Rachel Blindauer
The Home Office That Doesn’t Look Like a Home Office

The Home Office That Doesn’t Look Like a Home Office

by | Oct 8, 2026 | Interior Design, Residential

Home office designed as a real room

The home office became, through necessity, one of the most important rooms in the American house. And yet most home offices are an afterthought—a desk pushed into a corner, a chair that came from somewhere else, a backdrop of chaos visible on every video call. They are designed for function in the narrowest sense: a place to open a laptop. The home office I design for clients is a room that functions as a brilliant workspace and also feels like a room you’d want to be in if you weren’t working. Those two things are not in conflict. In fact, achieving both is the point.

Workplace wellness in office design

Why the Room Changes How You Work

Everything above is about how the room looks to someone walking past it. This part is about what it does to you while you are sitting in it — which is the part most home office advice skips entirely.

Start with the light—natural first, artificial second

Natural light is the most significant variable in workspace quality. Position your desk to receive natural light from the side—not directly behind your monitor (which creates glare) and not directly in front of you from a window behind the screen (which backlights your face on video calls). Side light is the designer’s and the photographer’s preferred light source: even, directional, and flattering without blinding.

For artificial light: a desk lamp at eye level with a 3000K bulb for task lighting, and a warmer ambient source (floor lamp, table lamp across the room) for the surrounding environment. Overhead lighting alone in a home office creates the institutional feeling of a corporate cubicle. Layer your lighting.

Desk placement in a considered home office

The desk: size, surface, and position

Most desks sold as home office desks are too small. The standard 47-inch desk gives you barely enough room for a monitor, a keyboard, and a notebook. If you work with physical materials or simply like the psychological spaciousness of room to spread out, go wider. A 60-inch desk is meaningfully better. A 72-inch desk, in a room that can accommodate it, transforms the workspace from cramped to generous.

Surface material matters. Glass desks look clean but are cold to the touch, difficult to write on, and show every fingerprint. Wood desks—solid wood or good veneer—are warmer, more pleasant to work on, and read better on video calls.

Home office with an intentional background

Make the background intentional

Video calls have made the space behind your desk one of the most-seen aspects of your professional identity. The best video call backgrounds: a single piece of art or a small curated gallery hung intentionally; a bookshelf organized by color or subject with a few beautiful objects interspersed; a painted wall in a strong, interesting color; or simply a clean, painted wall with good light. Any of these communicates care and intentionality.

A reading chair and chaise in a working room, chosen for comfort first

The chair: the one place not to economize

The chair is the object in the home office that your body is in contact with for the most hours. Its ergonomic quality affects your physical health, your energy level, and your concentration. A beautiful but uncomfortable chair will cost you more in back pain and fatigue than you saved on the chair. Excellent ergonomic chairs now exist in aesthetically sophisticated designs. This is the one piece of office furniture I recommend buying well and buying once.

The detail that separates a home office from a corporate workspace: the room should contain at least one element that has nothing to do with work. A plant. A piece of art you love. A beautiful lamp. These signal to your brain that this is a human space—a place where a whole person works, not just a function being performed.

Rachel Blindauer is an award-winning interior designer based in St. Louis with projects across the United States and internationally. Book a 2-hour design consultation at rachelblindauer.com.

Designing for Deep Work: The Home Office as a Performance Space

The pandemic permanently changed how many high performers work, and with it came a long-overdue reckoning with the home office. A desk in the bedroom corner is not a home office. A dining table with a laptop is not a home office. A performance workspace requires, at minimum, four things: dedicated space that signals transition into work mode, excellent task lighting that doesn’t cause eye strain over long periods, ergonomics that protect the body across extended sessions, and freedom from the visual cues of domestic life that continuously pull focus away from deep work.

The research on this is unambiguous. Psychological distance — the sense that you have “arrived” somewhere to do focused work — measurably increases both the duration and quality of concentrated effort. This is why the office door, the separate entrance, the bespoke built-in shelving that frames the space as professional: these are not affectations. They are cognitive signals that allow the focused, deliberate thinking that produces results.

Natural light is the single most impactful upgrade in any work environment. Exposure to daylight during work hours improves alertness, mood, and cognitive performance, and reduces the kind of end-of-day fatigue that makes evenings difficult to enjoy. Where a window is available, the desk belongs near it. Where it is not, a well-curated combination of task and ambient lighting — layered, warm-to-neutral in color temperature, without the harsh overhead fluorescence that signals institutional space — can meaningfully approximate the quality of natural illumination.

