What happens when someone who spends her days thinking about materials, color, and product gets to design her own home?
For Jamie Chappell, VP of Brand and Product at Fireclay Tile, the answer wasn’t a pristine showcase. It was a home designed around real life – pets, muddy feet, family gatherings, favorite objects, and materials meant to become more beautiful with use. Jamie transformed a compact 1978 home in the Santa Cruz Mountains by working with its existing character rather than designing over it. Original wood detailing stayed. Warm colors and natural materials reinforce the home’s setting, while Fireclay tile appears throughout as both a practical surface and an integral part of the design.
Here are three ideas from Jamie’s home that caught our attention.
Start With What’s Already There
One of the strongest lessons in Jamie’s renovation is restraint. Rather than erase the home’s distinctly 1970s architecture and abundance of warm wood, she used those elements to establish the material and color palette. It’s a useful place to begin any project: before deciding what to change, identify what’s already working.
Choose Materials You Can Live With
With a dog, two cats, and an indoor-outdoor lifestyle, durability and easy maintenance mattered. But practical didn’t mean purely utilitarian. Jamie gravitates toward natural materials that complement clay and can develop character and patina with use. That’s an important distinction. Sometimes the right material isn’t the one that stays looking untouched. It’s the one that gets better at being lived with.
Let the Space Tell You What It Needs
At just under 1,200 square feet, the house also shows what thoughtful planning can accomplish within a smaller footprint. Custom kitchen cabinetry makes use of nearly every inch, while a built-in dining banquette creates a comfortable gathering place without demanding a large dining room. The takeaway isn’t that every home needs a banquette. It’s to question whether the conventional solution is the best solution for the space you actually have.
One Idea to Try
Before changing a room, identify one element you genuinely love about it – an original material, a view, an architectural detail, a piece of art, even the way afternoon light enters the room. Then ask: What if the next design decision supported that instead of competing with it.
Continue the Conversation
There’s much more to Jamie’s home, from her approach to color and craftsmanship to the Fireclay products that found their way into, and in some cases grew out of, the renovation.
Click below to read the full blog post. And visit the new Fireclay Tile showroom at Helms Design District to experience the brand’s range of color, material, and craftsmanship in person.
