life to know it was the perfect fit. 

While Frank’s primary residence in Silver Lake is busy inside and out (the walls are swathed in intricate frescoes; the streets are lined with hip restaurants and concrete), he wanted Mileva’s Cambridge home to feel quiet and cozy. “The interiors of the apartments are opposites,” notes Frank. “She’s there to come up with original ideas, to think about things that are not necessarily around her.” 

For the designer, that translated to a light-filled, uncluttered space. In the living room, he painted the walls and ceiling the same creamy tone and went as “white as one wants to go” with the rug. Frank used the windows to his advantage, adding sheer curtains and two Isamu Noguchi lanterns to diffuse a warm glow. “It’s really difficult and funny when you tell an electrician you want to put a pendant in the corner,” he says. It doesn’t hurt to be surrounded by the works of a mid-century design icon when you happen to be writing a paper on organic forms in the postwar era, Mileva points out. “Being among these lanterns is so inspiring and wonderful,” she says. 

These days, though, her doctoral work is focused on the history of grottoes (she just started curating her first gallery show on the topic for the Marta gallery in Los Angeles). The framed Giorgio de Chirico lithograph over the fireplace, which Frank picked up at an auction, is a direct nod to her research, with the Surrealist scene showing men and women gathering in rocky pools. Meanwhile, the sculptural lamps on the bookshelves reminded her of something one might have found in architect and designer Gae Aulenti’s modern Amalfi Coast cave home back in the 1970s. 

“It was nice to be able to give her a space worthy of the work she’s pursuing,” Frank says. “There’s this assumption that all that’s needed are books and a table, and I don’t believe that.” 

For many couples in long-distance relationships, nightly FaceTimes and airline miles are how they show they care. But for Mileva, it’s in the Bruno Mathsson Pernilla chairs that wrap her like a warm hug and the Tobias Scarpa wall light that keeps her company when Frank isn’t there. 

The Goods

“Pernilla 69” Lounge Chair by Bruno Mathsson, 1stDibs ($3,270)

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Zero Cream Mix Rug, Nordic Knots (from $295)

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Stoneware Vase by Curt Addin, Etsy ($80)

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9602 Floor Lamp, DWR ($1,440)

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The post Some Long-Distance Couples FaceTime—This One Decorated a Cozy, Minimalist Apartment Together appeared first on domino.

Usually, we hear stories about how homes are designed with others in mind (partners, kids, pets, extended family), but sometimes, we sit down with a homeowner who was lucky enough to concoct a home all for themself. When Katie Szymanski, a therapist and entrepreneur, bought her 1920s house at the top of a hill in Los Angeles’s Mount Washington neighborhood, she was single and ready to mingle—with interior designer Leah Ring of Another Human, that is. She asked Ring to help her fill her home with the items of her choosing. 

But before Szymanski could get to decorating, she tweaked the room assignments to fit her current lifestyle. One of the guest bedrooms is now her walk-in closet, complete with floor-to-ceiling curtains made from a ’70s-feeling Kristy Stafford fabric. “It’s so functional because I can hide all the stuff behind the curtains and just hang out in there,” she says. “And it’s actually the best place to record audio [for podcasts and social media].” Then she turned what would be the only remaining guest room into a home office and sunroom meant for lounging and listening to records. She kept the largest space as her primary bedroom.

Designing with only herself in mind also meant adding color, a thrill to Ring (and a major tenet of her work, which includes Molly Baz’s Altadena home). “Sometimes people get timid,” Ring says about convincing clients to get on board with the rainbow. “This project was so refreshing.” Much to the designer’s delight, every room got its own palette, but because most spaces are visible from one another, Ring had to make sure that each grouping was cohesive. 

Some rooms benefited from one big splash of a color, like the kitchen, where periwinkle (specifically Benjamin Moore’s Summer Blue) coats the hardware-free cabinets and the hood. In the secondary bathroom, the pair went all in on teal tile and paint, then added a pop of pink stone to balance it all out. The living room is drenched in peach. And the sunroom got two shades of pale green: one on the walls and other on the trim. 

