The winter Edit: What We're Specifying This Season in Charlotte

Every season brings a subtle shift in how we think about residential design at our Charlotte NC design studio. Not trends — we are constitutionally opposed to trend-following — but evolutions. Refinements in material availability, new artisan relationships, and the ongoing education that comes from completing each commission and carrying its lessons into the next.

This winter, we are specifying burnished bronze with renewed conviction. We've always admired it in principle, but a recent project in Plaza Midwood gave us the opportunity to use it in a way that confirmed its extraordinary versatility. The warmth it brings to a room is unlike anything synthetic — it responds to light, to touch, to the seasons themselves.

We are also deepening our commitment to artisan plaster finishes. The limewash and Venetian plaster work we've commissioned for recent Charlotte home renovation projects has produced walls with a luminous, breathing quality that paint cannot replicate. The investment is significant — artisan plaster requires skilled application over multiple days — but the result is a surface that transforms the perception of the entire room.

In furniture, we are drawn this season to pieces with architectural presence — consoles and dining tables that feel like they could have been designed by a sculptor. We recently placed a blackened steel and white oak console in a Dilworth foyer that stops visitors in their tracks. It is spare, muscular, and utterly confident — qualities we admire in furniture as much as in people.

For homeowners considering a design project this winter, our advice remains consistent: invest in materials and craftsmanship that will improve with time. The homes we admire most — in Charlotte and everywhere else — are the ones that refuse to chase the aesthetic of the moment.