The dining room wall in my Brooklyn loft is a custom-painted mural I conceptualized and painted myself. A faux gallery wall composed of Indian decorative painted architecture details framing hand-drawn botany studies based on 18th- and 19th-century European documents. Practical solution to a large wall. It’s the first thing people ask about when they walk in. I didn’t go buy something. I went to my brain: twenty years of looking hard at the best design in the world, Attingham summers alongside museum directors and conservators, a lifetime of knowing why certain things endure, and others don’t. That’s what I do for the people I work with.

It took me a while to understand the difference between referencing a great idea and being worthy of it. Early in my career, I thought I could see quality. Then two sets of samples arrived side by side: one referenced something beautiful, the other WAS something beautiful. Hand-built, uninhibited, nothing cast from a mold. My eyes finally had something to compare. I’ve never been able to unknow it.

Before I learned to see that way, I selected based on feeling alone. I loved color, travel, print, joy. I just didn’t yet know the difference between something that moved me and something truly extraordinary. That’s exactly where most of my clients are when we first meet.

They have genuine love of beauty, real instincts, things they’re almost embarrassed to show me because they’re not sure they’re “right.” They’re always right. They just need someone who knows how to hear them.

Your home should be a living portrait of you: not a canvas for my preferences, not a look applied from project to project. Something that could only ever belong to you. You only live once. Your home should prove it. If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, I’d love to hear from you.