Studio

A small practice, by design.

Reframe is an interiors studio working on a limited number of rooms each year. We take what is already there as the starting point, and we are careful about what we add.

Most rooms do not need more. They need someone to decide what stays.

The studio was founded on a simple observation: the homes people love are rarely the ones with the most in them. They are the ones where a small number of decisions were made carefully and then left alone.

We work on four to six projects a year. Every one begins with an inventory rather than a mood board, and most begin by removing something. The result is usually quieter than clients expect, and larger than the floor plan suggests.

Start a project →

Restraint

Every object earns its place or leaves. The hardest work in a room is deciding what not to do.

Material

A narrow palette, honestly used. Two good materials will outlast six competing ones, visually and literally.

Light

Light is the only material already in the room. We plan around it before anything is specified.

The people in the room.

Mara Ellison

Founder, lead designer

Trained in architecture, spent a decade in furniture before deciding that most rooms need less of it. Leads every project from first walkthrough to installation day.

Theo Adair

Spatial consultant

Runs the consulting practice and the written assessments. Has a particular interest in daylight, and in the doors people stop using.

Kind words.

“We expected to be sold a room full of new things. Instead they took two thirds of what we owned out of the living room and it has never felt bigger.”

Anna and Michael Reyes

Homeowners, Brooklyn

See the project: The Elm Street Residence

“A half day and a four-page note. We moved the sofa, sold the second lamp, and stopped looking at rugs. It was the cheapest good decision we made that year.”

Priya Natarajan

Consulting client, Boston

See the project: Harbor View Apartment

“They hung eleven pieces we already owned and told us, kindly, to put the rest away. The wall finally reads as one thing.”

Daniel Okafor

Collector, Greenwich

See the project: Collector’s Wall

Reframe