Susie's Home
This petite Santa Monica condo was designed for a busy professional with impeccable style — a space that honors her feminine independence while feeling effortless and deeply restorative.
The kitchen was scaled down to a mere intentional workspace for preparing quick meals, allowing the focus to shift toward a custom banquette — a place to relax, work, or host friends. A fun skirted sink offers a subtle nod to her Southern roots, adding warmth and personality without overpowering the space. The home is layered with beautiful, meaningful objects and tactile ceramics that speak to her senses creating a space that feels personal, beautiful, and entirely her own.
BEFORE & AFTER
See the Transformations
Explore the before and after of each room in this project — the problems we inherited and the spaces that emerged.
Designing a Professional Sanctuary in Santa Monica
This petite Santa Monica condo was designed for a busy professional with impeccable style — a space that honours her feminine independence while feeling effortless and deeply restorative. Every square foot was treated as an opportunity to create meaning and delight, proving that exceptional interior design is not contingent on generous dimensions.
The kitchen was intentionally scaled down to a mere workspace for preparing quick meals, allowing the focus to shift toward a custom banquette — a place to relax, work, or host friends. This decision reflects a fundamental principle of intelligent interior design: allocate space according to how life is actually lived, not according to convention. Susie's lifestyle didn't demand a large kitchen — it demanded a beautiful, comfortable place to sit, think, and connect.
Small Space Design That Prioritizes Living Over Convention
A fun skirted sink, playful brass hardware, custom cabinetry with considered proportions, and art that sparks conversation — every element was curated to reflect Susie's personality while maintaining the spatial discipline that small homes demand. Nothing is filler. Everything earns its place. This rigorous editing process is what separates thoughtful small-space design from simply putting less furniture in a small room.
The colour palette moves through warm neutrals and soft blush tones — feminine without being precious, sophisticated without being cold. Texture plays a critical role in creating sensory richness within a compact footprint: linen curtains, bouclé upholstery, natural fiber rugs, and matte brass create layers of tactile interest that compensate for the limited visual distance. When a room is small, every surface needs to reward close attention.
Restorative Design for Accomplished Professional Women
Designing for professional women requires understanding the specific pressures they navigate — demanding careers, social obligations, the need for a private space that genuinely restores rather than simply shelters. Susie's Santa Monica condo was designed as an antidote to the pace of her professional life. Walking through the door should feel like a decompression, not just a change of location.
The Design Duality™ approach was particularly relevant here. The spatial intelligence ensured every functional need was met within the compact floor plan — storage, work surface, seating for guests, sleeping comfort. The vibrational design layer addressed the sensory experience: calming colours, tactile materials, considered acoustics, and lighting that shifts from energizing in the morning to soft and restorative in the evening.
Proof That Design Intelligence Has No Minimum Square Footage
This project demonstrates that a thoughtfully designed Santa Monica condo can deliver the same emotional impact as a grand residence — perhaps more, because every decision must be intentional. There is no room for filler, no space for compromise, no tolerance for elements that do not serve the whole. The constraints of small-space design actually produce more rigorous, more considered results.
For accomplished women seeking a home that reflects their standards and supports their wellbeing, this project offers a model: work with a designer who understands that luxury is not about size but about intention. Every element in Susie's condo was chosen for its ability to contribute to a unified sensory experience — creating a home that functions flawlessly, looks beautiful, and most importantly, feels like exactly the right place to be at the end of a demanding day.
Santa Monica, California · Interior Design by Bronwyn Poole