A walnut chest, branches and art — storage that reads as furniture, not filing

Order, Beauty, and the Psychology of Identity

There is a concept in behavioral psychology called behavioral congruence: the tendency to act in ways that are consistent with our sense of who we are. A home that reflects your highest values — that is ordered, beautiful, and genuinely expressive of the person you are becoming rather than the person you have been — functions as a continuous identity signal. Every time you walk through the door, it tells you who you are.

I have watched this phenomenon play out in project after project. A client who felt scattered and overwhelmed redesigns her home office and suddenly works with focus and clarity she hadn’t experienced in years. A couple who renovates their bedroom into a genuine sanctuary reports sleeping better, fighting less, and feeling more connected. A man who transforms a cluttered basement into a proper training space starts exercising consistently for the first time in a decade. The environment did not make these things possible. But it made them much, much easier.

Biophilic Design: The Performance Science of Nature

The research is unambiguous: human beings function better in the presence of natural light, natural materials, plants, and views of nature. Studies across office environments, hospitals, schools, and homes consistently show that exposure to natural elements reduces cortisol, lowers blood pressure, improves attention, and accelerates recovery from stress. Biophilic design — the intentional incorporation of nature into built environments — is perhaps the most evidence-based design philosophy currently in practice.

In a home, this translates to maximizing natural light through window placement, window treatments that can fully open, and mirrors that amplify daylight deeper into the space. It means choosing natural materials — stone, wood, linen, leather, ceramic — over synthetic ones whenever possible. It means maintaining at least a few living plants, whose benefits extend beyond aesthetics to measurable improvements in air quality and psychological wellbeing. It means giving priority to views: positioning seating near windows, keeping sightlines to gardens or trees clear, and resisting the urge to fill every surface with objects that obstruct the natural view.

A slim console desk in a living room — a workspace that disappears when the laptop closes

The Question of Clutter

Clutter is not a housekeeping problem. It is a cognitive one. Each object in your visual field that is out of place, unresolved, or unintentional creates a micro-demand on working memory — a small but real fragment of attention that is no longer available for the task at hand. In an environment where hundreds of such objects are present, the cumulative cognitive load is significant. This is why people reliably report feeling calmer, more focused, and more capable after organizing a cluttered space — not because the work itself is satisfying, but because the cognitive friction has been reduced.

The solution is not minimalism for its own sake. It is intentionality: ensuring that every object in your home is either beautiful, functional, or meaningful — and that those which are none of these things are removed. The homes I design for high-performing clients are not bare. They are curated: rich in quality, deliberate in arrangement, and free of the visual noise that invisibly taxes attention around the clock.

The Design Consultation with Rachel Blindauer — two hours on your project
Marais Chandelier

Marais Chandelier
$2,300

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Marais Woven Rattan Chest

Marais Woven Rattan Chest
$2,796

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Sculptural Serenity Vase

Sculptural Serenity Vase
$452

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THE PIECES RACHEL RETURNS TO, AGAIN AND AGAIN

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Why I Keep Coming Back to Travertine (And Where I Won’t Use It)

Why I Keep Coming Back to Travertine (And Where I Won’t Use It)

by | Oct 1, 2026 | Interior Design, Products

Travertine and brass table lamp on a console against grasscloth

Every designer has a material they reach for without thinking. For some it is oak, for some it is unlacquered brass. For me it has been travertine for the better part of fifteen years, and the longer I work the less I apologize for it.

Travertine is limestone that formed in and around hot springs, laid down in layers as mineral-rich water cooled and left its calcium behind. That is why it looks the way it does: banded, pitted, never quite uniform. The holes are not flaws. They are the record of gas escaping through the sediment before it hardened. A slab of travertine is, quite literally, a fossil of moving water.

I bring that up because it explains everything I like about the material, and everything clients sometimes worry about.

What travertine does that marble doesn’t

Marble is a performance. It wants the light, it wants the spotlight, and in the wrong room it can feel like a hotel lobby. Travertine is the opposite temperament. Its palette sits in a narrow band of ivory, bone, wheat and, in the darker cuts, a walnut brown that reads almost like leather. The veining runs in soft horizontals rather than dramatic diagonals. Put a piece of it in a room and the room gets calmer, not louder.

That is why it works in so many settings. On the Gulf Coast it picks up the warm afternoon light and holds it into the evening. In a St. Louis brick colonial it warms up a room that might otherwise go cold and formal. It is one of the very few materials I would put in both places without changing a thing.

