Inspired Interiors' Top 10 Design Moments (to Date)

Welcome to the Wild, Imaginative World of Inspired Interiors.

Here Are Our 10 Favorite Design Fantasies From the Past Two Decades

Twenty-two years. Hundreds of projects. One thing that has never changed: The best brief our team gets is the one that starts with "I know this sounds crazy, but..."

It's that dotdotdot that clients entrust us with that gets us excited, gets our creative juices flowing and raises the bar for our unique brand of unexpected design. Your vision never sounds too out-of-the-blue or undoable to us. It sounds like a design challenge and, as always, challenge accepted. That happens to be Emily's favorite response!

Here's proof. Ten moments from client projects that we still talk and dream about—the ones that made us think differently about what a design plan can start off as and what it can transform into.

1. The Aviary B&B: A glass greenhouse built for cherished feathered friends

A client had rescued numerous budgies (a.k.a. parakeets), and together they were all a family. The homeowners wanted a botanical retreat for them to enjoy time with their feathery friends, spa area included. So we designed and built them a glass conservatory onto the existing house, right off of the owner's artist studio so she could find both inspiration and companionship. The best spaces are ones that merge nature with interiors. Even better spaces capture moments of life for our clients. This family can sit inside with the budgies and enjoy the back garden: year-round quality family time! Some might see this as excessive, but for these bird lovers this space sets a new goal.

2. The Closet that Lifts You to a Slice of Heaven: A San Francisco concept we still daydream about

This one never got built, but we think about it like an unrequited love. Picture a clear tube elevator/lift, like the kind that whisks a canister up at the bank drive-through, except it carries people (Jetson Style). The elevator would rise straight out of the primary closet and open onto a hot tub for two on the roof. Why the roof? Because this property looks out at both of San Francisco's bridges at once, the Golden Gate as well as the Bay. You'd step out of your wardrobe and into the warm bubbly water with that dazzling view in front of you. 'Couples Night' redefined!

3. A Gatsby-Style Entertaining Escape: Soft seating at a grand scale

Most waterfront properties have seating for four to eight. We designed a hospitality-level waterfront compound, practically a small resort in Winnetka. Thirty people, all facing the water with a variety of areas to entertain them. The layout is a festival of pergolas, soft seating with weighted pillows, large motorized umbrellas, sculptural fire pits, dining tables, layers of lighting and more. The gardens rival those at the Chicago Botanic Garden with carefully placed mixtures of Japanese gardens and Southern Living roots. Jay Gatsby could get a few tips on design and entertaining from this compound. The complex features and mixture of design elements make this one of our all-time favorite accomplishments.

4. The Library That Runs on a Specialized System: A diagonal bookcase that resets itself

Some clients want a bookshelf. This one wanted a book dispenser. He reads close to 100 books a year, and people gift him more books (constantly). So we built him a herringbone-shaped bookcase to organize by monthly reading goals: Each book lives in the month he plans to read it. When a month gets overloaded, he slides a title out and drops it into, say, October, and everything shifts down the row like a Pez dispenser. The herringbone pattern isn't just a design backdrop. It's what lets the whole system reset on its own as the books move through it. A library that actually keeps up with its reader. A rare find, indeed.

5. The Pantry That Grows Your Salad: From Costco closet to kitchen garden

Not long ago, clients frequently requested a "Costco closet." Floor-to-ceiling storage for bulk paper towels and giant containers of processed everything. At some point we stopped and asked the obvious question: Why are we building shrines to processed food? So we flipped it. We designed a pantry with built-in grow-light towers, so the homeowners could harvest their own salad greens, herbs, and microgreens steps from the stove. You can't necessarily grow an entire dinner in there, but you can grow the best/healthiest portions of it. Nothing says sustainability like picking your own salad from our kitchen pantry. Chef Goals!

6. Your Obsessions, Reflected Back to You: Meaningful moments that make your home unmistakably yours

In an especially inspired moment, we wanted to reflect our client's singular taste in popular culture through an unexpected medium: specially printed bathroom tiles bearing album and book covers that marked moments throughout their life. From the Beatles to the Goonies, each piece of porcelain represents a particular passion. We even printed up a map revealing the answers to the uninitiated. The construction team and endless guests all found themselves spending endless time in this spectacular bathroom guessing which cover was located where.

7. Dreaming Big for Our Littlest Clients: Whimsical design elements that spark a sense of imagination

For Emily's own family, we upped the fanciful ante, building two slides extending from the front door to a two-tiered basement — a neighborhood conversation piece. Children and many adults used the slide to enter these spaces in fun and unique ways that made each day different and special. Sometimes the unexpected is exactly what children (and adults) need to keep the creativity flowing.

8. The Indoor-Outdoor Living Room: In a flow state

Floor-to-ceiling glass doors, opened completely to San Francisco's best views. A continuous view running from each corner of the back facing wall of the building. The unobstructed views give new meaning to watching the sun set. Furniture placed to accommodate both traffic flows whether the doors are open or closed. This project blurred the line between inside and outside. This configuration gives a new definition to 'living in the city'.

9. The Retreat That's Also a Bathroom: Primary bath as serene spa-like destination

The primary bathroom at this project didn't start from fixture selection. It started from a question: What do you want to feel when you walk in at 6am, and what do you want to feel at 9pm? The answers were distinct. Our design accommodated both: a material palette that reads warm in low light and clean in bright morning light, a freestanding tub to relax a couple each night. The array of plants evoked an outdoor oasis. We created this space for Friday date nights that involved bubbles, to fill both the bath and your flute. Function and feeling, designed in harmony.

10. Mandavilla: The vacation villa design that crossed an ocean

We couldn't make this list without it. A luxury vacation property on St. John, USVI, transformed across two time zones, one ocean, a wrong-island freight delivery, and 220 hours of assembly in Caribbean heat completed by a crew we flew in for the job. A container freight shipment from Florida. Each piece traveled in five legs to reach its final room. And photos, recently arrived, that made us go silent for several seconds when they hit our inbox because they so perfectly captured our vision come to life. If we can do this on St. John, we can do this anywhere. That's not a boast—it's a portfolio.

Your Wild Idea Is What's Next for Our Design Team

If you read through this list and thought "I didn't know Inspired Interiors could do that," that's exactly what we want for your home. The bird paradise, the pantry you garden in, the closet that takes you somewhere: None of these started as a selection from a catalog. They started as a conversation about how someone actually wanted to live.

That's where we always start.

The art of living doesn't begin with a mood board. It begins with the question you've been afraid to ask out loud. Bring it to us.

Let's talk about your wild idea

Up next: How Inspired Interiors is different from every other design firm and why you're not just getting a designer, you're getting the whole team.