Choosing the shades for each room wasn’t just a lesson in color theory—it was also a psychological experiment. “I have an M.F.A. in studio art, so I’ve always been somebody who’s deeply affected, even emotionally, by aesthetic decisions,” Szymanski says. “Color makes me feel a certain way, and the ones we used in my home make me feel good, happy, and energized.”

Once the colors were settled, they layered in patterns, like the daisy tile arrangement in the primary bathroom, the Lisa Corti quilt on the bed, and the dining room’s House of Hackney floral wallpaper. Making those decisions was easy for Szymanski when she was only thinking of herself living there, but as she kept dating while the house was being designed, doubt started to creep in. “I was questioning my choices and thinking, what if my future partner doesn’t like it? But I had a friend who said, ‘Your future partner, if he’s the right fit, is going to love it because you love it.’” 

When she did start dating someone during the reno, she didn’t change a thing, except to add a desk in the sunroom so they’d each have separate workspaces. And while she jokes that if he were doing it himself, everything would be black and taller to fit his 6-foot-6 frame, his verdict on her design style remains: “He just thinks it’s the coziest, happiest place.”

The Paint Palette

Summer Blue Paint, Benjamin Moore

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Falling Star Paint, Benjamin Moore

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Polar Lights Paint, Benjamin Moore

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Olive Tree Paint, Benjamin Moore

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Ionic Column Paint, Benjamin Moore

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New Retro Paint, Benjamin Moore

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The post Every Room Has Its Own Happy Palette in This Therapist’s L.A. Home appeared first on domino.

Clo Pazera and her husband, Ryan Walsh, didn’t give me a “love at first sight” story when we talked about their Glenoaks Canyon, California, home. They kept it real: On their very first walk-through in spring 2022, the fixer-upper didn’t give them butterflies. “We were actually going to pass on it,” says Walsh. Sure, it was in a lot better shape than some of the teardowns they had viewed, but the home’s turquoise carpeting and dark wood paneling left them feeling overwhelmingly indifferent. 

So they sat on it for a few days—a risky move when you’re going up against hundreds of other buyers in a competitive real-estate market. But Rachel Bullock and Molly Purnell, cofounders of architecture and design studio Laun, gave them the extra push they needed. The designers had accompanied the couple on their house-hunt journey and saw potential in the 1930s bungalow. It was a good thing that they felt “blasé” about the interior, they decided: They had been longing to tackle a renovation. 

Once the ink was dry on the mortgage, Bullock and Purnell suggested removing the existing den to make way for a more spacious kitchen, while still leaving some room for an intimate lounge-slash-TV area. “There was also an absurd number of doors in the house,” recalls Bullock. They removed a series of interior hallways and some of those entries (five to be exact) to achieve an airier layout, and new arched thresholds gave room-to-room transitions a sense of cohesion. The fresh interior architecture extends all the way to the new front door, to which they added a curved glass panel. 

The couple’s new home lacked the bonus hiding spots that their previous house in City Terrace offered (before, they had a basement and an attic), so Bullock and Purnell lined the main hallway with built-in closets to win back some storage. The wall of cabinets closest to the kitchen gets used every day: There’s a spot for their dog Ruth’s food, a slim cupboard that perfectly fits the broom and vacuum, and a dedicated cupboard for all of Walsh’s cocktail-making necessities. Negronis are his signature, but he doesn’t shy away from a tiki drink either. “And he makes a good daiquiri,” says Pazera. 

Knowing how the couple’s weekends usually pan out—Pazera playing video games in the den, Walsh experimenting with drinks at the counter—Bullock added a pass-through window between the two adjacent rooms so they can easily hand off glasses. In order to maximize seating in the nook, the designers custom-built a curvy sofa that stretches all the way to the cabinets that house the pair’s record collection. “We were worried that if we used furniture it would start to feel too cluttered,” says Bullock. 

The designers also made sure to give Pazera and Walsh plenty of breathing room for art. As a fine art specialist at Los Angeles Modern Auctions, Pazera is constantly collecting new pieces from auctions or artists who have ties to Southern California, including favorites Ross Caliendo, Ken Price, and Brian Calvin. With the exception of the couple’s pink bedroom (a paint choice partly inspired by Bullock’s own bedroom), most of the walls in the house are gallery white. Purnell and Bullock even streamlined the fireplace mantel knowing their clients would treat it as a rotating display for leaning works. 