Where I use it, and where I don’t

Coffee tables. This is where I start with most clients. A travertine coffee table is a low, heavy, honest object; it anchors a seating group the way a rug does, but you can put a drink on it. My standard recommendation is a rectangular slab on plinth legs, so the veining runs across the top and down the sides in one continuous story. The Amalfi coffee table in the shop is that idea exactly, and it is the piece I am asked about most often.

Lamps. Travertine takes light beautifully because the surface is matte and slightly porous; there is no glare, just a soft bloom around the base. The Monolith table lamp, a tapered travertine column under a brass cone, is what I put on a console when the console needs one perfect thing and nothing else.

Bowls and vessels. A carved stone bowl on a dining table is the most efficient styling move I know. It is sculptural, it is useful, and it never goes out of season. I keep the Abbey bowl on my own table; the faceted Strata bowl is the dressier cousin for a room that can take a little drama.

Where I hold back. Kitchen counters, unless the client understands what they are signing up for. Travertine is softer than granite and more absorbent than quartz. It will etch from lemon juice and stain from red wine if it is not sealed and wiped promptly. On a coffee table that is a patina. On a work surface it is a maintenance schedule. Floors are fine (honed and filled, please, not polished); showers are fine if sealed on a calendar; bar tops are a judgment call.

Shop The Look

Filled or unfilled, honed or polished

You will see these words on every spec sheet, so here is the plain version. Filled means the natural pits have been packed with resin or grout so the surface is flat; unfilled leaves them open. Honed is a matte finish; polished is glossy. For furniture I almost always choose honed and filled: matte enough to feel like stone rather than tile, smooth enough that a glass sits flat. Unfilled is beautiful on a wall or a garden piece, less practical where you set things down.

How to pair it

Travertine is a neutral, but it is a warm neutral, and that decides its company. It likes linen in oatmeal and putty, wool in camel, leather in cognac, and wood with visible grain: white oak, walnut, cerused ash. It likes brass more than chrome. It looks wonderful against a plaster wall and slightly cheap against a glossy white one. If you are working in a cool grey scheme, choose the darker walnut-toned travertine so the stone reads as a deliberate contrast rather than a mismatch.

Color-wise, it is the quiet ground under almost any palette I use. Blush and rose sit on it beautifully. So does olive. So does the deep marine blue of a framed abstract above a console. The one thing I would avoid is pairing it with a lot of cool white and stainless steel, which makes the travertine look dusty instead of warm.

Honed, filled travertine laid in a checkerboard with Viola marble

Buying it well

Three things to check. First, weight: a real stone coffee table is heavy, which is why the shop delivers the larger pieces white glove, inside the house and placed. Second, consistency: ask to see the actual slab or a photo of the actual piece, because two travertine tables from the same maker can differ as much as two pieces of wood. Third, sealing: a good maker seals furniture before it ships; if not, a penetrating sealer once a year is all it takes.

Everything travertine in the shop lives in one place: the Travertine collection. Coffee tables, lamps, bowls and boxes, each one chosen because I have specified it, or something very like it, in a real room for a real client.

And if you are not sure whether your home leans coastal, traditional or something in between, the two-minute Style Quiz will tell you, and point you toward the pieces that fit.

2 Hour Interior Design Virtual or In Person Consultation

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Nantucket Window Boxes: How to Get the Island Look at Home

Nantucket Window Boxes: How to Get the Island Look at Home

by | Oct 1, 2026 | Interior Design, Residential, Travel Guides

by Rachel Blindauer

Walk any lane on Nantucket in July and you will see why the island is famous for its window boxes. Against weathered cedar shingles and crisp white trim, boxes spill over with flowers on houses, shops and tiny ‘Sconset cottages alike. They make a house look cared for and welcoming, which is the best thing curb appeal can do. I photographed these on the island, and each one teaches a different lesson you can bring home, wherever you live.

Gray cedar-shingle Nantucket cottage with white window boxes of purple and pink flowers above blue and lavender hydrangeas

Why Nantucket Window Boxes Look So Good

The secret is the backdrop. Silvery shingles and clapboard are neutral enough to let any flower color sing, and white or black trim frames the picture. Notice how this cottage repeats the purple and pink of its window boxes in the hydrangeas below, so the whole facade reads as one composition. If your exterior is busy or warm-toned, simplify the planting so it doesn’t compete.

