Prioritizing Privacy: A Simple Secret to Living Well
For many, the ultimate luxury is time. While time away from the usual sights and sounds can be restorative, time at home, in a space designed especially for us and our needs, may be the simplest secret to living well.
Crafting a home that mirrors our distinct values is a personal and private experience. This profound understanding and respect for individuality are integral to the studio's interior design process and a cornerstone of preserving client privacy.
Establishing a sense of safety and comfort with a home designer is an essential first step. For many of us, a crucial part of building trust is ensuring discretion. When we feel comfortable sharing our needs openly and honestly, our homes can be custom-designed to create supportive spaces where we can thrive.
Physical Comfort. Consider the possibilities of personalized ergonomic design. When our homes are meticulously tailored to fit our body dimensions and personal needs, the spaces within our homes can truly support us. The potential for personalization is vast, from the height of countertops and light switch placement to bespoke furniture built to support our bodies.
Emotional Comfort. Feeling welcome to be open about the reality of our traumatic experiences, grief, and post-traumatic stress (PTSD) through a warm, understanding, and private design process helps make it possible to design soothing and restorative spaces that support emotional needs.
Accessibility and Inclusivity.Spaces custom-designed to meet our specific physical needs can empower and enrich us in daily life.An experienced design team prioritizes creating a safe space during the process where we can honestly share any physical needs that home spaces can be designed to support, such as hearing impairment, vision impairment, color vision deficiency, mobility impairments, and memory loss.
Healing Spaces. Creating a safe space for open, empathetic communication within the process enables us to collaboratively examine the sensory effects of a space and create inclusive, supportive, and healing home environments designed to help neurodiverse individuals thrive. One of our most fulfilling recent projects is a multi-room living space custom-designed for a family with a neurodivergent child. The space includes an indoor treehouse with a tunnel into an adjacent room and play areas with custom climbing forms. There is a space for reading and focused therapies as well as a sleeping space that incorporates the tactility of soft surfaces connecting intimate and energetic spaces designed to help the child thrive.
Collections and Clutter. When we are hesitant to share our organizational challenges, sometimes things can feel overwhelming, making it challenging to begin a project. Fostering openness and trust clears a path for us to co-create a highly functional space that caters to our unique needs and lifestyle. Sometimes, it begins with a desire for a more orderly system for storing all of life's necessities. Other times, it's collected or inherited items that require sorting and cataloging. No matter the prompt, increasing order can help us reduce decision fatigue and increase a feeling of lightness.
When inviting construction crews, materials suppliers, and other workers into our homes, it is important to have the support of a designer who is sensitive to our personal needs. A privacy-conscious interior designer encourages trust and clear communication among the construction team to help ensure client privacy is respected at every stage of the process.
Sensitive Communication. Open communication helps designers inform other members of supportive teams so they might be sensitive to specific protocols, such as avoiding fragrances, removing shoes, and/or wearing booties. It's common to arrange meetings and site visits around family routines and children's napping schedules, which helps to make the design process as comfortable and enjoyable as possible.
Designer as Intermediary. The preferred level of engagement each of us chooses to experience with the design process and other teams involved in the project is a personal choice. Some folks find it enjoyable to get to know the workers, visit the construction site regularly, and be active participants in all of the project happenings. Other folks may prefer their design team to be the main point of contact with the general contractor, real estate agent, art handler, landscape architect, closet designer, engineer, and other specialty trades. Designers can act as intermediaries to create connections and facilitate conversations on a Client's behalf, meeting and communicating with crew and staff to help maintain the Client's desired level of privacy and anonymity.
Establishing private, personal space within our homes often begins with creating physical boundaries that foster a sense of comfort, peace, and well-being. Consider the simple pleasure of enjoying a bath with an inspiring natural view without concern for interruption. With thoughtful design planning, peaceful feelings can be continued throughout our homes.