As with any renovation, there are always a few little projects that linger after the (saw)dust has settled. Eventually, Pazera and Walsh want to tack a patio onto the kitchen, so the designers intentionally chose exterior-grade terracotta tile for the space. That way, the couple can simply buy more of them in the future to get that coveted indoor-outdoor flow. They continue to see all the possibilities, even though they didn’t have that fairy-tale love story starting out. 

The Goods

Offset Side Table by Resident, 2Modern ($750)

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Bon Pouf, Hem ($619)

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Onda Plug-in Sconce, Mitzi ($360)

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Malawi Rug, Armadillo (from $1,645)

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The post When This L.A. Couple Downsized, They Gained Back Storage With a Hallway of Built-Ins appeared first on domino.

Amanda Thomas, founder of jewelry brand Luv AJ, was sold on this 1,200-square-foot West Hollywood home the second she stepped in the driveway. A dramatic Australian eucalyptus tree greeted her, which instantly reminded her of her mom, who grew up in Adelaide surrounded by them. Never mind the fact that the inside of the house consisted of plain white walls and cheap dark floors or that the sprawling backyard was just gravel and a rickety old fence. Sure, it sort of looked like an early-2000s apartment complex, but that tree. “It just needed someone with a good eye to come in and make it feel special,” says Amanda. And that someone was her sister, Claire Thomas, filmmaker and cofounder of Sweet Laurel Bakery, who designs homes for a client roster that includes Bryce Dallas Howard. 

Having recently gone through a divorce, Amanda was determined to create a mini oasis for herself, especially because she had never been on her own before. “I actually lived with Claire until I was 25, and then I got married,” she shares. Despite being roommates for most of their lives (and the fact that they’re only 14 months apart in age), the sisters’ aesthetics couldn’t be more different. Claire loves a whimsical floral wallpaper and doesn’t shy away from scalloped rattan lighting, but Amanda leans toward clean silhouettes and neutrals, even when she’s getting dressed. “I wear a lot of black,” she says. “But I knew that I wanted the house to feel homey and also a little eclectic. Bringing Claire in made sense.”

Claire was honored to push her “cooler little sister” outside her comfort zone. All it took was one reference image of a green kitchen to inspire a visit to Portola Paints, where they landed on Grape Leaf for the space and similar earthy Roman Clay tones, including Serene Thought, to swath the entire house in. Every wall, from the living room and the guest bath, down to the entire exterior, is plastered in a soft shade of sage or olive. “I would have never done that on my own, but Claire was like, ‘No, I think it will look really cool,’” says Amanda, admitting her previous home was cozy but very beige. 

For a moment, they considered bringing a Key lime pie hue into the picture, though shortly after Amanda polled her Instagram followers on the matter, it was cut from the plans. The siblings also debated leaving half of the kitchen’s original cabinets a natural tone, but once they saw how busy the wood grain looked after stripping away the previous paint job, they chose to drench it all in Grape Leaf, too. 

In the primary bathroom, stacked zellige tile stands in strong contrast to swirly Calacatta Viola—a last-minute splurge after the sisters’ original, budget-friendly stone got lost at sea. “The boat apparently never came to port and they never got the shipment. Two weeks before I moved in, we had to go down to the marble yard,” recalls Amanda. It was actually the project highlight for Claire. While expensive, the marble is timeless, and committing to it for the kitchen counters, bathroom vanities, and shower niche and bench was worth it—it automatically elevated the house. It’s eye-catching enough to distract from the fact that the standing tub is one of the smallest models there is. (How else do you think they were going to squeeze it in on an angle?) “It gives the home a [sense of] cohesion,” says Claire. “It’s also giving presidential suite vibes.” 

Meanwhile, the powder room is giving selfie energy. Whenever friends come over, Amanda is bound to see a mirror pic pop up on Instagram later that night. On the other hand, their mom is still a little baffled by the drippy Concrete Cat mirror. “She was like, ‘You girls are crazy.’ Like, whatever, Mom. It’s very sexy. I love it,” says Amanda. 