All-white window box with white petunias, silver foliage and trailing greens beneath black shutters on gray clapboard

Recipe 1: The All-White Box

My favorite Nantucket boxes stay with one color. An all-white planting reads as elegant, glows at dusk and works on every house color. This one layers white petunias and small white blooms with soft silver leaves and trailing greens that spill over a black box beneath black shutters. The silver foliage is what makes it look expensive: it adds texture and keeps the white from feeling flat.

Window box on a Nantucket shop with deep burgundy foliage, white blooms and purple salvia spikes

Recipe 2: Moody Burgundy and White

For a deeper, more dramatic look, let foliage do the heavy lifting. This shop box pairs dark burgundy leaves with white blooms blushed pink at the center, a few purple salvia spikes for height and trailing greens for softness. Dark foliage stays handsome all season, even between flushes of flowers.

White window box of chartreuse creeping jenny, white petunias and peach flowers above a brick sidewalk

Recipe 3: Chartreuse and Peach

Chartreuse is the color that makes a box glow. Here, golden creeping jenny cascades down the front of a white box while white petunias and a few soft peach blooms fill the top. It is a cheerful, sunny combination that pops against gray siding and old brick.

Bold window box of red coleus, coral geraniums, pink flowers and purple verbena on a gray shingle house with hydrangeas

Recipe 4: Bold Red and Coral

When you want a box that stops people on the sidewalk, go bold. Red coleus anchors the center, coral geraniums and pink blooms fill in, airy purple verbena floats above and chartreuse trailers soften the edges. Paired with dark green shutters and a white picket fence, it is classic island color at full volume.

White window box with sweet alyssum, white blooms and silver leaves under black shutters

Design It Like a Pro: Tall, Full, Trailing

Build each box in three layers. Place something upright at the back center, such as angelonia, salvia or an ornamental grass. Fill the middle with mounding bloomers like petunias, geraniums or sweet alyssum. Let trailing plants such as creeping jenny, verbena or sweet potato vine spill over the front edge. Aim for an even balance of flowers and foliage, and step back as you plant so it doesn’t get too busy.

Match the plants to the light

Check which way the window faces before you shop. South-facing boxes need full-sun plants like petunias and geraniums. North-facing boxes want shade lovers like begonias and coleus. East and west windows give you room to experiment.

Soil, Water and Feeding

Use a quality potting mix, never garden soil, and make sure the box drains well. Expect to water at least twice a week, and daily in a heat wave; wind dries boxes out quickly. Starting in early July, feed every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer so the flowers keep coming.

Choose the box itself

A painted box that matches your trim or shutters looks built-in rather than added on. Size it to the full width of the window, and mount it on sturdy brackets set a few inches below the sill.

Keep It Going Through the Seasons

On the island, summer boxes run roughly from Memorial Day to Columbus Day. When summer annuals fade, swap in mums, ornamental kale and grasses for fall, then evergreen boughs and berries for winter. Replacing a tired plant beats nursing it along.

A beautiful window box is one of the simplest ways to make a house feel loved. Pick one color story, plant in three layers and give it a little care each week. For more of the island, read my Nantucket designer’s guide.

Bring the Island Home

Nantucket style doesn’t stop at the window box. Natural textures like seagrass, rattan and woven wicker carry that relaxed, sun-washed feeling indoors. Here are three of my favorite pieces for a coastal entry or living room.

Sorella Seagrass Woven Round Mirror

Sorella Seagrass Woven Round Mirror
$399

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Sanctuary Candle

Sanctuary Candle
$45

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Hamptons Wicker Scallop Console Table

Hamptons Wicker Scallop Console Table
$1,893

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The Design Consultation with Rachel Blindauer — two hours on your project

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

THE PIECES RACHEL RETURNS TO, AGAIN AND AGAIN

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The Best Smart Home Devices, Chosen by an Interior Designer

The Best Smart Home Devices, Chosen by an Interior Designer

by | Sep 30, 2026 | Interior Design, Products

by Rachel Blindauer

The best technology in a home is the kind you barely notice. It dims the lights at sunset, cools the bed before you climb in and hides the television behind a piece of art. These are the smart home devices I recommend to clients because they earn their place twice: once for what they do, and again for how they look in the room.

