the FRANCIS FILES
Interior Design Blog
Interior Design >
ogara-belmont-atlanta-kitchen-3 copy.jpg__PID:b7af704d-7a26-4af0-8b96-ff30f45a2da6
Collaborations >
Design History >
Travel >
Inspiration >
Do Home Improvements Increase Appraisal Value?
Do Home Improvements Increase Appraisal Value?
The renovations that hold their value are usually the ones that make a house feel finished, not the ones that cost the most. Home improvements make a house more comfortable,... Read more...
How to Design an Open-Plan Kitchen and Living Room as One Room
How to Design an Open-Plan Kitchen and Living Room as One Room
One sightline, one room: from the sofa, the sink and the seating are read together. Stand at the sink in most renovated houses now and you are looking straight at... Read more...
White-Glove Delivery for a Design Project: How Install Day Should Go
White-Glove Delivery for a Design Project: How Install Day Should Go
The best part of any project is not the day the rug arrives. It is the day everything arrives, in the right order, and the room comes together in an... Read more...
How Interior Designers Should Vet a Receiving Warehouse
How Interior Designers Should Vet a Receiving Warehouse
Before a single piece goes into a client's house, someone has to open the box. That person matters more than most designers admit. Every designer knows the moment a project... Read more...
How to Choose Door Hardware: Function, Fit, and Finish
How to Choose Door Hardware: Function, Fit, and Finish
An unlacquered brass lever on a navy paneled door: function chosen first, finish second. Door hardware is the part of a house you touch more than anything else, and it... Read more...
Sculptural Staircases for Small Homes: Make the Stair the Statement
Sculptural Staircases for Small Homes: Make the Stair the Statement
A spiral stair in a compact living room, treated as the room's sculpture rather than its circulation. Most people think of the staircase in a small house as a cost.... Read more...
How to Check a Wool Rug for Carpet Beetles
How to Check a Wool Rug for Carpet Beetles
The back of a hand-knotted rug tells you more than the front ever will. Every rug that comes back from our weavers gets looked at face down before it ever... Read more...
Architectural Fence Design: How to Make a Fence Belong to the House
Architectural Fence Design: How to Make a Fence Belong to the House
A fence drawn with the same pencil as the house: pickets painted to match the trim, posts spaced to the rhythm of the windows. My grandmother used to drive me... Read more...
Cold Climate Pool Design: Plan the View From Indoors
Cold Climate Pool Design: Plan the View From Indoors
From November to May, this is the pool: a calm green shape in the window, framed by stone, snow and a few red stems. In New Hampshire, a backyard pool... Read more...
How to Place Antique Furniture in a Modern Room
How to Place Antique Furniture in a Modern Room
Place antique furniture in a modern room the designer's way: start with one statement piece, match proportion, leave space, and bridge eras with color. Read more...
The Painter's Tape Test: How to Check a Rug Size Before You Buy
The Painter's Tape Test: How to Check a Rug Size Before You Buy
Mark a rug's outline with painter's tape before you order. A rug maker's room-by-room test for living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and halls. Read more...
How to Coordinate Fabrics in a Room: Give Every Textile a Job
How to Coordinate Fabrics in a Room: Give Every Textile a Job
How to coordinate fabrics in a room: give each textile a job, build a palette by undertone, mix texture and pattern with restraint, choose for real use. Read more...
How to Make a Neutral Living Room Look Luxurious
How to Make a Neutral Living Room Look Luxurious
A neutral living room fails in one predictable way. The walls are beige, the sofa is beige, the rug is beige, the curtains are a slightly different beige, and the... Read more...
Best Flooring for Dogs: Choose by Grip, Mess and Room
Best Flooring for Dogs: Choose by Grip, Mess and Room
The right floor for a dog changes from the back door to the sofa, so choose room by room. Some floors wipe clean of muddy paw prints in seconds and... Read more...
Small Narrow Hallway Ideas That Work in Everyday Life
Small Narrow Hallway Ideas That Work in Everyday Life
A narrow hall earns its keep when the route is clear, the storage fits what you own, and one good surface does the talking. Shoes caught behind the front door,... Read more...
Bathroom Remodel Checklist: What to Settle Before Demo
Bathroom Remodel Checklist: What to Settle Before Demo
The decisions you can't see in the finished room are the ones that decide whether it lasts. A bathroom is usually one of the smallest rooms in a house and... Read more...
