Collected Living Room

This room began with a flood.

Last June, on the very same day my client’s daughter graduated, their home flooded. What should have been a joyful milestone quickly became months of demolition, insurance delays, and living with a room stripped down to concrete subfloors and uncertainty.

By the time I came into the project in October, the space had been sitting unfinished for months. Instead of rushing to simply “put it back,” we decided to rebuild it intentionally — slowly layering in materials and pieces that felt connected to their family, their memories, and the California landscape they love.

We started with the foundation of the room: rich walnut hardwood flooring and a cypress tongue-and-groove ceiling that quietly nods to the California coast. From there came soft, atmospheric paint colors — Farrow & Ball Whimborne White paired with Valspar Ghost Story — and a wallpaper designed by their daughter through Love & Design that added just enough texture and movement without overpowering the room.

The goal was never perfection. It was to create a space that felt collected over time.

We intentionally kept many of the pieces already woven into the family’s history: the oversized sectional, the antique record player inherited from her late parents, the vintage trunk side table, existing artwork painted by her uncle, and treasured antiques collected from her parents’ home. Rather than erase the past, we wanted the room to carry it forward.

Some of my favorite moments came from the hunt itself — a $50 vintage corner cabinet to hold the family’s glassware collection, a tiny $7 milk glass lamp from the thrift store, antique French windows layered into the gallery wall, and a vintage “D” found for $29 to represent the family name.

The gallery wall became one of the most personal parts of the project. Some of the pieces were already deeply meaningful to the family, while others were slowly gathered through thrift stores and antique shops to help the wall feel layered and lived-in rather than overly designed. Their daughter created her own portrait drawing of her horse, and the centerpiece — a custom painting of her and her horse — was created by my husband Aaron, an artist at Disney. Watching that piece become part of the room felt especially meaningful, and creating custom artwork like this is something we’re excited to begin offering to future clients as well.

What I love most about design is that a room can become more than just “beautiful.” It can hold memory. Grief. History. Personality. Art. Family.

This space doesn’t feel brand new.

It feels lived in, loved, and deeply theirs.