At a glance

  • Best for sleep: Eight Sleep Pod 5
  • Best for hiding the TV: Samsung The Frame
  • Easiest everyday upgrade: motion-activated lighting under the bed
  • Most worth the splurge: the bedside setup of reading light, charging and room light switches
  • Best for aging in place: Delta Trinsic VoiceIQ faucet
  • Best whole-room control: Lutron myRoom with Alisse keypads
Eight Sleep Pod smart mattress cover on a neatly made bed

Eight Sleep Pod 5

Sleep is where smart tech pays off most. The Pod 5 cools or warms each side of the bed independently, from 55°F to 110°F, so partners stop arguing over the thermostat. The new version adds a base that raises the head of the bed when it detects snoring, plus a built-in speaker for wind-down audio. It disappears under your bedding, which is exactly what I want from bedroom tech. For the rest of the room, see my guide to the cozy bedroom.

Samsung The Frame TV in art mode showing a periwinkle and blush abstract painting above a fluted walnut credenza with a travertine and brass table lamp

Samsung The Frame and Frame Pro

The Frame is still the easiest answer to the black-rectangle problem. When it is off, it shows art from a library of more than 5,000 works, and the matte, glare-reducing screen reads like a canvas. The Frame Pro sends its signal wirelessly from a box up to 30 feet away, so there are no cords running down your wall. Choose a custom frame bezel that matches your other art for the most convincing look.

Shown here: my Aurora Color Field Canvas on the screen and the Monolith Table Lamp on the credenza.

Samsung Family Hub smart refrigerator with touchscreen door

Samsung Bespoke AI Refrigerator with Family Hub

The Family Hub screen turns the refrigerator into the household command center: shared calendars, grocery lists and a camera inside so you can check what you have from the store. In a design-forward kitchen, I like the Bespoke panels in glass or matte finishes, which let the fridge sit quietly beside custom cabinetry.

Delta Trinsic VoiceIQ faucet in champagne bronze on a marble countertop in a white oak kitchen

Delta Trinsic VoiceIQ Faucet

Ask for exactly one cup of water and the Trinsic VoiceIQ pours it. It also works with a tap anywhere on the spout, which helps when your hands are covered in dough. It is a small luxury that becomes a real help for anyone with limited grip strength, one reason I recommend it for homes designed to age well.

Glass-enclosed steam shower with Mr. Steam controls

Mr. Steam Steam Shower

A steam generator turns an ordinary shower into a spa you use every day. Mr. Steam controls let you preset temperature and length, add aromatherapy, and start the steam from your phone so it is ready when you walk in. Plan for it during a remodel: it needs a sealed, sloped ceiling and a vapor-proof enclosure.

Bang and Olufsen Beosound Balance speaker on an oak console beside an aged brass table lamp with a linen shade

Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance

Most speakers look like equipment. The Beosound Balance looks like a piece of furniture in oak and knit fabric, and it fills a room with sound from every side. Place it on a console or side table where it can be seen.

Shown here with the Westcott Arc Table Lamp from my shop.

Living room designed by Rachel Blindauer with motorized shades and textural furnishings

Lutron Serena Smart Shades

Most homes do not need motorized shades, but in very sunny rooms and glass-walled houses they earn their place. Serena shades run almost silently, follow a schedule with the sun and come in fabrics that hold their own beside custom drapery. Battery and wired options mean you can add them without opening walls.

Living room lit with warm Philips Hue smart lighting

Philips Hue Lighting

Hue bulbs let you shift a room from bright and cool for work to warm and low for dinner. My advice: keep the color effects for parties and use the warm whites daily. Pair them with beautiful lamps so the fixture looks as good as the light; my designer table lamp picks by room are a good place to start.

iRobot Roomba robot vacuum on a hardwood floor

iRobot Roomba Max 775 Combo

The newest Roomba vacuums and mops in one pass, then washes its own mop pad with hot water at the dock. It quietly keeps floors clean between deeper cleanings. Tuck the dock into a mudroom or a cabinet with a ventilated toe kick so it is out of sight.

Husqvarna Automower robotic lawn mower on a green lawn

Husqvarna Automower 435X AWD NERA

This robotic mower now works without a buried boundary wire: you draw the lawn edges in the app and it navigates by satellite. All-wheel drive handles steep slopes, and it can mow in straight stripes for a manicured look.

Click and Grow smart garden growing fresh herbs on a kitchen counter

Click and Grow Smart Garden

Fresh herbs on the counter all year, with no gardening skill required. The pods are pre-seeded, the light is on a timer and the water lasts for weeks. Choose the white or beige finish so it reads as a planter, not an appliance.

Lutron Alisse wired keypad with metal finish and round buttons

Lutron myRoom and Alisse Keypads

Lutron’s myRoom system runs lighting, shades and temperature in the best hotels, and the same thinking works at home: one elegant keypad by the bed controls the whole room. The Alisse keypad, with its metal finishes and backlit engraving, is the one I reach for when the switch plate should look like jewelry.

