Sometimes the most interesting design challenges happen in rooms that already have almost everything going for them.
This beautiful new home was built on a lake where our clients had grown up, so the setting already carried plenty of meaning. The architecture was lovely. The rooms were generous. And just beyond the bedroom was a light-filled home office with incredible views of the water.
There wasn't anything wrong with the space.
It simply wasn't taking full advantage of everything it had.
Before Photo:
Borrowing Light From the Room Next Door
One of the most interesting things about this primary suite is the relationship between the bedroom and the adjoining office.
The best lake views and much of the natural light are actually in the office, rather than directly in bedroom. Instead of treating that as a drawback, we wanted to use it.
Our goal was to keep the bedroom light, fresh and visually open so the daylight from the office could travel right through the two spaces.
That meant being very intentional about anything we added. We wanted enough scale to make the bedroom feel finished, but nothing so heavy that it interrupted that wonderful sense of light.
Before Photo:
Creating the Feeling of Another Window
The wall opposite the bed offered an opportunity to do something a little unexpected.
Rather than filling it with one large, heavy piece, we grouped four pieces of botanical artwork together. The arrangement creates almost the effect of another window in the room: light, rhythmic and airy, with just enough color to connect the bedroom to the palette beyond it.
It's a good example of something we think about all the time in our work: a room doesn't necessarily need more. It needs the right visual weight in the right places.
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After:
Getting the Scale Right
The existing bed had plenty of presence, and the room itself was substantial. The nightstands needed to keep up.
We chose larger, more solid bedside pieces that visually anchor the bed while also providing genuinely useful storage. Heating pads, chargers, cords, books and all of those not-particularly-photogenic things we actually keep beside our beds finally have somewhere to go.
But there was a catch.
The nightstands sit in front of windows, so putting large, visually heavy lamps on top of them would have blocked too much of the light.
Our solution was a pair of substantial clear glass lamps.
They have the scale the room requires, but because you can see through them, they don't have the visual heaviness. We get the proportion without sacrificing the light.
That's the balance we're always looking for.
After:
Across from the bed, we used the same principle. A television carries a surprising amount of visual weight, especially when it's mounted on a large wall. The dresser underneath it needed enough size and substance to balance it rather than looking like a small piece floating beneath a big black rectangle.
A more generously scaled dresser grounds the entire wall and gives the television a reason to be there.
Before photo:
Making the Office Part of the Suite
The adjoining office needed to function beautifully on its own, but we also couldn't design it in isolation.
You see this room from the bedroom. You catch glimpses of it from other nearby living spaces. It is part workspace, part sitting room and part backdrop to the reset of the house.
We reoriented the desk to take better advantage of the room and added appropriately scaled storage pieces and built-ins. We also created a comfortable place for someone to pull up a chair and chat without turning the office into a second living room.
The result is a workspace that feels purposeful when you're sitting at the desk and beautiful when you're simply looking through the doorway.
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After:
And, of course, we never wanted to compete with that view.
The palette stays soft and restrained: beautiful watery blues, warm neutrals and just a touch of honeyed yellow to bring some warmth and life into the rooms.
The overall "wrapper" remains quiet enough to let the architecture shine.
And beyond that, the lake.
After:
Good Design Isn't Always About Changing Everything
This project is a great reminder that designing a room doesn't always mean reinventing it.
Sometimes the architecture is already wonderful. The windows are already in the right places. The views are already spectacular.
The job then becomes knowing what to leave alone and what needs a little more help.
A larger nightstand. A transparent lamp. A better-proportioned dresser. A desk turned in a different direction. Four pieces of artwork that make a solid wall suddenly feel almost like another window.
Individually, none of those decisions is dramatic.
Together, they completely change the way the rooms feel and function.
And that's often where the best design happens: not in adding more, but in understanding the room well enough to know exactly what it needs.
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