For homes that don’t include mudrooms in the floor plan designs, its not uncommon to instead have a pass-through laundry / mudroom combination that are located between the garage and the kitchen. And though this layout provides a space savings solution, it isn’t always without its challenges. To

When it comes to choosing colors and finish materials for design projects, it’s clearly understood that the go-to persons for that service would be interior designers. What’s less clear is the role that an interior designer plays in the actual three-dimensional design of a home or building.

For this week’s post I’m dialing it back to Floor Plan Design / Space Planning 101, and sharing some basic space planning tips, illustrating with a floor plan option for a small house, 2nd story remodel project.

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

Given all the surrounding natural beauty, one of the many things on the clients wish-list was to include an outdoor living space directly off the main area of their new home.

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

For this week’s post I’m sharing one of the many floor plan options we did for the design of the ensuites at the Timbre Heights Project, a new build located in Austin Texas.With this project, and like other similar projects, I was a part of a design team where I worked directly with the clients and

For this week’s post I’m dialing it back to Floor Plan Design / Space Planning 101, and sharing some basic space planning tips, illustrating with a floor plan option for a small house, 2nd story remodel project.

Given how the floor plan design came together, the space available for the scullery at the Citrus Point Project was an awkward, fragmented, interrupted area. Even so, with some troubleshooting and finessing, I was able to define the area into a high-functioning, practical, ordered space that, in its

For this week’s post I’m dialing it back to Floor Plan Design / Space Planning 101, and sharing some basic space planning tips, illustrating with a floor plan option for a small house, 2nd story remodel project.

How do I go about designing intentional spaces from project to project, room to room, and from space to space? For this week’s post, I’m sharing the top three things that guide and inform my designs , specifically when it comes to capturing and designing unusual spaces that would otherwise have go

I'm delighted to share with you that I'll be making a return to the classroom, not in a traditional role as a university instructor or a visiting lecturer. Instead, I'll take the stage as a featured presenter at the upcoming International Builder's Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, scheduled for this Febru

To illustrate that bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, for this post I’m sharing the isolated floor plans of both the initial and current design for the great room, kitchen and dining room for comparison purposes. In reviewing the floor plans side by side, here’s a list of the differences betwee

During the early stages of the pandemic, for those projects still in the planning phases, there was an immediate shift in my full-service clients' priorities regarding square footage. Creating functional spaces within their homes for potential challenges like sheltering-in-place became a priority, w

Building a dream home isn’t only a huge financial investment, but an emotional one as well. I’m a big proponent and ardent believer that Involving a skilled interior designer during the early stages of the floor plan design will not only produce a better end result, but will also help to avoid costl

Given how the floor plan design came together, the space available for the scullery at the Citrus Point Project was an awkward, fragmented, interrupted area. Even so, with some troubleshooting and finessing, I was able to define the area into a high-functioning, practical, ordered space that, in its

Picking up with where the architects left off, we set to work to refine and to develop a few more floor plan options for the clients to explore, especially as it related to the master bathroom and closet design. After the clients determined their favorite floor plan option, from the many that were

Meet Tami Faulkner, a Northern California based Interior Designer. She began assisting clients with their design needs in 2000 after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from California State University, Chico. Her work experience includes commercial, corporate, healthcare, and

When I tell someone that I’m an interior designer they immediately start talking about choosing pretty colors and finishes. And although those things are definitely an important part of interior design, I find myself trying to explain what I actually do for clients long before we get to the part w

Powder bathrooms, if planned well, can be beautiful little jewel boxes in our homes. The small size alone makes them the perfect space to include finishes and selections that are bold and visually impactful, no matter the architecture and design style of the home. For this journal entry I’m sharing

For this week’s post, I’m reaching into the archives and sharing the design plans for a patio redesign and addition for some longtime clients in Northern California. We’ll start by going over the objectives of the project, followed by important design tips for designing large patio spaces. From th

Given how the floor plan design came together, the space available for the scullery at the Citrus Point Project was an awkward, fragmented, interrupted area. Even so, with some troubleshooting and finessing, I was able to define the area into a high-functioning, practical, ordered space that, in its

Designing small spaces is always more challenging than designing where there is an abundance of space available. Every inch needs to be considered so as to elevate the utility and function of the space, like we’re doing with the master closet design at the Melodic Landing Project.

