The home you already love may hold more potential than you think. As your renovation interior design partner in Bethesda and the Washington metropolitan area, we help families reshape an existing home around the way they live now — solving what no longer works while protecting everything worth keeping.
For most families, the decision to renovate has less to do with the house than with life. A family grows, work comes home, and the way you gathered at thirty isn’t how you live at forty-five. The home hasn’t failed you — your life moved, and the house simply hasn’t caught up.
Moving means leaving a neighborhood you love and trading good bones for the uncertainty of starting over. Renovation offers another path: solve what no longer works while keeping
everything that does — and renovate well, not simply more. Sometimes the most valuable thing a designer can tell you is where not to spend.
A new mortgage
New schools and routines
Someone else’s finishes and choices
The location you already love
A home shaped around how you live now
Investment spent where it truly counts
It’s easy to assume interior design comes at the end of a renovation — paint and furniture, once the dust settles. In truth, the decisions that shape how a renovated home lives are made far earlier, while walls can still move and layouts still live on paper. Bringing interior design and renovation together from the start is what turns a remodel into a home that finally fits.
We study how your family moves through the home, then reshape the plan — which walls can come down, how rooms should connect — before construction makes those choices permanent.
Layouts are tested against the new plan before demolition, so every room earns the right proportions and a clear purpose — not a beautiful space your furniture won’t fit.
Storage and cabinetry are planned around what you actually own and how you live today, so the renovated home works harder than the one you started with.
Relocating lighting, outlets, and plumbing is far easier before the walls close. We plan it early, while a change still costs thought rather than rework.
Not everything should change. We identify the architectural character worth protecting and design the new around it, so the home feels renewed rather than replaced.
“A decision made thoughtfully on paper costs a fraction of the same change made once construction is underway.”
This is the real value of new construction interior design: better decisions made early, fewer costly changes later, and a home with the flexibility to adapt as your family grows.
A renovation isn’t really about finishes — it’s about how your family lives, and how the home has quietly fallen out of step with it. Before we discuss materials, we want to understand what’s changed.
What in your home no longer works the way you live?
Where does everyone gather now — and where do you wish you could?
What frustrates you most about the current layout?
What do you love about this home that’s worth protecting?
Working as your interior designer for a home renovation begins here — not with a demolition plan, but with an honest understanding of the life the finished home needs to support.
Every renovation begins not with demolition, but with understanding — of how your family lives, and of what your existing home is capable of becoming. We study the home itself: how you move through the floor plan, where light falls and where it’s missing, the architectural character worth keeping, and the structural limits that decide what can change. Knowing that early prevents expensive surprises later. And we listen — because a renovation is an exercise in working within what already exists. The best outcomes come not from forcing a perfect solution onto a house, but from intentional decisions that respect the home and support the way you live.
“One of the reasons we hired Esther was that we wanted to modernize our home without losing its original character. She immediately understood what we were hoping to achieve — preserving what gave the house its personality while introducing what it needed.”
~ CYNTHIA W. (POTOMAC, MD)
A renovation succeeds or struggles on how well its team works together. As the renovation and interior designer on your project, we keep every decision — design, selections, and construction — aligned with one coherent vision, from first demolition to final install.
Work with your team
Already have a contractor or architect? We collaborate with whoever you’ve chosen, joining the team that’s already in place.
Or help you build one
Still assembling? We connect you with experienced contractors and trades we’ve come to trust across the Washington metropolitan area.
And assess the bids
When it’s helpful, we prepare what contractors need to price your renovation accurately, then help you compare the proposals so a sound bid is easy to tell from a risky one.
No two renovations are alike — an older home hides different surprises than a recent build, and every family renovates for its own reasons. So we tailor the path to your home rather than force it through a fixed sequence. Most renovations move through five stages.
A brief preliminary call to hear what’s prompting the renovation and get a sense of the scope of the problem you’re hoping to solve.
A relaxed conversation where we walk you through how we work and decide together whether our process is the right fit for your needs.
We help you delineate the scope of the work and have the first real discussion about setting priorities, budget, and how the renovation might be phased.
We bring a design agreement to the table — a refined scope of work that lays out how we propose to guide you through each phase, and where to prioritize.
Once it all looks right, we begin: the design phase first, then selections, builder collaboration, and construction administration through to final installation.
To see how our full custom home design process unfolds, explore our Design Process and Design Investment pages.
FEATURED RENOVATIONS
A selection of recent work reflecting the range of renovations we guide — whole-home renovations, additions, and thoughtful updates to older homes — for families throughout Bethesda, Potomac, Chevy Chase, McLean, and the greater DMV.
Before
After
Project 01
In a Brooklyn family’s galley kitchen, dark wood cabinetry made the compact room feel heavy, and about 18 inches above the upper cabinets sat unused. Taller, lighter cabinetry now rises toward the ceiling, adding storage without enlarging the kitchen’s footprint or narrowing the path through it.
Before
After
Project 02
By removing a walk-in closet wall and building into roughly 12-foot ceilings, we designed one elongated loft for two children, with storage in the stairs and study space below, leaving the floor open for play.
Before
After
Project 03
A rear addition of about eight feet gave this brownstone more room. Making that room work took more: a reorganized main floor, a third bedroom and primary suite upstairs, a lower level for play and guests, and custom millwork throughout. It began with one discovery, made before construction.
Still deciding? These are the questions homeowners ask us most often before we begin.
A contractor builds the renovation; an interior designer decides what gets built and how it will live. Hiring an interior designer for a home renovation is what ensures the layout, lighting, storage, cabinetry, finishes, and furnishings are resolved before construction begins — which is where the costly mid-project changes and “we should have thought of that” regrets are avoided. A small cosmetic update may not require one, but for a whole-home renovation the planning a designer brings is usually where your investment is best protected.
2. It helps to see a renovation and an interior designer as two different roles. Your contractor manages the build; we lead the design — space planning, finish and material selections, cabinetry and millwork, lighting, and the drawings that communicate design intent to the whole team. Through construction we provide design oversight: reviewing progress, clarifying intent, and helping resolve the unforeseen conditions every renovation uncovers. The full, step-by-step version lives on our Design Process page.
3. Both. We collaborate regularly with builders and general contractors across the Washington, DC area — including ones our clients have already chosen — and we’re comfortable joining a team that’s already in place. If you don’t yet have a contractor, we can introduce trusted professionals we’ve worked with and help you assemble the right team.
Sometimes, depending on the scope and how much of the home is affected. During planning we’ll talk candidly about what living through a renovation would realistically involve, and whether phasing or a temporary move would make it less disruptive for your family. Setting honest expectations early is part of how we keep the process calm.
5. Often, yes. When phasing supports your budget, timeline, or family life, we frequently plan the renovation in stages while holding the overall vision intact — so each phase contributes to a coherent whole rather than a series of disconnected updates. Planning the full design first is what keeps phased work feeling intentional rather than piecemeal.
Every successful renovation begins with understanding. Whether you’re already working with a contractor or just beginning to wonder whether your home could become the home you’ve always wanted, thoughtful renovation interior design — involved early — changes the entire experience of renovating in Bethesda and the Washington metropolitan area. It starts with a single, unhurried conversation.