Loft Dining Room Acoustics: How One Wall Quieted the Echo
Loft Dining Room Acoustics: How One Wall Quieted the Echo
One wall of walnut slats and a wool rug took this loft dining room from echo chamber to dinner party. The first dinner party in my clients' new loft did... Read more...
Outdoor Christmas Decorating Ideas, From the Front Door to the Garden
Outdoor Christmas Decorating Ideas, From the Front Door to the Garden
Outdoor Christmas decorating ideas from a designer: a generous wreath, real greenery, one repeated palette, layered warm white lights and seating people use. Read more...
Buying Tile Online: How a Designer Shops Room by Room
Buying Tile Online: How a Designer Shops Room by Room
Tile samples from three sources, lined up in the room they're meant for. This is where every tile decision should be made. The worst tile decision I ever watched a... Read more...
What Size Rug for a Sectional? A Designer's Sizing Guide
What Size Rug for a Sectional? A Designer's Sizing Guide
An L-shaped sectional with its front legs on a 9 × 12 rug, so both arms read as one seating group. A sectional is the most generous sofa you can... Read more...
Are Historic Wood Windows Worth Restoring? A Designer's Take
Are Historic Wood Windows Worth Restoring? A Designer's Take
Original wood sash, repaired and repainted, keeps the proportions the house was built with. When my grandmother drove me around Buckhead to look at the historic homes, the houses that... Read more...
Plan Your Apartment Layout Before Move-In With Virtual Design Tools
Plan Your Apartment Layout Before Move-In With Virtual Design Tools
Plan the room on paper and on screen first, and the sofa, the rug and the lamp all arrive already knowing where they belong. The most expensive mistake I see... Read more...
Galley Kitchen Layout: How to Tell If a Narrow Kitchen Works
Galley Kitchen Layout: How to Tell If a Narrow Kitchen Works
A galley lives or dies by its aisle. Get the width right, and two facing runs feel like a well-made instrument. I have a soft spot for a galley kitchen.... Read more...
How to Design a Screen-Free Playroom Your Family Will Actually Use
How to Design a Screen-Free Playroom Your Family Will Actually Use
One rug, a few toys out, and a real chair for the grown-up. Most screen-free playrooms fail for a boring reason. The room gets decorated before anyone decides how it... Read more...
The Patio Measurements Nobody Takes Until the Umbrella Arrives
The Patio Measurements Nobody Takes Until the Umbrella Arrives
Canopy size, sun angle, head clearance, base weight and wind: the five measurements that decide whether a patio umbrella actually shades your table. Read more...
Pro-Style Kitchen Design That Still Looks Like Home
Pro-Style Kitchen Design That Still Looks Like Home
A pro-style range set into painted cabinetry, with the refrigerator hidden behind matching panels. My mother is a master hostess, and the first thing I learned from watching her is... Read more...
Dining Room Rug Size: A Rug Maker's Guide
Dining Room Rug Size: A Rug Maker's Guide
The dining rug rule nobody actually follows: measure the table, add 48 inches, then round up. Sizes by table, why low pile wins, and when standard sizes stop working. Read more...
Granny Flat Floor Plans: Why the Plan Comes Before the Facade
Granny Flat Floor Plans: Why the Plan Comes Before the Facade
A one-bedroom flat with the long wall given over to windows. The plan decided that long before the facade did. Every older neighborhood in Atlanta has a few of them... Read more...
A Floor Plan That Fits How You Live, Not the Listing
A Floor Plan That Fits How You Live, Not the Listing
The rooms that do the real work of a house: a kitchen island that feeds the family, and a keeping room right beside it. Drive through any new subdivision on... Read more...
Bathroom Roller Shades: Materials That Handle Moisture
Bathroom Roller Shades: Materials That Handle Moisture
A matte roller shade in a soft green keeps a tub-side window private without swallowing the daylight. Bathrooms are where I see the most expensive window treatment mistakes on the... Read more...
7 Ways a Modular Sofa Makes a Living Room More Flexible
7 Ways a Modular Sofa Makes a Living Room More Flexible
A modular sofa pulled apart into two seating groups, which is the whole point of buying one. The sofa is the one piece of furniture I tell people to buy... Read more...
Choosing Shed Doors That Suit the House, Not the Catalog
Choosing Shed Doors That Suit the House, Not the Catalog
A shed door is the one detail on an outbuilding that everyone actually looks at, so it is the detail worth getting right. My grandmother had a rule about houses... Read more...
