Katsura Onoe Design

This project was a refresh of a 680 sq. ft. one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, in an 1970s concrete high-rise building. The place is sunny and has great views, but felt a bit soulless. Having lived in this apartment for several years, I wanted to make it feel more peaceful and relaxing, yet at the same time more interesting and inspiring; a combination of old and new, natural and manufactured, unique and mass-produced. Speaking with Katsura we aligned on a mix of mid-century modern and the Japanese wabi-sabi and Zen aesthetics. Because this was a rental, the project had a number of specific constraints (e.g. no significant updates to the bathroom or kitchen, limited closet space; I also preferred to avoid painting the walls, etc). Katsura was able to work very effectively within the given constraints and my budget. Working with Katsura was wonderful. She was very organized, thoughtful and responsive through all the stages of the project. She created several coordinated design proposals for the bedroom and the living room, listened to my gut-feel feedback and accommodated multiple changes (including some of my requests that came up later in the process). Even though she was remote, it all proceeded very smoothly; a colleague of Katsura’s came to take the measurements in the beginning, and Katsura visited in the end and helped finalize the accessories and do a photoshoot. I am very happy with the result. It achieved a fabulous transformation of the space. Everything turned out much better than I expected. I wholeheartedly recommend Katsura and her design practice.