MOST RENOVATIONS ARE WON OR LOST BEFORE THEY BEGIN
My work is the setup: the decisions that decide the outcome, made before anyone is hired.
HOW A PROJECT BEGINS
Every renovation begins with a decision about whom to hire — an architect, a designer, a general contractor, or some combination. Each brings expertise, but each is engaged to perform a defined role.
The more important question comes first: is the project itself set up correctly? Decisions about priorities, budget, scope, and how the home should support the way you actually live shape cost and quality more than anything decided later — yet they are often made before anyone has been engaged to look across the project as a whole.
That is where I begin: before design starts or construction is priced, I establish the project's direction, assemble the right team, and create the framework within which everyone else does their best work. Sometimes I continue as your interior designer; sometimes I step aside once the project is on the right footing. Either way, the project starts with the whole picture in view, before responsibilities are divided.
That is how budgets are protected rather than repaired.
WHERE A RENOVATION IS ACTUALLY DECIDED
tw0 disciplines.
one principal.
Interior designer and
owner's representative — two disciplines that rarely share one practice. Most projects require both and hire them separately, which is how their interests diverge. Here they don't.
Behind them, a network of architects, contractors and specialists built over 25 years of New Yorkrenovations — chosen for temperament as much as craft.
THE FIVE PHASES
The initial consultation is complimentary. Beyond it, every engagement begins with a defined scope and a defined outcome: Project Positioning and Project Framework are fixed engagements — fixed deliverables, fixed fees — so you know what you are buying, and what it costs, before you commit.
Only once those phases have defined the work do I recommend a structure for any continuing engagement, set to what that work actually requires. A full renovation and a few days of advice are not the same undertaking and should not be priced as one.
The fee is not the starting point; it is the result of work already defined.