Completing Amanda’s dream bachelorette pad came down to addressing a lack of closets with a custom fluted walnut unit in the bedroom, refinishing the dark floors to lend an airy ambience, and laying checkerboard tile around the new in-ground swimming pool. “I wanted it to feel like Montecito meets Tulum,” says Amanda. Their landscape designer, Haley McMillen, added olive trees, lavender, and cacti for good measure.

Most important, if you want to live in a luxurious “jewel box” (the name Claire gave the remodel), you need good lighting. Multiple skylights keep Amanda’s allover green home from feeling overwhelming. “The more light you have, the richer you can go [with color],” argues Claire. That’s why they replaced a solid wall in the main living area with wraparound glass to show off the tree’s twisted trunk and eucalyptus leaves. When she looks out onto the lush front yard, Amanda never forgets what brought her there in the first place. 

The Goods

Dillon Armchair, Soho Home ($1,128)

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Laurel Coffee Table, Burke Decor ($1,510)

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Absinthe 2X6 Tile, Zia Tile ($1.50 per tile)

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Casper Table Lamp, Soho Home ($1,000)

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As a child, interior designer Danielle Fennoy thought most other kids spent their weekends perusing the aisles of Home Depot, stenciling floors, and stripping paint off windowsills. That’s what her mom, a scientist and seriously good gardener, and dad, a radio DJ with a habit of buying fixer-uppers, liked to do for fun—and they wanted to let their daughter in on the action, too. 

“My parents let me design my bathroom when I was in high school, which is kind of crazy,” she says, recalling the tumbled marble and gold accents she picked out. “I wouldn’t say it was my best work.” Even when she was at Denison University studying psychology, she toyed with the furniture in the spacious triple-bunk dorm room she had all to herself (the perks of being an R.A.). Then, scratching her itch to live on the East Coast, Fennoy applied to Pratt Institute in New York and it all started to click. “I think it was always there, but then I figured out this can actually be a career,” says Fennoy, who now runs the firm Revamp.

Then as the story goes, when you live in Brooklyn for so many years, her husband, Jevaun Howell, caught the brownstone bug. Fennoy’s first reaction was: Absolutely not—they’re too much work. But by 2016, it was clear they had outgrown their Prospect Heights condo, mostly due to the addition of their son, Zidane. “We lost out on many a bidding war, but when we walked into this one, it just felt like home,” recalls Fennoy. There was a backyard that spoke to Howell (he’s the griller of the family) and two bonus apartments that they currently rent out to tenants. 

Right away, Fennoy renovated the kitchen. You can’t blame her: The cabinets were a pearlized laminate, the fridge was blocking beautiful window moldings, and the peninsula bisected the room. But quickly, she realized the stock cabinets they bought weren’t holding up well. “Now we have a pseudo-custom kitchen that we’re really happy with, but had we been more patient, we wouldn’t have had to do that twice,” says the designer. 

Most of the other projects they bit off in small chunks over the years. This slow-but-steady approach allowed Fennoy to dig into customization. For one, the couple turned what was once designated as a child’s room into their primary suite. The garden-level bedroom is now home to their space-saving storage bed and minimal Italian-made nightstands. 

The gradient wallpaper is her own creation that she tasked Twenty2 Wallpaper and Textiles with bringing to life. “I was like, how do we have this balance of light and inviting as well as moody and sleepy?” she says. The treatment is inspired by the illustrations in the children’s book The Snowy Day, but Fennoy and Howell jokingly call their space the “static room” because it also happens to look like a broken TV screen. “We get the best sleep, and it doesn’t feel like you’re in a black room either,” she says. 

While the bespoke wallpaper is reserved for just them, Fennoy hopes people who walk by the house catch a glimpse of what’s happening in their living room. “You say a lot about yourself with your art,” she says. In the spring of 2020, the death of George Floyd weighed heavily on her mind, and Fennoy channeled all the emotions she was feeling at the time into purchasing a large Jamele Wright tapestry. Between the punchy shades of orange and violet are lines from the Tony-winning musical The Wiz. “I really wanted a piece of provocative art, but I also wanted something that wasn’t going to make me sad, and so I was like, I need this to be about Black joy,” explains Fennoy. The piece’s casual display (it came rolled up in a box and hangs from screw eyes) makes it easy to move to a different spot in the house if she ever chooses to redecorate. 