Google Nest Learning Thermostat mounted on a wall

Google Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen)

The latest Nest has a larger, crisp display and learns your schedule to save energy. It comes with a room sensor so the temperature is right where you actually sit, not just in the hallway. The polished finishes look at home in a refined room.

Smart home in my projects

Most of my clients come to me for beauty, not gadgets. The tech-forward homes I have designed belong to people who work in technology all day and want their homes to run the same way. A few ideas from those projects that I would use again:

  • One master control panel for the whole house. Lighting, shades and climate run from a single place instead of a wall of switches in every room. In one home, it even reads out the day’s news highlights and weather while the homeowner gets ready in the morning.
  • Motion-activated lighting under the bed. A soft glow comes on when your feet touch the floor at night, with no lamp to fumble for.
  • Color-changing LEDs as party decor. In large white modern homes, we have used the lighting itself as the decoration. For Valentine’s Day, the whole house glows pink.
  • Automatic shades that filter the brightest, hottest part of the day. I have used them on Le Corbusier-style glass-box homes, where they keep rooms comfortable and protect the furnishings without giving up the view. They are worth it wherever the sun is strong, though most homes do not need them.

What I put at every bedside I design: three things, all within reach of the pillow.

  • An adjustable wall-mounted reading light. It can mount on the wall or on the bed itself: I have installed adjustable fixtures on the back of the headboard and designed custom ones mounted right on the headboard face.
  • A charging panel or charging spot. No hunting for an outlet behind the nightstand to charge a phone.
  • Switches that turn off the room lights. No one should have to climb out of bed to turn off the lights.

If you are not rewiring, a plug-in wall lamp like my Westcott Arc Plug-In Wall Lamp gets you the reading light without an electrician.

How to make smart tech disappear

  • Plan the wiring early. Shades, keypads and speakers are easiest to add during a remodel, before walls are closed.
  • Match the finishes. Choose keypads, thermostats and faucet finishes in the same metal as your hardware so they read as part of the design.
  • Give every device a home. Plan a ventilated cabinet for the robot vacuum dock, the router and the chargers.
  • Use fewer controls. One keypad that runs lights, shades and temperature looks better than a row of switches.

Smart home questions I hear most

Which smart home device is worth buying first?

Motion-activated lighting under the bed. It is the least expensive upgrade that makes a real difference every day: a soft glow lights the way at night and reduces tripping hazards without being too bright. If you are ready to invest more, the bedside setup is incredibly worth it: an adjustable reading light, a place to charge your devices and a switch for the room lights, all within reach of the bed.

Will smart home devices look dated quickly?

Only if no one maintains them. A Tesla keeps getting better because the company keeps improving its software, and a smart home works the same way: when someone keeps updating and improving the programming, the system does not really age. Plan for ongoing support from your installer, and choose hardware in real metal and wood finishes so it looks as good as it works.

Do I need a whole-house system?

No. Start with the room where you spend the most time and choose one device that solves a daily annoyance. A system like Lutron makes sense when you renovate or build.

The bottom line

The right smart home devices make life easier without asking you to look at more technology. Start with the room where you spend the most time, choose one device that solves a daily annoyance, and build from there.

Shop the Look: Lamps Worth a Smart Bulb

Smart bulbs are only as beautiful as the lamps they live in. These are three of my favorite pieces from the shop to pair with Hue lighting.

Monolith Table Lamp — Travertine & Brass

Monolith Table Lamp — Travertine & Brass
$1,164

Add to Cart
Westcott Arc Table Lamp in Aged Brass & Linen

Westcott Arc Table Lamp in Aged Brass & Linen
$769

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Atelier Table Lamp

Atelier Table Lamp
$957

Add to Cart
The Design Consultation with Rachel Blindauer — two hours on your project

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

THE PIECES RACHEL RETURNS TO, AGAIN AND AGAIN

Elevated Living Starts At Our Shop
St. Louis Neighborhoods and Their Distinct Design Personalities

St. Louis Neighborhoods and Their Distinct Design Personalities

by | Sep 29, 2026 | Interior Design, Residential

One of the most persistent myths in interior design is that taste is personal and context is irrelevant—that a well-designed home looks the same wherever it sits. In my experience designing across St. Louis for fifteen years, this is wrong. The best interiors are in conversation with their location: with the architecture, the light, the history, the community character of the place they inhabit. St. Louis is a city of distinct neighborhoods, each with a design personality worth understanding before you begin.