Sound. Quiet space is something to consider when designing a home that offers the utmost privacy. Soundproofing insulation is a great way to create privacy and focus in a library, meditation room, or other personalized retreat. Some environments may benefit from sound masking systems that are fine-tuned to a room environment, filtering out specific frequencies and shielding noise from other home areas.
Automation. Motorized drapes, shades, and smart glass help us instantly and effortlessly shift between wide-open views and total privacy. Smart window coverings can be controlled by wall-mounted keypads, a cellphone app, or a customized prescheduled set of scenes.
Entrances. Design can determine what spaces within our home are accessible to guests and help to protect our personal space. This is easily achieved by creating a distinct entrance room from which the rest of the house cannot easily be seen. For example, a cozy waiting area for very short-term guests creates a polite boundary between visitors and residents.
Private spaces. Smart door locks can both allow and limit specific users access to predetermined areas within certain authorized times. For example, the gardening team has a passcode authorized to unlock exterior gates only, while the cleaning team has a passcode authorized to access interior and exterior spaces during their scheduled work times. Nannies, tutors, dogwalkers, chefs, and other household support staff can have unique passcodes that limit room access to their job functions.
Exterior privacy offers a sense of ease while spending time in outdoor spaces. Garden space well obscured from neighbors can create more comfort when gardening, swimming, sunbathing, exercising, or socializing. Outdoor privacy empowers us to make the most of our outdoor spaces and enhances our overall living experience by providing a peaceful outdoor retreat.
Landscaping. Strategically arranged outdoor elements can help limit our home's visibility, promoting privacy while contributing to a sense of peace and beauty. Lemonade Berry (Rhus integrifolia) is one of Sarah's favorite hedge materials because it can survive with very little water and produces delightful small pink flowers.
Plant selection. Evergreen plants are ideal for privacy gardens as their leaves offer consistent foliage year-round; the California live oak is another one of Sarah's favorite plants as it supports native wildlife and provides year-round shade.
Outdoor Shade Systems. Minimalist, motorized shades may be installed on the exterior of the building any time window treatments are undesirable in the interior. These shades can be controlled by phone app, wall-mounted keypad or prescheduled to open and close during the work times of visiting professionals, like the gardening team or pool service.
Security. Incorporating gates at the property's entry can also contribute to elevated privacy and security. At larger estates and celebrity homes, it is entirely reasonable to design a private guard shack at the entrance for maximum safety and security.
A guest house is an excellent option for those who enjoy entertaining but prefer to keep their primary residence private. Designing a separate dwelling dedicated to guests creates space for deeper connections with friends and family, making it easy to host parties, functions, and longer stays while also maintaining the comfort of personal space.
Separate social space. Events can be set up days in advance, creating an ease that allows focus on the fun, enjoyment, and connection of social events.
Privacy for guests. A pool house, casita, or bungalow are excellent options for visiting friends and family. The guest house can provide private personal space during their stay, while the pool can be a communal area where hosts and guests meet, relax, and socialize outside the primary residence.
Longer stays. A guest house is an excellent option for long-term guests, as it promotes independence during their stay, helping us maintain personal space and privacy while also enjoying time together.
Privacy is a critical component of well-being in our homes. Having space for ourselves, both physically and emotionally, can have an empowering effect on our lives. Collaborating with a designer who understands and respects the desire for discretion and privacy throughout the design process helps create a home that supports our best day-to-day living.
Sarah Barnard, WELL AP + LEED AP, is a leading designer of personalized, sustainable spaces that support mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. She creates highly personalized, restorative spaces that are deeply connected to art and the preservation of the environment. An advocate for consciousness, inclusivity, and compassion in the creative process, Sarah has appeared in Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Vogue, HGTV, and many other publications. In 2017 Sarah was honored as a “Ones to Watch” Scholar by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID).