The one thing that’s not moving in this room? The 26-foot-long (!) rug that continues on into the adjacent sitting area. Fennoy designed the floor covering with Rug and Kilim and specified the spots where she wanted to see a touch more color or a sliver of more pattern. She felt okay splurging on the custom piece, given her Ligne Roset Ploum sofa was free (a client had a spare one that they were struggling to donate because of a stain on its gray upholstery). Fennoy offered to buy it, but they told her not to worry about it—and then she promptly bought a plum-colored cover to take care of the blemish. “It is really amazing for naps,” she admits.

Beyond the expansive living area, the sun-drenched kitchen boasts two floating storage units and a door leading out to the backyard. Above the cabinets, a large neon sign reads “Winner Winner”—an inside joke between Fennoy and her husband. When Howell is grilling chicken, Fennoy will throw a “winner winner chicken dinner” line his way. “He actually hates it when I say it,” she says, laughing. But part of her design motto is that she likes to giggle through her projects. “Whether it be my own or a client, I think that’s important,” she notes. Zidane, now 10 years old, also shares his parents’ sense of humor: He likes to say the dining bench (aka homework station) looks like it’s covered in black-eyed peas. In reality, it’s a piece of African wax cloth that has been coated in polyurethane, giving it the appearance of a painted surface. “You can spill spaghetti or art projects on it—it’s super-practical,” Fennoy adds. 

Continuing her patient approach, Fennoy moved onto Zidane’s room, eventually replacing the crumbling tile around his fireplace with marble and hanging a Camilla Perkins print over the mantel—a nod to his favorite color, red. He also happens to be her most easygoing client to-date. “He’s the most complimentary kid on the planet,” says Fennoy. If designing didn’t already feel natural to her when she was his age, it does now. 

The Goods

Perch Bunk Bed, Oeuf ($1,980)

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Mobile Chandelier, West Elm (from $200)

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Linen Duvet Cover, Parachute ($320)

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Jason Wu Meander Throw, AllModern ($97)

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The post After Catching the Brownstone Bug, This Designer Found Her Own and Tackled It Bit by Bit appeared first on domino.

When Joe Diasparra, the co-owner of architecture, construction, and real-estate firm FieldxStudio, and his now-wife, Maggie, decided to move in together after five years of long-distance dating, the couple settled in Encinitas, California—and not just for its famous, surf-friendly beaches. The coastal city was an ideal compromise between Newport and San Diego, where they had been living and working, respectively, before finding a quaint 1950s bungalow to rent. At 1,000 square feet, it was plenty spacious for the pair and their pup, Lulu. But when Maggie became pregnant with their now 5-year-old son, Wyland, the walls started to feel like they were closing in on them. “We’re entertainers,” says Joe. “It didn’t allow us to have a lot of people over.” 

Instead of launching a full-on Zillow search for something bigger, the Diasparras had the unique opportunity to purchase the place they already thought of as home, closing on it two weeks ahead of Wyland’s arrival. However, as a high-end custom builder, Joe still took it as an opportunity to start from scratch. “I wanted it to be architecturally significant,” he stresses.

Used to working on a much larger scale for clients with fewer constraints (his firm has constructed apartment complexes, luxurious lofts, and sprawling single-family residences with budgets ranging from $5 to $10 million), Joe and his business partner, Scott Maas, drew up a two-story build with a cantilevered top floor containing three bedrooms and an en suite bath. On paper, it checked all of the Diasparras’ boxes and then some: Their 3-year-old daughter, Evie, would eventually need sleeping quarters of her own someday, too. But as permits started rolling in, Joe couldn’t shake the feeling that their initial picture-perfect plan would stretch them beyond their $500-per-square-foot budget. Getting the lumber quote back was the final nail in the coffin. They’d have to pivot. 

Over the span of a week (and a whole lot of tracing paper), they sketched out what a one-story version of the house would look like. Surprisingly, they avoided making any major sacrifices. Originally a 2,200-square-foot layout, the FieldxStudio duo discovered the bulk of the space they proposed was tied up in hallways and staircases. Downsizing to just a hair over 1,700 square feet only eliminated an office and walk-in pantry (RIP wine fridge). “It was like a jigsaw puzzle. Everything flip-flopped a little bit,” notes Joe. “But our bedrooms all stayed relatively the same size.”