Brass lamp, framed art and a wood console: confident, urbane elegance

Clayton: confident elegance

Clayton is St. Louis’s most urbane residential neighborhood—walkable, with a residential stock that ranges from early-twentieth-century apartment buildings to postwar colonials to contemporary new construction. The design personality here is confident and slightly formal: quality materials, restrained palette, furniture with real weight and presence. Clayton homes wear their elegance without apologizing for it. What works: Farrow & Ball colors, warm wood floors in classic species, traditional furniture forms in contemporary fabrics, art that has been chosen rather than purchased for a space.

Exposed brick living room with layered neutral furnishings

Webster Groves and Lafayette Square: layered and historically aware

Webster Groves has a specific charm—tree-lined streets, a genuine small-town commercial district, and residential architecture that is mostly pre-war and proud of it. The design personality is warm, layered, and slightly literary: homes that feel accumulated over time, where the vintage French armchair and the contemporary sofa coexist without friction. What works: original millwork honored rather than replaced, paint colors with warmth and body, a mix of inherited and purchased pieces. Lafayette Square is one of St. Louis’s most architecturally significant neighborhoods—Victorian homes of extraordinary quality. The design personality here is romantic and historically aware. Deep, rich colors respond beautifully to the architecture’s Victorian scale; wallpaper used with confidence; lighting that honors the period without being a costume.

Limed oak and ivory living room: quiet luxury

Ladue: quiet luxury

Ladue is St. Louis at its most quietly assured. The houses are generous, the lots are deep, the architecture is mostly traditional—brick colonials, French provincials, ranch estates—and the design register is understated in the way that genuine confidence always is. What works: the highest quality materials used without ostentation, furniture with exceptional construction that doesn’t announce it, art of real merit acquired over time, a palette that whispers rather than announces. What doesn’t: anything that reads as new money trying to look like old—the oversized chandelier that announces expense rather than taste.

Warm grasscloth, travertine lamp and a wood bowl of fruit: cheerful, lived-in warmth

Kirkwood and the Hill: cheerful livability and warmth

Kirkwood has a cheerfulness that is its own kind of design character—a genuine, unpretentious warmth. The design register is welcoming and honest: rooms that are clearly lived in and loved, that prioritize comfort and hospitality over formal impression. What works: color used generously, patterns mixed with confidence, furniture that looks like it’s been sat on, a kitchen that is clearly cooked in. The Hill is St. Louis’s Italian-American neighborhood, and its design character is exactly what that history suggests: warm, generous, family-centered, and proud of its traditions. The kitchen is the heart of the house, the dining room is used for real meals, and the living room is for gathering.

The best interior design always begins with the question of context: where is this home, who lives in it, what does the neighborhood ask of it? St. Louis is a city that rewards this question with extraordinarily rich answers—each neighborhood a distinct invitation to a particular kind of beautiful life.

Rachel Blindauer is an award-winning interior designer based in St. Louis with projects across the United States and internationally. Book a consultation at rachelblindauer.com.

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The 12 Design Books Actually on My Shelf — and the One I Reference Every Week

The 12 Design Books Actually on My Shelf — and the One I Reference Every Week

by | Sep 24, 2026 | Interior Design

Over fifteen years of designing homes — and many more years of studying the ones that move me — these are the books that have genuinely shaped how I see space, proportion, material, and the relationship between a room and the life lived in it. This is not a list of every important design book. It is a list of the ones I return to, the ones I press into clients’ hands, and the ones I believe belong on the shelf of anyone who takes beautiful spaces seriously.

The library at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s house in Lenox, Massachusetts

The library at The Mount, the house Edith Wharton built for herself in Lenox, Massachusetts. Photo by Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr., book cover

1. The Decoration of Houses — Edith Wharton & Ogden Codman Jr. (1897)

The foundational text of American interior design — and still one of the most radical. Wharton and Codman argued, against the cluttered fashion of their era, that rooms should be designed around proportion, logic, and how people actually live. Nearly every principle of refined interior design traces back to this slim volume. If you read only one book on this list, let it be this one.

Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton. Photo by Fronteiras do Pensamento, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

2. The Architecture of Happiness — Alain de Botton (2006)

A philosopher’s inquiry into why certain buildings make us feel at peace and others make us anxious, why we need beauty, and what our spaces say about who we aspire to be. De Botton writes with the kind of clarity that makes complex ideas feel obvious in retrospect. This book changed how I articulate the purpose of my work to clients — and to myself.

