Notes on New Regency style from the studio of Kevin Francis O'Gara
The Francis Files
Design Projects
Client homes and my own rooms, documented with the sources and the reasoning behind each decision.
Design Projects
How to Make Rooms Flow Together Without MatchingA sage hallway hands off to the living room through one repeated colour and a rug that carries it across the threshold....
Design Projects
Office Relocation Furniture: Plan the Rooms Before the FreightMoving an office in Miami? Decide what furniture earns the freight, draw the new floor plan first and plan around tower elevator and insurance rules.
Design Projects
Coworking Space Interior Design: Six Spaces Worth StudyingThe best coworking spaces are furnished like hotels and lit like homes, and they have plenty to teach anyone planning an office...
Design Projects
Cremone Bolts: Hardware for French Doors and Casement WindowsSome houses look right before you can say why. The paint is good, the furniture is well chosen, the rugs are the...
Design Projects
Quiet Is the New Luxury: Designing Rooms That Sound as Good as They LookA generous rug, full drapery and lamplight. Most of a room's quiet comes from the same choices that give it warmth. We...
Design Projects
What an Interior Designer Adds to an Older HomeWhat an interior designer adds to an older home beyond looks: better layouts, smarter budgets, safer rooms, and protecting millwork you can't replace.
Design Projects
White-Glove Delivery for a Design Project: How Install Day Should GoThe best part of any project is not the day the rug arrives. It is the day everything arrives, in the right...
Design Projects
How Interior Designers Should Vet a Receiving WarehouseBefore a single piece goes into a client's house, someone has to open the box. That person matters more than most designers...
Design Projects
Matching Blinds and Curtains to Your Decorating StyleA designer's guide to choosing window treatments by room style: modern, traditional, coastal, eclectic and formal, and the rules that hold in every room.
Design Projects · Lighting
How to Make a Room Feel New Without RenovatingA designer's order of operations for refreshing a room you already own: rearrange, fix the lighting, edit, then let one piece change the balance.
Design Projects
What Technology Actually Changed About Designing a RoomVisualization, 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.
Design Projects
What Running an Interior Design Business in New York Actually InvolvesThe 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.
Design Projects
Reclaimed Oak Flooring: Why Old Wood WinsReclaimed 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.
Design Projects · Lighting
How to Turn a Garage Into a Flex Space Without Converting ItTurn an underused garage into a flex space with a rug, real seating, layered lighting and a few old pieces. No permits, no full conversion required.
Design Projects · Furniture
How to Furnish a Balcony That's Barely Big Enough for Two ChairsA designer's approach to furnishing a small balcony or condo terrace: what to buy, what to skip, and how to make a narrow outdoor space genuinely usable.
Design Projects · Lighting
Designing a Cafe Counter: What the Display Case Does to the RoomA designer's view of the cafe display case: how glass, lighting, sightlines, and placement decide whether the counter reads as considered or as equipment.
Design Projects · Rugs
Why Your Open-Plan Room Is So LoudEverything in this room that makes it quiet is also what makes it look finished. That is not a coincidence. People describe...
Design Projects · Kitchen
Custom Kitchen Cabinets Are a Proportion DecisionCustom kitchen cabinets solve proportion, not just storage. How ceiling height, door style, and scale decide whether a kitchen feels right.
Design Projects
Built-In Joinery That Looks Like It Was Always ThereBuilt-in alcove shelving reads as original when it lines up with what is already in the room. Skirting height, sill line, cornice and reveal depth decide it.
Design Projects · Color
How Often Should You Actually Repaint? A Room-by-Room AnswerHow often to repaint depends on the surface, not the calendar. Realistic intervals for walls, trim, ceilings, wet rooms, exterior timber and metal.
Design Projects
Trim Proportion Is the Detail That Quietly Dates a RoomTrim proportion decides whether a room reads as finished. A designer on baseboard height, casing depth, window scale and the materials that improve with age.
Design Projects
What Actually Makes a Vacation Home Feel ExtraordinaryVacation home interior design is what separates a retreat from an expensive rental. Proportion, honest material and layered texture do the work, not the budget.
Design Projects · Color
Turn Design Inspiration Into a Room You Can BuildA saved image is not a plan. Here is how to get from a folder of rooms you like to measurements, samples and a specification you can actually order from.
Design Projects
Design the Room Around How the Air MovesFurniture placement, window orientation and material choice all answer to airflow and humidity. Design the room around that and comfort stops being an afterthought.The Francis Files letter
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