A Sculpted Gathering... The real insights

Let us tell you all the little behind the scenes! 

We’ve been banging on about A Sculpted Gathering for a while now... but today we’re letting you in on some of the thinking behind the design.

This project was a little different.

Designing a home for someone you’ve worked alongside for years means Hannah and Sarah already had a pretty good idea of how Emma wanted the house to feel before a brief was ever written.

But this wasn’t a case of designers simply presenting a finished idea and saying, “here you go.”

Emma was part of the design process too.

With her own eye for design, understanding of materials and a clear sense of how she wanted her home to feel, she brought another layer to the conversation. The best projects are always a collaboration — a back and forth of ideas, opinions and those moments where someone says, “wait... what if we did this?”

Hannah and Sarah knew how her family lived, how she entertained, the details she would love and, perhaps more importantly, the things she would probably need a little convincing on.

Because there’s a funny thing about designing your own home...

Even when you know the process, understand the decisions and spend your days helping other people make them, it suddenly feels a lot more personal when it’s your own front door.

And yes... there were a few moments of hesitation.

The biggest one?

The burgundy kitchen.

It was always part of the design. The idea was never in question. But when it came time to actually commit to that much colour, the sample suddenly stopped feeling like a colour on a board and started feeling like a very permanent decision.

We’ve all been there.

The kitchen went in without it, and it was beautiful. But it wasn’t quite complete.

Because sometimes the thing that feels like the biggest risk is actually the thing that brings the whole design together.

After a few well-deserved “we told you so’s”, the burgundy went in exactly where it was always meant to be.

The lesson?

Even people who know and love design sometimes need to trust their designers.

Here’s a look behind the scenes of the choices that make A Sculpted Gathering feel the way it does.