As for the kitchen? It remained the focal point. It was where Abbie Naber, head designer and owner of A. Naber Design, first got to work. After collaborating on a residential gig together last year, Joe knew Naber’s attention to organic materials and textures, and their mutual appreciation for art, made her perfect for this job, too. 

Her impact was felt immediately. While the group had fallen in love with a moody, black and white marble from Tutto Marmo for the kitchen, they were also concerned with the upkeep. Naber proposed a work-around for the Diasparras: Install it as a backsplash and go with a similar-looking (but much more durable quartzite) for the worktop. It made sense given the kitchen is the backdrop of the living room, play area, and dining room. Spanning the entirety of the main wall, Joe devised a symmetrical setup: Oak cabinets hide the fridge and freezer on the left side of the stove, with an appliance garage and pantry storage to the right. Naber suggested an ebonized finish for the lower drawers to break up the monotony of the wood grain. 

For the surrounding space, she pulled colors from the couple’s collection of art, namely the panther painting in the dining room. The mustard cabinet in the entryway, the sage dining chairs, and the Cold Picnic rug by the front door are all nods to the work by L.A.-based artist Coulter Jacobs. Naber ran with Maggie’s favorite color in the primary bathroom—a rich, jewel-toned green. 

But unlike their clients who tend to mull over every swatch of paint or upholstery sample, the Diasparras and Naber prioritized efficiency, mostly because the family was living out of a friend’s 550-square-foot cottage down the road while construction was under way. “It was an ideal setup, close to the kids’ school, but it was tiny. There was only one bathroom. It was a step above camping,” Joe says, laughing. Luckily the eight-month-long project, which started in January 2023, wrapped up by September—just in time for them to host a Labor Day party. 

Joe, knowing how congested the supply chain still is post-pandemic, procured appliances and other pieces early. As in, tile-sat-in-the-driveway-while-the-house-was-still-being-framed early. He also asked Naber to creatively repurpose leftover products from FieldxStudio’s other projects, like the terrazzo tile that now covers the powder room walls and the kids’ bathroom floor, to avoid waiting on other orders. Not styling the material in the same way more than once was key. “From a cost and time perspective, we were able to save. But we applied it in a completely new format,” says the designer.

This included cladding the exterior in hemlock, a wood Joe has relied on numerous times before for other builds. “The price point on it is really good, and the house is a simple shape, so the clear, vertical grain pattern and color tone worked,” he explains. Preferring this minimalist look also kept things streamlined inside (the flooring and fireplace, for instance, are all poured concrete). “We build flashy, modern homes that have a lot of materials and glitz and glamour,” notes Joe. “I wanted my own home to be clean, a little quieter.” 

This includes the backyard that’s on full display from every corner thanks to a series of glass doors that line the entire back of the house and lead out to the raised deck. “They were supposed to be multiple panels that stacked. But when we started ordering the windows, it proved to be too cost prohibitive,” Joe explains. In the end, they had to shrink the opening a smidge but still achieved an impressive view of the backyard with a two-panel slider.

When the Diasparras changed gears to a single-level plan, it was tempting to gain the lost square footage back by extending the house another 400 square feet into the yard. “But it was important for us to maintain that space,” stresses Joe. “My son’s out there every day with a baseball bat.” 

It’s also where get-togethers with friends and holiday gatherings congregate. The kids also requested a garden and fruit trees, which Mom and Dad delivered by planting a pomegranate tree, a macadamia nut tree, and a 100-year-old olive tree. After making that kind of investment, Maggie is convinced this is their family’s forever home. Joe isn’t as sure. “I’m enjoying the process. I need another project. I’m ready to do another,” he says. “But [also], we could very well never leave, and I’d be content.” 

The Goods

Vintage Stripe Lumbar Pillow, Morrow ($99)

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Drommen Acacia Wood Platform Bed, CB2 ($1,299)

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Dibs Chair, Blu Dot ($495)

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EcoBirdy Charlie Chair, Goodee ($225)

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