Interiors
How we design interiors.
Rooms that work at seven in the morning, in February, with the family home.
The premise
Design for the days, not the tour.
Most houses are designed to impress a visitor for ten minutes. We design for the thousands of ordinary mornings and evenings in between. That changes almost everything: fewer formal rooms and more places where people naturally gather; a kitchen built around how you actually cook; storage where things are used, not where there was room left over.
Light comes first. In Minnesota the sun sits low for half the year, so rooms are placed where the light lands, and windows are sized for the view and the season, not only for the elevation.
Room by room
Where the decisions matter most.
Kitchens
One working wall, a generous island with the sink facing the room, and a pantry that takes the clutter. Hardwearing surfaces where you cut and set hot pans; quieter ones where you sit. Lighting in three layers: task, ambient and evening.
Gathering spaces
A great room that holds twelve on a holiday and feels right with two on a Tuesday. A fireplace you can actually sit beside. A screen porch with a real roof, because it is the most used room on a lake from May to October.
Primary suite
Morning light, a closet that is a room, and a bath planned for two people on the same schedule. Heated floors are not a luxury here; they are how a stone floor works in January.
Room by room
The rooms that get forgotten.
Mudroom & entry
In a four-season house the mudroom is the front door for the people who live there. Bench, hooks at child height, a drain in the floor, and a closet for the second set of everything.
Baths
Stone and tile that look better with age, fixtures that can be serviced, ventilation sized for a Minnesota winter, and enough hand towels for a family.
Lower level & bunk rooms
Daylight where the grade allows, a ceiling height that does not feel like a basement, and bunk rooms that sleep the cousins without becoming a dormitory.
Lake light and four seasons
Indoors, the lake is a light source.
Water throws light upward. A lake-facing room is brighter from below than any inland room, and in winter the ice turns that light flat and white. We shade and soften it with deep overhangs, porch roofs, and finishes that do not glare: honed stone, matte paint, oiled wood.
Four seasons also means four temperatures. Materials move. We detail trim, flooring and millwork for that movement so that the house is as quiet in February as it is in July.
Materials
What we return to, and why.
White oak, limestone, fieldstone, unlacquered brass, honed quartzite. Each has a reason, and each has a place where it should not be used. The materials we return to
Start where you are.
Tell us about the place you keep coming back to in your mind. The one you already love. Or the one that doesn’t exist yet. We’ll tell you what we see, what we don’t, and what only you can decide next.