Deeply Personal Design Process
Our homes are incredibly personal and intimate; they reflect our personalities, relationships, passions, and goals. Inviting an interior designer into our home spaces and lifestyles can feel like a big step, but having someone to help navigate the many facets of our homes and realize them into a design concept can be a rewarding and fulfilling process. Many of us may have strong preferences or see images, colors, or designs that can cause a feeling of joy. What can be challenging is finding ways to integrate aesthetic leanings into our daily functional needs. Personalized design can create flexibility through customization and specificity, offering space for our design dreams to be applied to a home that can physically and emotionally serve us.
One of the foundations of a functionally supportive space is ergonomics. While ergonomics is often considered for workspaces, it's important throughout all living areas, impacting our comfort, energy levels, and interactions with our home. Some ways we can integrate ergonomic design into our home include custom furniture and counter heights that can encourage better posture and physical ease on joints. Arranging televisions and screens to avoid glare so we can watch entertainment unobscured and comfortably. Sensory elements such as soft close doors and cabinets can reduce abrasive noises throughout the home, contributing to a calm, serene, and mindful environment. And devising layouts that encourage movement or an organic flow of foot traffic can help to reduce mental and physical stress throughout the day.
Design is always a collaborative process, particularly in shared home spaces where multiple desires, needs, and personalities must be considered and supported under the same roof. Our homes can be custom-designed to support the specific needs of our family. For families with young children, designing a space for play and custom storage options for toys can promote tidiness, order, and quiet throughout the home. Carpeting and furnishings made from robust materials that can be spot-cleaned are ideal to resist day-to-day wear and tear. Custom kitchens can be designed for large families to contain additional cold food storage concealed neatly within specialized cabinetry.
Sensory details play an essential role when designing custom spaces for neurodivergent children. In past projects designed for children with hypersensitivity, window treatments were a successful way in which we could help diffuse and regulate both light and environmental noise to encourage a feeling of calm within the home. Past projects designed for hypo-sensitive children were very different spaces; here, we created an engaging and stimulating environment featuring bright colors and soft custom climbing areas designed to encourage play.
Our home can also be customized to support caring for an elderly loved one. Bespoke furniture can be ergonomically designed to lessen stress on the body and support ease of movement in day-to-day living. Smart lighting options that can be remotely controlled and bathroom modifications such as grab bars, lever or touchless motion-activated faucets, and custom counter heights can also help facilitate independence and wellness.
Trauma-informed design can help create healing, restorative spaces that support recovery from trauma and post-traumatic stress. With trauma-informed design, the process is intended to create a safe and inclusive environment where we can feel comfortable honestly expressing our design needs. Individual sensory needs are incorporated with our aesthetic tastes through design elements such as color, texture, and other sensory elements, incorporating biophilic design to create mindful spaces where we can relax and regenerate.
Pets are another member of the family to consider when designing our home, and pet-friendly fabrics can be a great way to incorporate their accessories. Consider a custom pet bed made from a favorite washable fabric or reupholstering furniture that could use a bit of a freshen-up. Sturdy materials that can be spot-cleaned, such as recycled fibers, are also an excellent option for rugs and carpeting in a pet-friendly home.
Hybrid work and working from home have become commonplace, increasing the need for dedicated spaces that create a boundary between work and everyday life. Some considerations for these spaces include noise reduction or soundproofing for virtual meetings and focus, ergonomic furniture, adequate lighting, color choice, and biophilic design, all of which can contribute to creating a mindful workspace.
When we consider our home spaces as reflections of ourselves, interior design can integrate aspects of our personalities, personal histories, ethics, and values. These considerations may include sustainable or vegan design or a home that reflects our desires for socialization or privacy. They may also include home spaces that reflect cultural histories or find ways to integrate important memories or personal milestones.
