Luxury Interior Design Isn’t What Most People Think It Is

Most people associate “luxury interior design” with what they can see.

Like hand-selected Calacatta marble countertops, or expertly crafted millwork. Or, custom furniture made to fit a room’s precise dimensions. Oh, and don’t forget the designer chandeliers flown in from France.

While these elements are inherently luxurious, we find the real luxury lies in the details that are felt rather than seen with the naked eye. It’s a home that anticipates you. 

Read more to explore how at Coco Maison, we’re redefining the meaning of true luxury.

Redefining Luxury

Our firm places a considerable emphasis on luxury as appearance. But our key differentiator is how we prioritize luxury as experience.

For instance, the ease of your morning routine; the moment you wake up, to getting ready in your primary suite, to enjoying your first sip of coffee in the kitchen. Or, a simpler shuffle of the kids from home to school and back, with a dedicated place for every last backpack and piece of sports equipment. 

We find the most luxurious homes aren’t necessarily the most ornate, rather they’re the sanctuaries that feel intentional down to the smallest daily ritual.

Luxury also lives in the process of creating your home’s design, with a white glove, turnkey service that makes your life easier. 

Luxury Is Not Having to Think About It

High-functioning homes remove friction. When your home works beautifully, you stop noticing the design so much, and instead experience the ease that it creates. 

This experiential element shows up well in our Quintessential Colonial project. By rethinking layout and flow, the house shifted from a series of rooms into a backdrop for everyday rituals and shared moments. Some transformational changes included:

• A converted pantry that now serves as a much-needed home office.
• A custom kitchen island with a built-in dog station (because everyone deserves a seat at the table.)
• A sunny banquette that’s become the family’s daily gathering place.
• A hall bathroom that finally keeps up with the kids, thanks to a reimagining of the storage.
• A formal living room turned nostalgic game zone, since this family loves nothing more than a little friendly competition.

Each of these details make a monumental difference in how this home is lived in, and we devoted equal importance to the materials and palettes we used. Easy-to-maintain surfaces paired with stylish silver details, embedded into their beloved blue-and-white color scheme.

Luxury is Feeling at Ease in Your Own Home

Luxury interior design is about cherishing what matters most, and creating a space that honors your passions. 

For a client in La Cañada Flintridge, that meant crafting a home that spoke to their love of equestrianism and English-inspired interiors. We oriented the design toward its verdant surroundings, framing lush views through expansive windows and glass doors that welcome more natural light to wash over the interiors. 

Our team then selected materials that draw from their love of the English countryside. Natural jute, wood, stone, tartan, and leather. A favorite detail: the custom leather and wool armchairs in the living room that feature a horsebit on the back.

Cherished artworks and storied antiques that our clients have lovingly collected over the years find a home amongst the design as well, for an infusion of heritage and undeniable character in this legacy estate.

Luxury is Being Able to Welcome People Well

Our Mediterranean Coastal clients love having people over, but the original layout of their space felt clunky and awkward. They needed their home’s design to make entertaining effortless. 

Because hosting is hardly one-size-fits-all, we assess each client on a case-by-case basis. In this case, they wanted several areas across their property to entertain guests: an ample outdoor patio, a sprawling yet connected living room, a kitchen that opened up to the dining area, and a pool house.

We added a Murphy bed and a kitchenette to the pool house, giving guests more autonomy when they stay for the weekend. And since indoor-outdoor living is a given in sunny California, we equipped the patio with designated areas to converse, dine, and even watch television alfresco.

The large patio seamlessly connects to the main living room and kitchen, via an expansive sliding glass door. Our clients are now able to host friends and extended family well, with enough space for everyone to enjoy.

Luxury Is Having Someone Hold the Bigger Picture

The hallmark of a truly luxurious interior is having an experienced and trusted advocate manage the process and protect the larger vision. 

For our clientele, that manifests in a full-service interior design process rooted in clarity and forward momentum that we call the “Lived-In Method.”

It’s a chronological series of events from a Discovery Call to Installation Day that captures our team’s involvement at each stage. It’s also so much more than that.

At its core, the Lived-In Method embodies our take on the essence of luxury interior design: that great design should be lived-in, not just “looked at.” 

We don’t design for show, rather, we design for soul. Our design process emphasizes the qualities that surpass the glitzy materials and furniture selection, to arrive at the core meaning behind these decisions. The frictionless ease and calm that home, when designed specifically for your needs, can provide.

A Home That Gives Something Back

Luxury doesn’t have to announce itself. In fact, it does the opposite.

When designed well, luxury is already living in every detail of a home. It can be the morning light that pours into the kitchen, landing exactly where you enjoy your cup of coffee while catching up on the news. Or, it’s the kitchen island that not only stores your appliances discreetly, but also serves as the after-school homework spot where you can connect with the kids while prepping dinner. 

Luxury is the family heirloom that finally feels at home again, or the floor plan that makes a busy day feel just a bit easier.

These details might not be the ones that show up in a portfolio photograph, but they’re often the reason a home becomes easy to love, and impossible to forget.