Newport Beach, California

A house in a gated community above the Pacific, and a project that ran at two different speeds at once. Through most of the house the work was light-handed. New furniture, new window treatments and new lighting, with an art installation planned as part of the scheme rather than hung once everything else was finished. We updated the fireplace and added decorative trim around the art, which is the sort of intervention that costs very little and changes a wall entirely, because it tells the eye that the art belongs to the room instead of merely occupying it. A new sisal rug went into the living room and up the staircase, an unglamorous choice on paper and exactly the right one near the water.

The primary bathroom was a different matter altogether. That room came out completely. New tile, new floor, new vanities, new mirrors, new plumbing fixtures throughout, and a soaking tub as the anchor of the room. Bathrooms are the least forgiving spaces I design, because every surface is hard, every fixture is permanent, and there is nowhere for a poor decision to hide behind a cushion. Running a refresh and a renovation together is common and worth understanding before you begin. One part of the house needs demolition and a construction schedule, the other needs specification and delivery dates, and holding both to a single design intention is what stops a house from feeling as though it was finished in stages.