INSIGHTS + DISCOVERIES

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited Interiors | Photo: Kim Meadowlark We’ve seen it time and again: a potential client contacts our team to help design a remodel or new construction project. They’ve even done some homework and gotten pricing from a few contractors and have their favorite picked out. The problem is that the contractors put those bids together based on some assumptions about what the client might end up doing. Since our team hasn’t actually created

I'll start with a confession: a good chunk of what I'm wearing this fall came from Walmart. No one is more surprised than I am at this turn of events. If you caught my haul videos on Instagram, you saw how giddy I was showing these pieces I found. The knits are soft and substantial, while the jackets are tailored and structured. In fact, they rival any of the items I regularly buy from the likes of Boden, J.Crew, Banana Republic, and more. The colors are rich and playful, si

My obsession with color has been long and well-documented, and naturally, it's at the forefront of how I approach design. Color is not just an accent or a finishing touch. It's an intentional decision and deeply rooted in everything I do. So when I look back at RCL Interior's press features from the first quarter of 2026, I'm not surprised that every single one of them circles back to the same thing: color. Designers Today When Designers Today asked a group of interior design

Quiet Luxury Is Over Every fall, the fashion industry declares a host of trends, and every fall, I look back at a room I designed months earlier and see that we had already arrived at that same conclusion. Fashion and design have been running a symbiotic relationship for over a century, moving together between restraint and decadence, worked by the same hands and shaped by the same cultural moments. Right now, that relationship is swinging hard toward decadence. Delphos Gown

The Mobile Bay Magazine 2026 Inspiration Home, Chighizola Some spaces make your heart skip a beat the moment you walk in, even when they aren’t pristine and polished. They have something that can't be manufactured: history, soul, and character. The Chighizola House in downtown Mobile, Alabama has a charm that cannot be manufactured, even when it stood empty, with exposed plaster-and-lath construction waiting to be restored to its former glory. Maybe it’s the years of art and

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited Interiors | Photo: Haylei Smith Nobody talks about August the way they talk about September. September gets the mood boards, the candle launches, and the "hello, fall" content. August just gets... humidity and back-to-school anxiety. But here's what I've learned after years of designing homes and living in Louisiana: August is actually the best time to start refreshing your space. Not because fall is here (it very much is not),

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited Interiors | Photo: Haylei Smith Most business owners spend a lot of time thinking about their brand: the logo, the colors, the website, the social presence. And then they lease a space, fill it with furniture, and somehow never connect those two things. But your physical environment is one of your most powerful branding assets. It's influencing your clients before anyone says a word. Before a consultation begins, a service is r

Interior design is an aesthetics-driven business. Let’s face it: nobody hires a designer because they trust our spreadsheets (although ours are immaculate). They hire us because they trust our eye, and the first place they test that eye is on us, before they’ve ever seen a single mood board. So when I meet someone for the first time, they’re giving my whole look a once-over. They’re looking for evidence that my personal style is as deliberate about the details as my design wo

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited | Photography: Kim Meadowlark I'm going to tell you something the interior design industry doesn't usually lead with: what you're paying for isn't a beautiful room. The beautiful room is the result. What you're paying for when you hire an interior designer is relief. Relief from decision fatigue, research, missed details, contractor questions, discontinued items, and mismatched dye lots. What you're paying for is the relief of

Interior Design & Styling: Rachel Cannon Limited | Photography: Kim Meadowlark Oh, the rooms I have seen in my now 22-year career as an interior designer… Beautiful ones where things were tastefully executed; chaotic ones that felt like an adolescent was handed a credit card and turned loose in a craft store; rooms that were obviously expensive, but somehow still had an air of regret; and modest ones that felt like a peaceful exhale. It might be surprising to learn that what

One of my first professional headshots after opening my business. I chose black because I thought it looked professional and serious, but peep the brightly colored shoes I paired it with. Deep down, I knew I really wanted color! When I finally broke down and decided to have my seasonal color analysis done, I’d been an interior designer for years. I understood color theory inside and out. I could walk into a client’s home and tell you exactly why a paint color was fighting the

At my Mamaw’s house in Newellton, Louisiana. She could grow anything, and her hydrangeas were legendary. My swimsuit/jean shorts/athletic socks and velcro sneakers look is pretty legendary, too. Circa 1985 Every June I go through the same experience: craving a slower, gentler pace to my days, while still trying to meet the demands of owning a business. I think it’s a holdover from my childhood in the 80s when we had to entertain ourselves, even if sometimes we had to sit in c

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