The Longview Estate Project is located in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California, in a small farming community, surrounded by vast acreage of beautiful fruit and nut tree orchards. The clients, whom I’ve worked with over the years, on their different homes, reached out for help with their g

Changes are in the works for the master bathroom at Project Square Clay , a large custom home that was originally built in the early 90’s. The architecture of the home is rustic modern mediterranean . As you'll see from the original floor plan, the master bedroom is abundant in size while the bat

Given all the surrounding natural beauty, one of the many things on the clients wish-list was to include an outdoor living space directly off the main area of their new home.

One of the most researched topics on kitchen design is questions about how big the island should be. Maybe it’s even a subject that you’ve researched, and perhaps it’s what’s brought you to this very article.

It wouldn’t be a new year without the experts weighing in on the projected trends for the coming year, especially when it comes to forecasting shifts with colors, textiles, and furnishings. Those leading the charge have their ears to the ground and their sights on the horizon, constantly taking note

Given all the surrounding natural beauty, one of the many things on the clients wish-list was to include an outdoor living space directly off the main area of their new home.

Given all the surrounding natural beauty, one of the many things on the clients wish-list was to include an outdoor living space directly off the main area of their new home.

Given all the surrounding natural beauty, one of the many things on the clients wish-list was to include an outdoor living space directly off the main area of their new home.

This week, I'm spotlighting the scullery design with the adjoining pantry of the Feather River Farmstead project ( full-service design project that started with me designing the floor plans) to highlight this process and to underscore the continuous refinement of floor plan development. We'll begin

In my many years as a custom home designer, spatial design and floor plan trends aren’t lost on me. What’s interesting about the whole process is that they are client driven. Of course there are lot’s of outside influences that direct clients in establishing what they want to include in the design o

It wouldn’t be a new year without the experts weighing in on the projected trends for the coming year, especially when it comes to forecasting shifts with colors, textiles, and furnishings. Those leading the charge have their ears to the ground and their sights on the horizon, constantly taking note

So much has changed since early spring when we started on the Water Vista Project , a full-house remodel and renovation for a 1990’s custom home in the foothills of Northern California. Rooms that were awkwardly designed are now being transformed into new, functional and beautiful spaces.

For this week’s post I’m sharing one of the many floor plan options we did for the design of the ensuites at the Timbre Heights Project, a new build located in Austin Texas.With this project, and like other similar projects, I was a part of a design team where I worked directly with the clients and

In this post, I’m sharing the as-built floor plan for a kitchen , nook , laundry room and powder bath for a project located in a beautiful, gated development in Northern California, along with the design plans for the same spaces. You’ll see how taking space from one place and giving it to ano

With your new forever, custom home, have you thought about having it designed so no matter what the future brings, you can comfortably grow old in the home? That’s what aging in place refers to - the ability to easily stay in our homes throughout our lives, even if there’s limited mobility and r

In today’s custom homes, not only have we added more specialized rooms to floor plan design but spaces that were once considered to only be for utilitarian purposes like laundry rooms , closets, pantries, etc. have now joined the ranks of being showpieces that are artfully designed while

If you’ve been following along on the Mount Valley Project , you know that it’s a semi-custom new build at the base of the majestic Wasatch Front Mountain Range, near Salt Lake City Utah. Before construction started I worked for several months with the clients going through the rooms of the house w

Although the Mount Valley Project, a large semi-custom, new build in Utah had plenty of square footage, in many of the rooms I had to do some finagling to design them in a way that would give the clients what they were hoping for, for each of the spaces.

To illustrate that bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, for this post I’m sharing the isolated floor plans of both the initial and current design for the great room, kitchen and dining room for comparison purposes. In reviewing the floor plans side by side, here’s a list of the differences betwee