Function: Designing for How You Live
Many times people hear “interior design” and immediately think about how a room looks. The paint color. The furniture. The pattern on the pillows. But this is dangerously reductive, and risks minimizing how much our interiors shape our everyday lives — how we experience and move through the world, how our days unfold. How we start the day and how we end it. Are our homes removing friction and supporting our lives, or are they adding little bits of tension and frustration that we’ve become so accustomed to we hardly notice anymore?
I came to interior design through architecture, and that background changed the way I think about spaces and their importance in our lives. An architect doesn't just ask what a space looks like. She asks how a body moves through it, how it's held up, and what it's actually built to do. Design, at its core, isn't a surface-level exercise and that’s what my 4 Joyful by Design pillars are built to support.
Custom built-ins are a great way to add just what you need to your spaces
What Do We Mean by Function?
While Identity is the softer more “vibe” oriented side of starting an interior design project, Function is the practical, more scientific side. Within the Joyful by Design framework, Function asks a simple question: does this home support the way you actually live?
A joyful home doesn't ask you to reorganize your life around it. It makes space for the rituals and routines that are already happening. It removes friction from daily life, quietly and almost invisibly. You don't compliment a home for its circulation path the way you'd compliment its color palette—you simply notice, without quite knowing why, that living there feels easier.
It Starts With Studying and Listening
Admittedly, some of the Function component in a design is simply the technical knowledge that comes with training and experience—the standards of good design that hold true across almost every home: the height of your kitchen's base cabinets, the depth a coat closet needs to actually hold coats, where a light switch should sit relative to a doorway.
These aren't matters of taste. They're the baseline competence a designer brings to the table and as long as they’re thoughtful during the planning stages they can be applied with relative ease.
But most of the meaningful functional decisions in a home aren't standard at all. They're bespoke—built around the specific people who live there.
What type of cooking do you do?
Do you take your shoes off at the door or wear them through your home?
Do you dry dishes on the counter or lean on your dishwasher day-to-day?
What is your morning ritual and how do you unwind after a long day?
How do you entertain?
What are your hobbies and passions?
What are your exercise and wellness rituals?
How tall are you?
Are there children using your spaces?
Do you put your shoes on in your closet or mudroom?
These details matter.
Balancing Customization with Standardization
I’d be remiss not to recognize that while humans are unique, we also have some universal needs, and one risk of over-customizing your home based on your taste and your needs is creating a space so unique it limits resale value and evolution with changing needs over time. This is absolutely something we balance in our work and advise our clients on — generally I think of it this way:
For big moves — the placement of walls, doors, windows, etc we err on the side of universal to allow flexibility and evolution as needs change.
The next level of detail — the finish out in a room, layout of the furniture, millwork, finishes, and fixtures — is a mix of customized and standard, depending on your budget and priorities, this can be a place to focus more on your unique needs and making spaces that work well in your everyday life.
Finishing touches should always be personalized based on your needs, lifestyle, and taste — your coffee maker, furniture, artwork, and objects of daily use vary widely by individual, and generally speaking can go with you when you move, so why not get exactly what you need?
Function Is Invisible Until It's Missing
The curious thing about the 2nd pillar, Function, is that it's hardest to notice when it's working.
You don't think about the cabinet pull that's exactly where your hand expects it to be or the light switch that's always been within reach. People rarely notice the mudroom that effortlessly absorbs the chaos of everyday life or the kitchen that somehow accommodates three people cooking dinner at once. You simply move through your day without resistance.
We mostly notice Function when it's failing.
That's the real measure of a well-designed home. Not whether it photographs beautifully, but whether it disappears into your life the way it should—supporting your rituals so completely that you stop noticing they're being supported at all.
Function isn't about perfection or efficiency. It's about recognition and ease.
A joyful home recognizes not only what you love, but how you live. It understands your habits, accommodates your preferences, and makes room for the life unfolding within its walls. It removes the small frictions that quietly ask you to become someone else.
There is no universally functional home—only the one that functions beautifully for the people who live there.
Because your home shouldn't be something you've learned to live around. It should feel as though it was waiting for you all along.
