02 May Designing the West: Family Friendly

For Ashley Macuga, becoming an interior designer is rooted in her past and has deep meaning in her present. She founded Collected Interiors in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2017. Though she has lived in the Bay Area for the last 13 years, Macuga’s childhood in New Orleans influenced her decision to become a designer — something for which she is grateful. As a child, the city’s architecture fascinated her.

“I grew up surrounded by amazing architecture and homes that needed work on them. I spent my youthful days dreaming what those houses would look like if I could fix them up,” Macuga says.

Collected Interiors designed the entry to Grand Callahan to feel welcoming. Interior designer Ashley Macuga chose a console from Worlds Away, a mirror from Williams Sonoma Home, and a set of sconces from Visual Comfort.

Macuga’s mother was another significant influence, introducing her to the New Orleans arts community. “I think it is important to have artwork in homes,” Macuga says. “It calms the energy of any space. Imagine a screaming toddler and being able to look at a serene landscape while solving their issue. I think it is important for children to grow up around beautiful images, too; it can instill a love for beauty that remains with them throughout their lives. I am so grateful my mom gave me the experience of seeing art even when I was little.”

Instead of becoming an interior designer right away, Macuga initially worked in corporate sales and marketing. “I always said, ‘Design is the job I was meant to have but not practical to have.’ It’s my second career,” she says. But once she made the jump, her creativity blossomed.

The dining room of Project Jewel Box focuses on clean lines, beginning with the table from Ethnicraft and the rug from Jaipur Living. The side chairs and sideboard accenting the table are from Noir Furniture, and the end chairs from Clad Home feature a Brook Perdigon fabric.

The name for her business, Collected Interiors, explains her philosophy on design. “My perspective is wanting to create inviting living spaces for everyone in the family where it feels collected over time and not purchased on a whim,” Macuga says. “We gather information from our clients, asking them to walk around their homes, take photos of their favorite things, and then tell us why they love them. I find their favorite things are clues to their natural aesthetic. I believe in aesthetics that feel collected but not stuff for stuff’s sake. That’s where curation comes into play. An object is carefully considered, and when it can become more than just an object, we use it.”

Collected Interiors designed the dining room of Project Tahoe Nights with a rug from Loloi, a favorite family table with side chairs from Four Hands, and end chairs from Serena & Lily. A contemporary chandelier from Capital Lighting completes the room.

Curating a room requires Macuga to think about the space in its totality — for example, the texture a rug might impart or how a chair might complete the design. “That’s what our clients need from us,” she explains. “They don’t have the ability to see it all come together.”

A recent project, Spanish Arches, is a 1930s home in which she and her team worked to maintain its character while elevating its beauty. “We preserved its natural arches, but its beautiful parquet floor had had one too many high heels dancing on it. Thankfully, we have a great hardwood floor company with incredible craftsmen who created a new parquet floor, helping to preserve the era of the home. I really believe that parquet is a trend for the future,” Macuga says, “or maybe I’m willing it to come.”

In this 1930s home called Project Spanish Arches, a banquette by Clad Home, attached to the kitchen island, accompanies the Community Manufacturing dining table and McGee & Co. side chairs. Clapper Construction and Evergreen Custom Cabinets collaborated to create the spacious open kitchen.

Significant furnishings, artworks, or favorite décor elements are identified early on and highlighted in the interior design. In Spanish Arches, the homeowner had inherited an antique dining table from her grandmother that she wanted in her new home. “We sized the dining room for the oval table to be its centerpiece. Her parents had a superb art collection, and one of the client’s favorite pieces was a painting of a field in Mexico that she loved while growing up, which her parents gifted to her. We built a palette for the home around the painting,” says Macuga.

Two projects with deep personal meaning are Macuga’s cabin on Lake Tahoe’s West Shore and her home. “We had dreamed about having a cabin on Lake Tahoe because my husband, Ben, loves to ski. He wanted our children to grow up skiing, too. Two weeks before we closed, he was diagnosed with stage three cancer. We thought about not pursuing the cabin, but we’d gone too far. We had three kids, and we were all going to go through this together. The first year Ben was going through treatments, I was redesigning the cabin.”

The bunk room in Project Tahoe Nights cozies up with beds from Four Hands, a company specializing in high-quality bedroom furniture. Collected Interiors brought the look together with Ballard Designs chests and decorative pillows from Walter G.

The finished cabin became a healing place of respite for Ben. “He’d go and look out on the scenery and feel cozy and warm,” Maguca says. “There’s a small mountain close to the cabin with incredible views of the lake, but the best thing about our cabin is feeling like you live in the treetops. Steller’s jays come and sit on our deck.” The outdoors inspired the cabin’s interior palette. Neutrals with navy mirror the lake, and greens reflect the evergreen trees. Macuga chose natural textures, such as grass cloth, and added custom alder beams.