A holistic approach to vegan design moves beyond simply excluding materials made from animal products, creating a home that reflects a mindful connection and awareness of our place within the planet's broader ecosystem. Eco-friendly, ethically sourced materials such as bamboo silk or textiles and wallpapers made from cruelty-free plant-derived materials are free from animal products, can have low or no VOCs, and are environmentally conscious in their manufacturing. Re-wilding our yards with drought-tolerant indigenous plants is a great way to nurture and support our home's natural ecosystem by creating an environment that attracts and sustains local wildlife and pollinators. Biophilic design is a great way to enjoy the serenity of this natural environment within our homes. Incorporating materials and patterns that reference natural imagery can encourage mindful connectivity between ourselves and our surrounding natural environment. Also, incorporating technology that works with our local ecosystems, such as rainwater storage, greywater systems, and solar panels, is a small contribution that has the potential to make a positive environmental impact collectively while creating self-reliance at home.
Our home can also be designed to incorporate objects and collections that are important to us or reflect our cultural identity. Including these objects in a beautiful, functional, healthy home creates a self-portrait that reflects our uniqueness. Being surrounded by objects that contain cultural significance, happy memories and bring us joy has the potential to make a restorative, joyful space where we can authentically be ourselves.
Unique, one-of-a-kind home attributes can also be a valuable way to turn our home spaces into havens of joy and comfort. For those who find serenity in botanical spaces, a custom glass greenhouse that doubles as a wellness space can become a favorite retreat that adds a sense of wonder to the home. Having an indulgent space for privacy, like a personal dressing room, screening room, or in-home spa, can feel like a personal oasis.
A dedicated wellness space, such as a yoga or meditation room, encourages a daily practice of mindfulness and self-care that can benefit mental and emotional health. Sensory details such as color, texture, lighting, and noise can influence a room's emotional effect and comfort. Color has the ability to energize or soothe us; a cool neutral palette, such as soft earth tones, can contribute to a feeling of calm. Adjustable lighting, lamps, and automated shades can regulate light levels within a space. Soft-closing doors and drawers, high-pile carpeting, and rugs can be utilized to minimize environmental noise and help create a calm and quiet space. Custom storage solutions can also be used to declutter a space and create calm.
Having areas slightly separated from the home can also create room for a design departure, adding to the feeling of variety. Many may be interested in creating opportunities for connection in their home, with spaces for education or gathering. Rooms for meditation or sound baths with friends and neighbors or music and creative spaces designed to share with close friends and loved ones can help create feelings of connection for those who enjoy their homes as social spaces for gathering.
Slow design is a deeply personal design process that allows us to slow down, truly consider, and discover how our home can support us in living our best and most joyous lives. A holistic approach to interior design, slow design takes time to create a layered and highly personalized home design that considers how our home can support our day-to-day needs, creating a space where we can thrive.
Creating a home that profoundly reflects ourselves can be an enriching and fulfilling experience. Custom-made objects and designs for our home can be sourced from quality, eco-conscious materials intended for lifetime use. These highly personalized one-of-a-kind objects exude luxury through their superior quality; slow design fosters connectivity with the materials and craftsmanship of these heirloom objects and our home. Slow design is often better for the environment as materials can be ethically sourced, and objects that are made with intentionality can incorporate waste reduction into the process. Building relationships with local skilled artisans and craftspersons also creates positive connections and support within our local community.
Slow design also utilizes 3D rendering to help visualize how the home design will look and feel. While renderings take time to develop, they help alleviate stress or indecision when considering multiple options or directions for the design.
A holistic approach to designing personalized spaces can help create home interiors that feel like an extension of self, a space that promotes personal growth and fulfillment. Exploring opportunities to make home changes or incorporate customization can expand our ideas around restorative spaces to create a home environment that enriches our daily lives and brings us joy. Embracing personalized home space can offer room for exploration and peace, where we can celebrate ourselves, our loved ones, and our environments.
Sarah Barnard, WELL AP + LEED AP, is a leading designer of personalized, sustainable spaces that support mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. She creates highly personalized, restorative spaces that are deeply connected to art and the preservation of the environment. An advocate for consciousness, inclusivity, and compassion in the creative process, Sarah has appeared in Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Vogue, HGTV, and many other publications. In 2017 Sarah was honored as a “Ones to Watch” Scholar by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID).