When the babes at The LifeStyled Company wave their magic design wand, beautiful things happen my friends. Based in Scottsdale, AZ, their aptly named aesthetic, ‘Organic Desert Living’, takes on its own distinct look in every home they get their hands on. Today’s massive tour, built by Modern Splendor Homes and captured by Nick Sorensen, is yet another impressive example of that. With a canvas of Meditteranean architectural details, Lead Designer, Kylie Ray made sure to layer on the texture, fill each room with striking statement pieces and inject that signature LCo style throughout. We tapped the team for more behind the scenes of how this project came to life, it’s all below!
Tell us about the inspiration behind this design? How would you describe the style?
This Santa Barbara/Mediterranean architecture plays so beautifully with our signature aesthetic called, Organic Desert Living. The combination of warm tones mixed with crisp whites, allowing texture to be king, and keeping prominent cohesion in the muted color palette allowed us to bridge the desert and the coast. There is a reason why that locale has created a large stylistic category so quintessentially recognizable! We wanted to ensure we could meet the individual needs of our clients while paying homage to the big shoes this architecture commands.
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How long did this project take from start to finish? Can you tell us how your process works when designing larger scale projects?
From start to finish, the project took 9 months. For larger-scale projects, we usually start with “design immersion,” which is where we will kick our clients out of the house for a day or two, bring in most of the design team and design practices within the space. This method allows us to take exact measurements, see samples in the home’s natural light, test paint colors, and overall, make quick decisions! Our design team is most inspired when we’re around each other, so this process is not only beneficial for that reason, and it also makes the design phase a lot more efficient! We will usually have one person sourcing, one doing renders, one driving design boards, and another taking measurements. We don’t do this for all projects, but it’s proven to be a great method to kick off large scale projects that have a million moving parts!
Where do you pull inspiration from when designing?
When looking for inspiration, we heavily monitor art and design from other countries, along with fashion via Pinterest, print publications, and blogs. In a pre-COVID world, we also made it a firm-wide goal to travel as often as possible both personally and professionally. We feel like our time outside of our immediate area contributes to all senses and brings us closer to design inspiration from anywhere and everywhere!
What were (if any) challenges when working on this home?
THE SIZE! These rooms were huge and while that sounds like a blast because of piece count, making sure the furniture felt appropriate for each space was challenging!
Picking a favorite room is probably like picking a favorite child—impossible. But, if you had to pick a room that you most loved dreaming up in the process, which would it be?
The Music Room! Interestingly, this room was also the most important to the rock ‘n roll homeowners! They travel on the road whenever possible, following their favorite bands from decades past and they wanted a space here at home to continue the vibe! Adding a very bold wallpaper helped give this space instant character. We kept all of the furniture plump and cozy while also adding a game table in the back for long nights and short days, puzzle making, or playing chess!
Love what you see? Take a peek at the talent behind the story… Interior Design: The LifeStyled Company · Lead Designer: Kylie Ray for The LifeStyled Company · Build: Modern Splendor Homes · Photography: Nick Sorensen
