HOUSE OF BELONGING · RESIDENTIAL WORK
A FOREVER HOME IN INDIANA
Interior design and cross-functional project leadership for a bespoke new-build residence.
Role
Interior Design & Residential Project Lead
Period
March 2026–Present
Status
In progress
Project type
Custom residential new build
This project is currently in development and construction. Final photography and a fuller account of the completed work will be added when the build is finished.
I lead the interior design and client-side project direction of a bespoke new-build residence in Indiana.
The work spans architectural review, interior planning, material and fixture decisions, furnishing and art sourcing, documentation, and coordination across the homeowners, architect, contractor, engineers, consultants, fabricators, and vendors.
The role is less about decorating rooms after the fact than protecting a coherent home across hundreds of decisions made by different people at different stages.
THE WORK
I became involved because the project needed someone to hold the relationship between the life imagined for the home and the technical decisions required to build it.
My role sits on the client side. I help the homeowners clarify their priorities, translate them into design direction, review how proposed decisions affect the larger home, and keep the work moving across disciplines.
SPATIAL AND LIFESTYLE PLANNING
Reviewing how the home supports cooking, hosting, prayer, privacy, storage, multigenerational visits, daily rituals, and movement through the space.
INTERIOR DESIGN DIRECTION
Developing a coherent language across materials, lighting, plumbing fixtures, millwork, finishes, furnishings, artwork, and decorative details.
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COORDINATION
Working across homeowners, architect, contractor, engineers, consultants, fabricators, and vendors so that decisions remain connected rather than being solved in isolation.
SOURCING AND PROCUREMENT
Researching and organizing furniture, lighting, tile, materials, art, custom elements, and specialist vendors, including sourcing relationships in Portugal.
DECISION DOCUMENTATION
Tracking selections, dependencies, revisions, open questions, and approvals so that the design intent survives the length and complexity of the build.
WHAT I AM PROTECTING
A custom home can lose its coherence gradually. No single decision necessarily breaks it. The problem emerges when hundreds of reasonable choices, made by different people at different times, stop belonging to the same idea.
DESIGN AROUND USE
The home must support the family's actual rhythms rather than an abstract lifestyle imagined for a photograph.
PROTECT COHERENCE
Materials, fixtures, furnishings, and architectural details must continue to feel like parts of one home even when they are selected months apart.
MAKE DEPENDENCIES VISIBLE
A decision about lighting, plumbing, cabinetry, structure, or furniture can change several other systems. Those relationships need to be understood before work proceeds.
SOURCE BEYOND THE OBVIOUS
The project includes art, tile, crafted elements, furniture, and materials selected for their relationship to the home rather than their proximity or trend value.
RESIDENTIAL PROJECT DIRECTION
Through House of Belonging, I now offer this work professionally for clients building long-term homes who need someone to hold the design intent across the project.
The service is for clients who want support translating how they live into interior and spatial decisions, coordinating those decisions across the project team, and protecting the home from becoming a collection of unrelated selections.
My role does not replace the architect, contractor, engineer, or specialist consultant. It connects their work to the client's interior, lifestyle, and design priorities.
INTERIOR DESIGN
Materials, finishes, lighting, furniture, artwork, sourcing, and visual direction.
CLIENT-SIDE PROJECT LEADERSHIP
Decision coordination, documentation, consultant communication, and design-intent review.
LIFESTYLE-LED PLANNING
Connecting the plan and interiors to the routines, relationships, and forms of hospitality the home must support.
MY PROCESS DECK
COMING SOON
A fuller account of the research, decision framework, sourcing process, and cross-functional project structure will be added as the build progresses.
WHAT THE WORK HAS CHANGED
Building a home has made me less interested in rooms as images and more interested in the systems that allow a life to happen inside them.
The work is slow, collaborative, and full of tradeoffs. A beautiful idea still has to survive structure, engineering, cost, lead times, installation, maintenance, and the preferences of the people who will live with it.
That is not a corruption of the design. It is the design.
A forever home is not designed for a reveal. It is designed for repetition.