Happy World Interiors Day 2025!

I will be celebrating World Interiors Day on Saturday, May 24, 2025, which is an event sponsored by IFI (The International Federation of Interior Architects/ Designers).

Working with an interior designer can greatly improve the experience of your home, how you live in it, and ultimately the value of your space. Life is so much better if you love where you live!

Interior designers can help with:
* Floor plans
* Space planning
* Color palette
* Paint selection

* Wall covering selection
* Lighting selection and design
* Furniture and furnishings selection

* Window covering design
* Art selection and placement
* Bath and kitchen remodels

In my own practice, I can help with any or all of these steps. If you have unlimited time and patience, you could tackle some of these yourself, but why bother when an educated, knowledgeable professional can save you time and heartache (and heartburn). But most importantly, an interior designer can save you money by helping you to avoid mistakes that would be costly to amend, fix, or do over, which is especially true with kitchen and bathroom remodels. It is not as easy as it looks on HGTV! Trust me.

I am an advocate for my clients, introducing them to products and materials that they might not otherwise know of. I can help to expand design sensibilities into new, exciting areas. And I can bring to the project advantageous relationships with vendors, suppliers, and tradespeople that clients normally would not have.

If you have been a fan of design but have never worked with an interior designer before, or if you have been thinking of perhaps working with an interior designer on a possible project in your home, or if you have started a project on your own but can't quite seem to finish it, I encourage you to contact me. I can help to greatly enhance your home and your life in it with thoughtful design. My business motto is, "Shape your home, shape your surroundings, shape your life. Life is better when you love where you live!"

Click on my business logo to the right to see my website, my portfolio, and to contact me!
Happy designing!

Reminder: The Shop at Fiorito Interior Design Is Open!

Hello regular readers, followers, and clients past, present, and future! As a reminder, there are some wonderful pieces available from the Shop at Fiorito Interior Design! I have had many people over my nearly twenty years in business contact me simply to purchase a few pieces of furniture...say, a rug and a sofa. Or perhaps they want a piece of art to hang in their living room.

So for those in my regular service area (San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties in Northern California), I am now offering a selection of fine furniture and furnishings from venerable manufacturers. Featuring six carefully curated collections to satisfy all tastes and styles, the Shop at Fiorito Interior Design gives you a chance to buy custom-made furniture and unique objects of beauty at designer discounted prices normally reserved for clients! You can choose from the bold Contemporary Collection, the timeless Classic Collection, the breezy Coastal Collection, the clean-lined Mid-Century Collection, the funky Bohemian Collection, or the comforting Cabin Collection.

The Contemporary Collection

The Classic Collection

The Coastal Collection

The Mid-Century Collection

The Bohemian Collection

The Cabin Collection

Go to the Shop at Fiorito Interior Design and click on a collection to see details! Buy a single piece or a whole collection.

Happy shopping!

Know Your Chairs: The Bertoia Diamond Chair

This installation of Know Your Chairs focuses on a hallmark of mid-century design. Harry Bertoia's wire-framed Diamond chair emerged from the luxury of the time and space required for its creation.

Bertoia was born in Italy but moved to the United States at the age of 15 with his older brother, Oreste. He learned English and studied jewelry making from 1930 to 1936. But in 1937, something happened that would change his life and contribute to art and design in a meaningful way. He received a scholarship to study at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he encountered Walter Gropius (founder of the legendary Bauhaus School in Germany, previously here), Ray and Charles Eames (influential pioneers of architecture and design, previously here), and Florence Knoll (architect and interior/furniture designer who, along with her husband Hans, started the revolutionary company Knoll Associates, now known simply as Knoll).

After moving from a student of painting to teaching jewelry and metal work, he was recruited to join Charles and Ray Eames in California to work on the development of their molded plywood products. But what happened next is a wonderful example of networking and simply putting yourself "out there" as the saying goes. The official Knoll site describes it well:

"On the suggestion of Herbert Matter, who had worked alongside Eames and Bertoia, Florence and Hans [Knoll] traveled to California and encouraged Bertoia to move east and set up his own metal shop in a corner of Knoll’s production facility. Having studied with Bertoia at Cranbrook, Florence was sure that he would produce something extraordinary if given the time and space to experiment.

Characteristic of the early environment at Knoll, Hans and Florence never demanded that Bertoia design furniture, but instead encouraged him to explore whatever he liked. They simply asked that if he arrived at something interesting, to show them. Needless to say, Harry Bertoia arrived at something outstanding. His iconic wire furniture collection, introduced in 1952, is recognized worldwide as one of the great achievements of 20th century furniture design."

The chair can be used without a seat pad for outdoor--or even indoor--lounging...

The pad provides some cushion and presents an opportunity to introduce color into a space.

The Diamond Chair is also offered with a full body pad!

The Diamond Chair is still in production and can be purchased from Knoll or Design Within Reach!

Take a look at the official Harry Bertoia website to see his marvelous paintings and sculptures as well.

Happy designing!

In Celebration Of The Stripe!