One of the cabin’s memorable features is the bunk room. During Ben’s treatment, Macuga found out she was pregnant with their fourth baby. “I think the bunk room was a foreshadowing of what was to be; I had designed it with four beds,” she says. Throughout the experience, Macuga says she learned a lot about homes in the context of illness and how important it is to have a soothing space.

The primary bath in Project Spanish Arches was designed with Watermark Designs fixtures and was built by Clapper Construction.

Their family home, Jewel Box, was another lesson in the healing power of home. “It’s one of those crazy stories about how we dreamed our home into being,” she says, adding that with the surprise news of a fourth child, who eventually outgrew the closet they’d turned into a nursery, the couple added a second story. “During this time, we found out Ben’s cancer had returned. I watched my husband when we had to be in a rental for a time and saw his stress as he was going through medical issues and wanting to be home with its comforts. He is a stage four patient battling cancer two-and-a-half years later. This experience reinforced for me the healing power of home, a place that feels right.”

Jewel Box provided enough room for the family of six, and Macuga designed the interiors to be meaningful, artful, and inspirational. The dining room features a pecky cypress ceiling, harvested from Louisiana, which is nostalgic to her. “I wanted the space to feel restful as we are a big family that is super busy,” she says. “I designed it to be easy to care for, with finishes that will patina wisely. Our home is expressed in ways to give each family member their own comfort zone. My boys love Pittsburgh sports — their dad is from there — so I designed their bedroom to pay homage to Pittsburgh’s teams.

Interior designer Ashley Macuga of Collected Interiors, her husband Ben, and four children enjoy their times together, whether in their city home or mountain getaway.

“When our home was finished, I fully understood the expression of gratitude about what a home can mean to a family — its role should be a peaceful serenity in the chaos of our lives, whether it be an illness or too many soccer games on the weekend. The impact that the aesthetics of a home can have on a family can be transforming,” Maguca says. “Even though Ben is braving cancer, there is a feeling of safety in our home. Then there are also real-life smudges — dents on the floor, etches on the marble from spilled orange juice, and drywall collateral is the patina beyond the Instagram picture — it is a sign of life happening.”

Q&A

Interior designer Ashley Macuga shares design tips and inspiration for well-curated spaces

Q: Do you have any suggestions for seamlessly combining antique furnishings within a modern setting?

Ashley Macuga: It’s about balance. When mixing in a vintage piece, we want to ensure that the old and new shapes are complementary without being repetitive. We recommend beginning with the vintage piece first and then managing the physical dynamics of the more modern pieces around the vintage item.

Q: Are there ways to soften the straight lines of Mid-century Modern?

A: There are different approaches to Mid-century Modern. There’s the Palm Springs aesthetic — clean, straight lines and more vibrant colors like bright yellows — a Slim Aarons version of Mid-century Modern, which is really cool. Personally, I tend to love the Mid-century aesthetic that is more rooted in and inspired by nature — where the color palette and textures allow for this feeling of bringing the natural landscape inside the home.

Q: Do certain woods patina better than others for long-term wear?

A: Absolutely! Oak is an incredible wood species that’s very hard and can withstand the wear of family life. That’s why farmhouse tables have been made of oak for centuries. We’re very cautious and clear with clients about the choice of wood for tables; pine is very soft, as are two imported kinds of wood, mango and acacia. These woods are less expensive but also less up to snuff if you’re looking for something that doesn’t easily mar.

Q: Is there a solution to making walls appear more organic?

A: Wallpaper is one of my favorite ways to add texture, richness, and depth to a wall. Grasscloth is an example that naturally comes to mind with its woven knottiness, especially when it’s done with a natural color, which can instantly add an organic feel. But what I am really excited about are the Japanese-inspired washi papers, like the ones from Phillip Jefferies. Modern and monochromatic, they mimic a sense of elevated plaster although they are a paper product — it reminds me of a Jacobean aesthetic, yet it’s modern.

Q: Are manufactured wood floors better than ceramic floors for young families?

A: There are pros and cons to both products. On the pro side of engineered wood floors, they can be softer for little baby bottoms learning to run or crawl and add warmth and coziness to any space. At the same time, one must be careful when choosing engineered hardwood flooring — not all are created equal. Some products look great but have a thin top layer, which is more prone to dents and is difficult to repair. On a better-engineered product, the top layer is thicker, giving an opportunity for an expert installer to repair it when necessary.

Ceramic floors are cooler to the touch and have a much harder surface. They tend to withstand dents and scratches. One caveat to choosing ceramic floors is to make the right choice of grout; there are highly durable grouts that contain mixtures of epoxy to withstand what some people don’t like about floor grout — the dirt accumulating in it.

WA&A senior contributing editor Shari Morrison has been in the business of art for more than 40 years. She helped found the Scottsdale Artists’ School and the American Women Artists and directed the Santa Fe Artists’ Medical Fund for some years.

Photographer Nicole Dianne specializes in shooting residential interiors. She is based in Sacramento, California, but will happily travel the world to photograph a beautiful space.