Designing Around Air Vents, Returns and Thermostats
Designing Around Air Vents, Returns and Thermostats
The vent is still there. It just stopped being the first thing you see. Every room has a few things in it that nobody chose. The thermostat on the best... Read more...
5 Reasons Garage Carpet Is Ideal for Turning Your Garage into a More Usable Space
5 Reasons Garage Carpet Is Ideal for Turning Your Garage into a More Usable Space
A garage that has stopped being a garage: carpet down, a proper chair, and a lamp instead of a bare bulb. The garage is the last honest room in most... Read more...
6 Entryway Design Ideas for a Beautiful First Impression
6 Entryway Design Ideas for a Beautiful First Impression
A front hall that does its job in the first five seconds: a runner underfoot, a mirror at eye level and one good lamp. People judge a house from the... Read more...
Matching Blinds and Curtains to Your Decorating Style
Matching Blinds and Curtains to Your Decorating Style
A designer's guide to choosing window treatments by room style: modern, traditional, coastal, eclectic and formal, and the rules that hold in every room. Read more...
How to Make a Room Feel New Without Renovating
How to Make a Room Feel New Without Renovating
A designer's order of operations for refreshing a room you already own: rearrange, fix the lighting, edit, then let one piece change the balance. Read more...
What Technology Actually Changed About Designing a Room
What Technology Actually Changed About Designing a Room
Visualization, AI and shared project platforms have changed how design decisions get made and when. What they have not changed is the judgment that decides which option is right. Read more...
The Measurements Nobody Takes Until Moving Day
The Measurements Nobody Takes Until Moving Day
The furniture you already own has to physically get into the new house. Here are the measurements that decide whether it does, and when to take them. Read more...
Beyond Decor: The Details That Give a Home Personality
Beyond Decor: The Details That Give a Home Personality
The things that give a house personality are rarely the decorative ones. Objects in use, scent, light and small rituals do more for a room than anything bought to be... Read more...
Embroidery at Home: Monograms, Cushions and Table Linen
Embroidery at Home: Monograms, Cushions and Table Linen
Monogrammed linen and embroidered cushions are having a moment. What the technique actually does to a room, where it belongs, and what it takes to do it at home. Read more...
From Home Office to Commute: A Cohesive Leather Work Kit
From Home Office to Commute: A Cohesive Leather Work Kit
How to build a leather work kit that reads as one considered set, from the laptop bag down to the passport cover, and why proportion and patina do most of... Read more...
Renovating for Wellbeing: What to Fix First
Renovating for Wellbeing: What to Fix First
A renovation is the best chance most people get to change the air, light and quiet they live in. Here is the order of operations that gets you there, and... Read more...
The Best Outdoor Lighting Ideas in Omaha
The Best Outdoor Lighting Ideas in Omaha
Six outdoor lighting approaches that work on Omaha properties, from tree uplighting and architectural facade light to permanent roofline systems, patio layers, path lighting and smart controls. Read more...
Why the Rough-In Measurement Decides Your Smart Toilet, Not the Feature List
Why the Rough-In Measurement Decides Your Smart Toilet, Not the Feature List
Rough-in is one number, taken in thirty seconds, and it rules out more smart toilets than budget does. Where it comes from and what to check before ordering. Read more...
The Specification Choices That Make a Room Mold-Prone
The Specification Choices That Make a Room Mold-Prone
Mold is usually discussed as an accident. In a designed room it is more often a decision: a paint, a wall covering, a joinery detail, a floor build-up. Read more...
Keeping Drapery Consistent Across a Whole-House Project
Keeping Drapery Consistent Across a Whole-House Project
Whole-house drapery almost never fails on install day. It fails in phase two, when the new panels come back a shade off. A specification checklist. Read more...
What Running an Interior Design Business in New York Actually Involves
What Running an Interior Design Business in New York Actually Involves
The building, the board, and the filing rules decide more about a New York design project than the mood board does. A look at how the business actually runs. Read more...
Designing an Outdoor Room Around the View You Already Have
Designing an Outdoor Room Around the View You Already Have
Most outdoor spaces are decorated. The good ones are composed around something: a view, a tree, a line of sight the furniture was arranged to protect. Read more...
Reclaimed Oak Flooring: Why Old Wood Wins
Reclaimed Oak Flooring: Why Old Wood Wins
Reclaimed oak flooring brings density, patina and character that new timber cannot fake. What to know about sourcing, milling and living with an antique oak floor. Read more...