Bold and fun, but often overlooked...stripes can provide visual interest, create a unique forced perspective, or just add some graphic punch! In celebration of the stripe, let's look at spaces that feature this energetic motif.

Striped floor in bathroom of Achille Salvagni's Rome apartment

Striped floor in kitchen of Achille Salvagni's Rome apartment

Shower by Amy Morris Interiors

Cabana stripes on ceiling by Caroline Rafferty

Vibrant pink and yellow stripes by Muriel Brandolini

French room with tent striped ceiling by Todd Hase

Striped butler's pantry by Paula Caravelli

Red and white candy cane all in the home of Kristiina Ratia

French inspired guest bathroom by Fiorito Interior Design

Happy designing!

In The World Of Fabric, What Is Brocade?

I've posted about many different types of fabrics in the past from exotic creations like ikat, here, or African kuba/kente/mudcloth here.

Those are visually easy to identify because they are so unique, but some fabrics get confused with one another and terms sometimes end up being interchangeable even when the fabrics are distinct. Jacquard, previously here, is an umbrella term for many types of fabrics. The name refers to Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of an 1801 attachment for looms using punch cards that individually control each of the warp yarns (the up/down, or north/south yarns) in a piece of cloth.

Below you can see a Jacquard attachment on a loom.

Here is a close-up of the punch cards, made of thin planks of wood. If there was a hole, a hook would raise. If not, the hook wold go down. In this way, a pattern would emerge in the fabric.

Differing fabrics and effects can be achieved by varying the color, material, and number of warp as well as weft threads. One of the fabrics a Jacquard loom can create is damask which features some kind of figure, usually symmetrical, like an Arabesque or a floral. The warp fibers are shiny while the weft fibers (those that left/right or east/west as it were) are matte. This gives damask a quality that makes it ideal for tone-on-tone color palettes. Another characteristic of damask fabric is that is is reversible...there is no "rough" woven side. For this reason, the use of damask is very common for tableware like napkins and tablecloths.

But something even more complex can be created when adding extra weft fibers only in a certain area to make a raised or embossed design. This type of jacquard fabrics is called brocade. Originally crafted from silk, brocade has origins in ancient India around 1750 B.C.E. It made its way through China around 450 B.C.E., and through the European Renaissance of the 15th century. But the invention of the Jacquard loom allowed brocade to be made faster, and the fabric was once again the rage throughout the 1800s.

What makes brocade so special is that the extra weft threads are often of metallic gold or silver, making the raised design shimmer. This opulent fabric can be used for very special but limited applications for upholstery, pillows, even wall covering. Using a brocade speaks to its history and adds a sense of luxury and value.

Chinese Brocade from Lee Jofa/Kravet in Sand and Red

Chinese Brocade from Lee Jofa/Kravet in Sand installed on library chairs

Happy designing!

Famous Homes: Filoli

For this installation of Famous Homes, we need look no further than our own backyard. Here in Northern California, we have a beautiful country house located in Woodside, nestled between the San Jose and San Francisco metro areas.

Known as the Bourn-Roth Estate, the home sits among 16 acres of formal gardens surrounded by a 654-acre estate. Designed for William Bowers Bourn II, the owner of one of California's wealthiest gold mines and president of the Spring Valley Water Company, which provided water to San Francisco, and his wife, Agnes Moody Bourn, this impressive residence was crafted by San Francisco architect Willis Polk. Spanning 54,256 square feet, the house features 56 rooms, including a ballroom, a reception room, a dining room, cozy family spaces, and servants' quarters. The structure was built between 1915 and 1917 and the estate's name is an acronym created by combining the first two letters of the key phrases from William Bourn's credo: "Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life."

From 1917 to 1936, the Bourns used Filoli as a country house when they wanted to getaway from their main residence in San Francisco. After William and Agnes Bourn's deaths in 1936, the house was sold. Thankfully the next owners also came from wealth: Mr. William P. Roth and Mrs. Lurline Matson Roth (heiress to the Matson Navigation Company) were able to properly care for the property. In 1975, Mrs. Roth donated Filoli in its entirety to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the estate is now both a California Historical Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The estate operates as Filoli Center, and you can visit the house and gardens throughout the year.

Filoli Reception Room circa 1936

Filoli Reception Room now

Filoli Library

Filoli Dining Room

Filoli Kitchen

Filoli Ballroom circa 1927

Filoli Ballroom now

Filoli has appeared on both the big and small screens: it was an exterior location for scenes in Warren Beatty's 1978 film "Heaven Can Wait," it served as the Stanhope residence in the 1997 film "George of the Jungle" starring Brendan Fraser and, despite the fact that the show was set in Denver, Colorado, it was the home of the Carrington family on the 1980s ABC television series "Dynasty."

Just last year, in 2023, it hosted President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping for informal talks during the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco.

Meeting in the Ballroom
Photo: Brendan Smialowski AFP|Getty

During the winter holidays, Filoli is the location of a spectacular outdoor light display while the interiors are dressed for Christmas.