Marcia Moore Design

There's a moment in every project when clients stop thinking about what things cost and start thinking about how they'll live. That's when the real design happens.

I've watched people make one of two choices. The first group treats design like a purchase — get in, get out, check the box. The second group treats it like infrastructure. The first group redoes things. The second group doesn't.

A home designed with intention doesn't just photograph well. It holds your routines, supports how you actually live, and earns more of your trust every year you spend in it. That's what we build.

If you're in the planning stages of a renovation or new build this summer — let's talk.

This home had great bones. It just needed someone to be honest about them.

The barrel vault in the main living room was painted white when we arrived. It was there, but it wasn't saying anything. A little bronze metallic paint changed everything. Now it sings.

That one decision set the tone for everything that followed. New furnishings, considered layering, nothing gratuitous. We started by finding the thing the room was truly about and designed everything else in service of it.

What's the architectural feature in your home that deserves to be featured?

Great design isn't just about the pieces you choose. It's about the order you choose them in.

Every material in this room earned its place because of what came before it. The sequence is the strategy.

This is what we call design from the foundation up. When the logic is right, everything that follows feels inevitable.

Swipe to see the full room.

Which room in your home deserves this level of intention?

This kitchen wasn't designed to impress anyone.

It was designed for a family that actually cooks. That entertains loudly. That has opinions about where the wine goes and exactly how much counter space they need after Thanksgiving.

When they came to me, they said they wanted warmth, not a showroom. I heard that. The maple perimeter cabinetry was in great shape, so we kept it and built around it. The new darker-stained alder on the island and oven wall, the sculptural chandelier — none of it was chosen to photograph well. It was chosen because it would feel exactly right every single morning for the next thirty years.

That is a very different brief than "make it beautiful." It's harder. It requires listening just as much as it requires designing. And honestly? It's the most interesting kind of brief to me.

The rooms that hold up are the ones where every decision was made around how the people inside them actually live. Not how they imagined they might live. How they really live.

What's the one thing in your kitchen that never quite works the way you actually use it?