Interior Projects

From transformations of spaces small and large- including kitchens and bathrooms- to the creation of brand new spaces for home and office, these projects are all done sustainably using as many upcycled and reused materials as possible as well as practices to minimize waste and careful selection of materials when new ones needed to be sourced. These spaces are beautiful, comfortable, and efficient in their designs and carefully curated for the inhabitants and their lives. My style is best described as organic, with a sense of grounding in nature- maybe a combination of an appreciation for the streamlined sensibility of California coastal, meets my love of midcentury, meets my need to honor New England history and the authenticity of its antiques.

Enjoy viewing a variety of transformational projects I’ve done for clients and my own spaces. Click through the portfolio to learn about different projects and view.

About My Projects from the Old Mill Eco Island House

My projects coming out of my own home are where I’ve gotten to really show off my own style and the beauty that ‘slow design’ curates. I’m not under the same restrictions or parameters as when I’m working for a client or their timelines. ‘Slow design’ is really just, in my opinion, the way most of us live in our own spaces if you do not have big upfront budgets to finish everything you want in a space all at once. But it’s a term now in the design world that intersects intentional and sustainable living. Rather than rushing to buy a bunch of mass manufactured goods to complete a space, it suggests that we will likely just come across things we like or can use as life goes on and gives us space to appreciate that the places we live in are ever-evolving.

During renovations, design the bones really well for efficiency and with quality materials that will be long lasting. If your budget allows, give it as much of the character as you can at that time. But if you need to take a breather, just know that character is something you can keep adding to the space if you’re looking for it. I love to decorate with found items, little treasures, things I find in nature or thrifting that give me bits of joy, but mostly things that are sentimental or that I collect from travels. I have, what they call, ‘champagne taste on a boxed wine budget’ and love high quality and authenticity in the items I bring in my home- including natural materials (I hate synthetics). This is where a lot of creativity and resourcefulness is born from in my opinion. I’m crafty and will make and design many of the items in my home if I cannot find what I want on my budget. If I know I’m not going to be able to figure something out on my own, I turn to friends and artists in the community who are artisans and crafters themselves and work with wood, metal, and furniture. Paying them for their work to make a piece or fix a piece is far more valuable than purchasing something online.

Our main house on the island was originally 1 story stone cottage- but remains a mystery as to when it appeared. The last known pictures we’ve seen of the gristmill were around 1910 and the first records our town hall has regarding any permits is 1940 where we can see submissions about the guest cottage and the existing house was already standing on the map. What we don’t know is when or who built this and we have only a few historical context clues to guide the way as to what it should have looked like. There was a fire in the 80s that meant the owners at that time remodeled the whole place to be contemporary for that time and added the second floor. So as I’ve been remodeling, I’ve been trying to bring appropriate history back into the home- guessing at the likelihood of the Craftsman period. If I had a huge budget, I would have gone poking behind fireplace walls and subfloors. And frankly, if I had more confidence at that time in my own abilities I probably would have- but back then I was relying on the labor of a contractor for the big projects after a plumbing incident forced us to begin remodeling sooner than planned and he made it sound like it would be labor intensive to remove those floors and look (I can’t remember exactly what it looked like but I feel like it should not have been that difficult). So, there are a lot of risks I couldn’t take budgetarily and my solutions have been to add finishes that are either grounded in nature to reflect the surroundings here and to honor age appropriate materials where possible.

When we first moved here, the home had a heavy cottagecore, cute old lady aesthetic- and I actually didn’t mind it so much- it was cute and cozy- but it just wasn’t my vibe (and certainly not my partner’s). I was prepared to live with it for a few years before we started any remodeling but the house demanded attention. Plumbing burst upstairs- the exact week we finished remodeling the cottage- prompting us to have to tear out the upper bathroom and the downstairs floors and ceilings and begin remodeling immediately. With no budget. In the same timeline, the furnace stopped working and a gas leak was discovered when we attempted to fix the insulation in the house. This was during COVID supply chain back ups, so in addition to the obvious issues, it took forever for new systems to arrive. So it was a long couple years. We lived on a subfloor and in studs for a year, three in some spaces like the entryway. We had no furniture and the three of us- myself, my partner, and my large dog- would just smush together on Charleston’s dog bed to watch TV (the only piece of furnishing we had because my partner found a free one that he had to have) and cozy up by the space heater or head to my sister’s when it got too frigid. We really re-defined slow design.

The biggest issue with the cute grandma aesthetic was the wall to wall white carpeting- EVERYWHERE. We are an ‘outside’ kind of people. Who had a dog. I was usually caked in dirt from landscaping work. And even though I told my brain to be careful walking while holding eggs and sriracha, my arm would take over and throw the plate at the ground. The carpet already had major stains that had been hidden with furniture when we saw the house but we also did a number on it pretty quickly. The plumbing incident forced the removal of those carpets and then we slowly started to put the house back together and give it the attention it deserved.

The last thing I’ll share about my work is that I’m a big fan of tiny living- particularly as it means a smaller environmental footprint when it comes to sustainability. The guest cottage is around 700 sf and our main house is around 1800sf and is 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Not necessarily tiny, but the spaces inside it tend to be either small and contained or large and open- requiring me to think holistically and creatively when solving for the issues of how we live in this space (particularly as we consider whether we become a bigger family here). The great thing about small spaces though, is they are much easier to find upcycled materials to fit the square footage and so make designing sustainably much easier in some ways.

I hope you enjoy the transformations!