Part 1, August 2026

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a home feel luxurious.

Perhaps that’s not surprising given what I do for a living, but the question has taken on a very different meaning over the past year. When I sold the home I had designed for my own family and moved into a much smaller, much older house, I expected to miss the space. After all, that home represented so much of what my husband and I had worked toward. Every room held a memory, every finish had been thoughtfully selected, and every corner reflected the architect and designer I had spent decades becoming. It was a beautiful home, and I loved it.

What surprised me wasn’t what I left behind. It was what I found.

As the boxes were unpacked and life slowly settled into a different rhythm, I realized I wasn’t thinking about the rooms I no longer had. I wasn’t missing the extra square footage, or wishing for another sitting room, or wondering where one more piece of furniture should go. Instead, I found myself appreciating something I hadn’t expected. My home had become quieter. Not quieter in sound, but quieter in the way it asked me to live. There was less to organize, less to maintain, and fewer spaces that existed simply because they could. The rooms we used every day became the rooms we truly valued, and somehow that shift felt surprisingly freeing.

It got me thinking.

For years, our industry has quietly celebrated the idea that bigger is always better. Larger kitchens, larger closets, larger islands, larger homes. We celebrate square footage almost as if it were a measure of success, and somewhere along the way many of us began believing that if we only had a little more space, life itself might become a little easier.

I understand why.

When you’re raising young children, there are seasons when the house feels as though it is shrinking by the day. Toys appear where you swear there weren’t toys five minutes earlier. Sports equipment seems to multiply overnight. Laundry has an uncanny ability to reproduce itself, and I remain convinced that backpacks somehow migrate to every room in the house when no one is looking. During those years, another bedroom, a larger mudroom, or a bigger family room can feel like the answer to everything.

I lived those years too.

But life has a remarkable way of changing our perspective. As children grow older and our homes become a little quieter, many of us begin to realize that we are no longer searching for more space. We are searching for more ease. Those are two very different things.

That realization has changed the way I think about design, and perhaps more importantly, it has changed the conversations I have with my clients.

The cost of building today is extraordinary. Materials, labor, furnishings, and maintenance have all risen dramatically, and every additional square foot carries a cost that extends well beyond construction. We don’t simply build those extra rooms. We furnish them. We heat and cool them. We clean them, maintain them, renovate them, and eventually wonder why we have so many spaces that rarely get used.

I’ve also noticed something else over the years.

Large houses have an amazing ability to attract more stuff.

It seems every empty corner eventually becomes a place for another chair, another cabinet, another accessory, another collection we couldn’t imagine living without until we eventually wondered why we bought it in the first place. Perhaps that’s one of the unexpected gifts of getting older. We begin to understand that abundance and excess are not the same thing.

Please don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t an argument against large homes. There are families whose lives truly require them, and I will happily continue designing those homes. What has changed is my desire to ask better questions before assuming that more square footage is the only solution.

Sometimes it is.

Often, it isn’t. Sometimes the answer is a better floor plan. Sometimes it is rethinking how rooms relate to one another. Sometimes it is investing in extraordinary millwork instead of another five hundred square feet. Sometimes thoughtfully layered interiors, beautiful materials, and craftsmanship create a home that feels richer, warmer, and more luxurious than simply making it larger ever could.

I have also come to appreciate something that I don’t think I understood as clearly when I was younger. Luxury is rarely about having everything. More often, it is about having exactly what you need, executed beautifully.

Enough space to gather with the people you love.

Enough beauty to inspire you every day.

Enough craftsmanship to stand the test of time.

Enough margin in your life to actually enjoy the home you worked so hard to build.

When I look back on the move that felt so significant just a year ago, I realize I wasn’t searching for a smaller house at all. I was searching for a different way to live. One where my home gave more back than it asked of me. One where quality mattered more than quantity, and where every room had a purpose instead of simply occupying square footage.

Perhaps that is the home I am most interested in designing now.

Not the biggest one.

Not the one with the longest list of amenities.

The one that quietly supports the life unfolding inside it.

Maybe that is what an unhurried home really is.

So the next time you find yourself wondering whether your home needs another eight hundred square feet, I’d encourage you to pause for just a moment and ask yourself a different question.

What do I already have that could become extraordinary?