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, book cover

3. A Pattern Language — Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa & Murray Silverstein (1977)

Not a decorating book. Something far more important: a catalog of 253 design patterns — from the scale of cities down to the depth of a window seat — that make built environments feel human and life-supporting. Alexander’s insight that good design is not about style but about the relationship between space and human behavior has been quietly influential on every project I’ve done.

Albert Hadley by Adam Lewis, book cover

4. Albert Hadley: The Story of America’s Preeminent Interior Designer — Adam Lewis

Hadley’s rooms — spare, witty, perfectly proportioned, unmistakably alive — represent the highest tradition of American decorating. This biography traces the evolution of his taste and method across a sixty-year career. The photographs alone are an education in what restraint, done with absolute confidence, actually looks like.

5. Interior Design Master Class — edited by Carl Dellatore (2016)

One hundred essays by one hundred of America’s finest designers — including Alexa Hampton, Miles Redd, Thomas O’Brien, and Nina Campbell — each on a specific aspect of their craft. No other single volume gives you such direct access to the thinking of designers at the top of their field. I have never met a designer who regretted reading it.

6. Axel Vervoordt: Wabi Inspirations — Axel Vervoordt

The Belgian antiquaire and designer’s meditation on time, imperfection, and the beauty of the unresolved. Vervoordt’s rooms — stripped to their most essential elements, furnished with ancient artifacts and raw materials, illuminated by natural light alone — represent the quiet, material-led aesthetic that defines the most sophisticated interiors of the last two decades. Essential reading for understanding where refined design is headed.

An Affair with a House by Bunny Williams, book cover

7. Bunny Williams: An Affair with a House — Bunny Williams (2004)

Williams’s house in Connecticut is one of the most instructive interiors in design history — not because it is perfect, but because it is so deeply personal. This book is a masterclass in mixing antiques with contemporary pieces, layering pattern without chaos, and creating rooms that feel genuinely lived in rather than curated for approval. Williams writes with warmth and enormous practical intelligence.

The Private House by Rose Tarlow, book cover

8. Rose Tarlow: The Private House — Rose Tarlow (2001)

Reclusive, exquisite, and deeply particular. Tarlow’s rooms prove that quiet confidence is the highest form of decoration — that you don’t need to explain yourself when everything in the room has been chosen with absolute conviction. This is a book to study slowly, over many readings.

Sister Parish Design, book cover

9. Sister Parish Design — Apple Parish Bartlett & Susan Bartlett Crater

Sister Parish defined the American country house aesthetic for a generation of clients who included Jackie Kennedy. Her rooms were confident, colorful, deeply personal, and absolutely at ease with themselves. This book is a biography and a portfolio, and both are essential: understanding where a designer’s taste comes from is as instructive as seeing what it produces.

Learning to See by Vicente Wolf, book cover

10. Learning to See — Vicente Wolf (2009)

Wolf is the master of the spare, light-filled, travel-influenced room — spaces that feel simultaneously global and deeply intimate. This book explains how he trains his eye: through travel, through collecting, through sustained attention to the way light behaves in different climates and latitudes. It is the most practical book I know about developing genuine visual intelligence rather than just following trends.

11. Chic Living — Mark D. Sikes (2016)

California ease married to classical bones, with an unwavering commitment to blue-and-white that never feels derivative. Sikes captures a very specific kind of relaxed American elegance — the kind that looks effortless and is actually the result of very careful thinking. His approach to pattern mixing, in particular, is something I return to regularly.

Edmund de Waal

Edmund de Waal. Photo by Bernhard Holub, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, book cover

12. The Hare with Amber Eyes — Edmund de Waal (2010)

Not an interior design book at all — and the most important book on this list for anyone who collects. De Waal traces the story of 264 Japanese netsuke across five generations of his family, through Vienna and Paris and Tokyo, and in doing so writes the most profound account I know of why objects matter, what they carry, and what it means to live with beautiful things. Every collector and designer should read it at least once.

A Note on Building Your Library

The best design library is not comprehensive — it is curated. A shelf of twelve books that you have genuinely absorbed is worth more than three hundred you’ve skimmed. The books above represent fifteen-plus years of my own reading, returning, and re-reading. I add to the list slowly and deliberately, the same way I add anything to a room I care about.

If you’d like to discuss any of these books, or talk about how the ideas in them might apply to your specific home, I’m always happy to have that conversation in a design consultation.

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