What stops me.
Not the grand view. Not the postcard moment.
The shadow doing something unexpected on a wall. The paint that has been peeling so long it became more beautiful than whatever color was underneath. The room that has almost nothing in it and is the most complete space you have been in all year.
This is what catches my eye when I am not working. Which, if I am honest, is also when I am most working.
It is also exactly the way I will look at your home.
The same noticing that makes me stop in an alley in Guadalajara is the same noticing I bring into a session. I am always looking for the same thing: the current. The thing that keeps running through everything a person loves without them realizing it connects.
Out here it shows up in light and surface and time. In your home it shows up in the things you reach for, the corners you avoid, the pieces you kept through three moves without knowing exactly why.
I take the photo before I understand it. The understanding comes later. Usually when I am sitting with a client and I realize the thing I noticed in that courtyard is exactly what they are trying to describe about their living room and cannot find the words for.
That is what this page is. Not a gallery. Not a mood board. The things my eye keeps catching and the thread that connects all of them to the way I work.
Santa Barbara, California
Everything here has been layered by someone else's hands. Tile over tile. Vine over wall. Story over story. Nothing matches and everything belongs.
I kept thinking: this is what a home looks like when nobody tries to make it match. They just kept choosing what they loved and it became something. That is confidence. And it is exactly what I am trying to help you find.
Southern California
I spent most of this trip watching light move across surfaces and forgetting to eat lunch.
There is a quality to the way afternoon sun hits stucco that makes every wall I have ever seen feel like an opportunity. The light does not ask permission. It just does what it does and the surface is better for it.
Lake Tahoe, California
Cold air. Simple rooms. Wood that has been there longer than anyone living.
I sat in a cabin that had almost nothing in it and realized it was the most complete space I had been in all year. Not because it was empty. Because everything in it had earned its place. That stayed with me. It shows up in my work more than I probably realize.
Santa Cruz, California
Where I go when I need to remember that nature does not second-guess itself.
The trees do not ask if they are in the right spot. The moss does not check if it is on trend. It just grows where it grows. There is a lesson in that for every person who has ever stood in a paint aisle for forty-five minutes and left with nothing.
Las Catalinas, Costa Rica
Close to home in every sense.
The courtyards here are built for gathering. For sitting. For being together without performing anything. Nothing is precious. Everything is warm.
I grew up around spaces that were built to hold people, not impress them. That is in my bones. It is in every session I lead.
Grand Canyon, Arizona
No camera can hold what this place does to you.
The scale makes everything you have ever worried about choosing for your home feel very small. In the best way.
I come back to that feeling when a client is spiraling over a rug. Some decisions are large. Most are not. The ones that feel large usually feel that way because of what they represent, not what they are.
Mexico
This is where I am from.
Where chipped paint is character, not damage. Where a door can be three hundred years old and still be the most beautiful thing on the street. Where I first understood that the things people want to replace are sometimes the very things that make a space irreplaceable.
I do not go back enough. But when I do, my eye fills up in a way that lasts for months. And the work that follows is always better for it.
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![A brick church tower with a clock showing 6:02, topped with a blue illuminated cross against a clear evening sky.]()
Tapalpa
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![Close-up of a brick building with a tall arched wooden door and stone walkway.]()
Tapalpa Catedral
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![Guadalajara Historic Buildings]()
Historic City
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![A cup of coffee with latte art sitting on a saucer with a spoon, next to a menu with illustrations of cheese, herbs, and a bunny in a leather jacket.]()
Boulangerie Central
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![URUAPAN, MICHOACAN Downtown cathedral]()
Centro de Uruapan
These photos are not separate from the work.
They are where the work comes from.
Every time I sit with a client and ask what made you stop about an image they saved,
I am doing the same thing I was doing in that alley in Guadalajara. Or that cabin in Tahoe. Or that courtyard in Costa Rica.
Looking for the thing that caught them. Trying to understand why it caught them. And helping them trust that it matters, even when they cannot explain it yet.
That is all design is.
Noticing what moves you. And having the nerve to put it in your home.
