Every designer has a process. Mine starts somewhere most people don't expect.

Not with paint swatches. Not with furniture layouts. Not with Pinterest boards.

I start with the art.

The art tells me what the room wants to be. Everything else answers to it.

Why art comes first

Paint is permanent in a way that feels permanent but isn't. You can repaint. You can re-upholster. You can swap out a rug. But when you fall in love with a piece of art — and I mean really fall in love, the kind where you keep going back to look at it — that piece becomes the emotional center of the room. It sets the tone. It establishes the hierarchy.

I've walked into too many beautifully designed rooms that felt completely flat. The proportions were right. The furniture was considered. The finish selections were impeccable. And then you looked at the walls and there was a framed print from a hotel lobby chain and suddenly nothing felt intentional anymore.

The art is never an afterthought in the rooms I design. It's the starting point.

What this looks like in practice

It means that before I select a single paint color, I'm asking my client to show me art they love. Not art they think they should love. Not art that matches. Art that stops them.

That piece — its colors, its energy, its mood — becomes our north star.

The paint color we pick has to live with it. The upholstery has to answer to it. The room gets built around the thing that matters most.

Sometimes that's a painting that's been leaning against a wall in the garage for three years because nobody knew what to do with it. Sometimes it's something we commission together from scratch, built around a color story that's specific to the room and the person who lives in it.

Either way, we start there. And the room always knows it.

The practical takeaway

Next time you're stuck on a room, stop looking at paint chips. Go find the piece of art that makes you feel something. Then build from there. I promise the rest gets easier.