INSIGHTS + DISCOVERIES

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited | Photography: Jessie Preza Coastal design often gets reduced to navy stripes and shell collections, but that's not how we approach it. I’ve designed homes all along the Gulf Coast, and while each one looks completely different from the next, there is a method to making sure the “coastal” vibe is present, even when there’s no anchor in sight. 1. The floor plan has to handle a crowd Extended family, weekend guests, and multiple

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited Interiors | Photo: Kim Meadowlark I have spent twenty-one years as an interior designer insisting that color is the most powerful tool in a room, and the company whose entire reason for existing is color just put my name on it. As much as I want to gracefully and quietly accept this honor, I will take any reason to talk about my most favorite topic and to take a look back on past projects where color won out over another bland

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited | Photography: Jessie Preza June inevitably kicks off a season of observing how our clients’ homes perform when they’re lived in full-time, with doors left open and wet bathing suits ending up everywhere. While we are a high-end design firm, we also live in the real world. And we believe in creating homes that become places where memories are made, rather than full-time maintenance projects. 1. White linen slipcovers are a lie

Have you ever thought about how everything in your home is an investment piece? Think about all of the items, decisions, and relationships that have gone into building your space. They’re worth spending real money on because they pay you back in ways that compound over time. I want to make the case that an interior designer who uses AI well is exactly that kind of investment. Here’s what I mean: When prospective clients come to me, they’ve often already spent time on the AI-a

A few years ago, I was working with a client who had given me every piece of information I technically needed: the budget, the wish list, the Pinterest board. On paper, it was a straightforward project. In the room, it was anything but. Within the first twenty minutes of our consultation, I understood something that no brief could have told me. This family was in transition. A big one. And what they needed from their home wasn’t just a beautiful living room. They needed a spa

There’s a conversation happening in every creative industry right now, and interior design is no exception. AI is here, and I’d rather talk about it openly than pretend it isn’t sitting right alongside the fabric swatches and finish samples. I’ll be honest with you: We use AI here at Rachel Cannon Limited. It’s useful for research, helps us work through marketing ideas faster than I could on my own, and supports business development. And that’s a good thing because it allows

There’s a version of the design process that a lot of people have experienced and absolutely hated: the one where they feel like they’re managing their designer. Chasing updates. Following up on orders. Wondering what’s happening with the project they’re paying for. Feeling like the whole thing would stall out if they stopped pushing. That experience is unfortunately common. And it has nothing to do with how high-end the designer’s portfolio is. What separates a reactive desi

Two things happen fairly reliably when a client tries to direct the creative process of a project they’ve hired a professional to lead. The work gets more expensive, and it gets worse. Usually, both at the same time. I say this with zero judgment because the impulse makes complete sense. You’ve invested a significant amount of money in your home. You have opinions. You’ve been pinning things for years. Of course, you have ideas about what you want. And a good designer absolut

Let me tell you something that doesn’t come up nearly enough in conversations about hiring an interior designer: their contract expiration date matters just as much as everything else in it. I know that’s not the sexy part of the process. Nobody pins a contract clause to their inspiration board. But understanding where your project scope begins and ends (and what happens when you push past those edges) is genuinely one of the most important things you can know going into a de

Photo: Jackie Haxthausen It’s my birthday month! Every year, I treat this as an excuse to finally pull the trigger on things I’ve been eyeing, restock the things I can’t live without, and add a few things that are purely and unabashedly for fun. This year’s list is a good one. Here are ten things I gifted myself for my birthday, and why I think you should, too! TWEED LADY JACKET 01. Lady Jacket Lady jackets are everywhere for spring, and while most are in the soft, pastel sh

I didn’t plan to spend my birthday month making a case for my own career expansion. That’s not really what this was supposed to be. What it was supposed to be was a simple explanation: here’s why I do all of these things, here’s how they connect, here’s what it means for you. A month of content with a through-line. Tidy, useful, done. What it turned into was something I didn’t entirely expect. As I spent this month leaning so far into my love of color, it became clear that I

In my 21 years of experience as an interior designer, I’ve specified thousands of colors for clients’ homes. Paint, fabric, tile, you name it. And the most common thing I hear when we start a project is some version of “I want color, but I’m scared to mess it up, so maybe we should just do beige.” This breaks my heart every single time because living with color costs exactly the same as living without it. The paint is the same price. The fabric is the same price. The only dif

With the Weiler Plastic Surgery group on their podcast, The Consult Before The Cut Today, I’m giving you the inside scoop on color analysis as an interior designer, color expert, and certified color analysis pro. And, just like when I was a guest on The Consult Before The Cut podcast, I want to start by telling you what color analysis is NOT. It's not a set of rules about what you can and can't wear. It's not me forcing you into colors you hate. And it's definitely not ab

Photo: Jackie Haxthausen People who know me for my career in interior design are sometimes surprised when I start talking about fashion. People who found me through color analysis occasionally wonder what that has to do with their living room. And anyone who discovered me through organizing is probably still figuring out how all three fit together. Here's my short answer: they're the same problem. They've always been the same problem. It just took me three certifications and

Photo: Jackie Haxthausen Wanna know a secret? My favorite color combinations rarely come from paint decks or fabric swatches. I find inspiration in my Tuesday morning coffee runs or the way the vegetables at the farmers' market look radiant next to each other. I have over 40,000 photos on my phone, many of which are color studies I hope to bring forward for design and wardrobe styling for my clients later. My camera roll is basically a very organized color library that I refe

Interior Design: Rachel Cannon Limited Interiors | Photo: Jessie Preza Before I became a certified professional organizer, I hired a team to organize my house. They came in, made everything look beautiful, and essentially hid everything from me in the process. For weeks afterward, I wandered my own home like a stranger. Lightbulbs had always lived in the utility room, but now they were in the pantry. Extra hangers had always hung in my closet, but this team decided they belon