Before the first wall comes down
There is a moment at the beginning of every renovation that I have grown to love.
The house remains exactly as it was when I first walked through the door. Nothing has been demolished. The kitchen is still in place, the walls are untouched, and the rooms are full of the possessions and memories of the people who live there.
Yet in my mind, the transformation has already begun. I study the way daylight enters a room, the relationship between spaces, the architectural details worth keeping and the ones that need rethinking.
Before we build a three-dimensional model or select a single material, I return to something that has always been part of my creative life.
I begin by drawing.
Where Every Home Begins: The Art of Hand Sketching
Hand sketching remains at the heart of Lou Joia Studio's identity. There is no expectation for an idea to be perfect at the start. A line can be erased, a proportion reconsidered, an entire composition started again.
I often sketch on my iPad with an Apple Pencil to explore the earliest ideas for a room. The drawings begin with architecture: the position of a doorway, the balance between solid walls and glazing, the height of a cabinet, the relationship between a dining table and the space around it.
I might draw the same elevation several times, making small changes to understand why one arrangement feels more balanced than another.
An unfinished sketch is honest in a way a polished drawing rarely is. The lines show how an idea develops, including the decisions that never make it into the final design.
I share these drawings with clients so they can follow the path from an early architectural thought to detailed drawings and 3D visualisations. They preserve the human hand behind the design, which matters to me in a profession increasingly surrounded by digital imagery.
Understanding the Lives Already Inside
When I first visit a property, I pay as much attention to how people use their rooms as I do to the architecture.
Where does everyone naturally gather? Which doors are always left open? Does the dining table serve only for meals, or for homework, work and family conversation too?
I ask clients what frustrates them but I am just as interested in what they already love.
For the Greystones project, we are reimagining a characterful family home for six people. Among the furniture we are keeping is a dining table handmade by the homeowner. That table already belongs to the family’s history. We are studying how the new furniture, lighting and proportions can complement it, allowing it to remain part of their everyday lives while preserving the memories and meaning it holds.
My design language shapes every project but a family should never feel they are living inside somebody else's idea of a beautiful home.
Learning to Experience the Space
I design by imagining myself living in the rooms.
I picture the walk from the bedroom to the kitchen in the morning, someone sitting with a coffee, the family gathering when everyone returns in the evening. In a living room, I ask where I would instinctively sit, whether the lighting will be comfortable after sunset, and whether there is somewhere to put down a book while someone else watches television.
These answers must ultimately reflect my clients' routines. A family with four children has very different needs from a couple who entertain often, or someone who works from home.
My interpretation of Nordic living informs these decisions. I favour comfortable, carefully proportioned spaces, natural materials, considered lighting and furniture that encourages people to spend time together.
A home should also offer moments of retreat: a reading corner lit just right, a chair beside a window, a dining area that keeps the family at the table long after the meal is over.
These are small decisions, but they shape how we experience our homes every day.
When the Smallest Decisions Matter Most
Some of the most interesting design challenges look deceptively simple on a floor plan.
Take a sliding door.
In one of our current renovations, we are studying a generous opening of roughly 2.2 metres between a hallway and a dining room.
A refined glazed door would create a visual connection between the two spaces. But the opening raises questions. Can a single sliding leaf span that width? Where will the door sit when open? Would two panels work better? How can the timber framing stay delicate without compromising the construction?
We are exploring paired sliding leaves and telescopic systems, weighing smoked glass and oak framing against the surrounding architecture. A few centimetres can change the final proportions considerably.
This is why I am drawn to bespoke joinery. A cabinet may look simple in a rendering, but its depth, internal storage, handle profile, door clearances and junctions with adjacent surfaces all need resolving.
Those details turn a concept into something that can be well made and comfortably used.
Designing With the Irish Seasons
Light is one of the first things I observe in a home, particularly in Ireland.
Our daylight is soft and diffused for much of the winter, then surprisingly direct on long summer evenings. I find that these changes can completely alter the way we experience materials.
For Greystones project, we have selected Avocadus Leather quartzite for the kitchen island, sink area and coffee station.
It is an expressive natural stone, with distinctive green movement and variations in tone that give it an almost painterly quality. We are pairing it with oak cabinetry and a stained oak island, creating a conversation between the movement of the stone and the warmth of the timber.
The challenge lies in finding the right balance. How much contrast should the oak introduce? Where should the quartzite take centre stage? How will its colours relate to the surrounding surfaces in the softer light of an Irish winter?
These questions influence everything from the choice of timber finish to the treatment of the backsplash and the relationship between the island and the cabinetry.
There is also the practical side of working with natural stone: deciding where the veining should continue, how an edge should be finished, and which surfaces will be most appropriate for the family's daily use.
A beautiful slab can establish the direction of an entire room, but every material surrounding it needs to be considered just as carefully.
The same applies to timber, metal, textiles and colour. An oak finish can look perfect in isolation yet introduce an unexpected undertone beside a particular stone. I spend considerable time comparing samples and reconsidering combinations until the materials begin to work together.
Sometimes a material I initially loved has to give way to a better composition. I have learned to trust that process.
Every Detail, Down to the Salt and Pepper Shaker
My attention to detail extends well beyond the architecture.
I can spend hours researching a wall light, comparing furniture proportions, exploring textiles, or sourcing something as ordinary as a towel or a salt and pepper shaker.
Each object is judged on its material, scale, texture and durability and on how it sits alongside everything else.
A ceramic piece can introduce a little irregularity into a precise kitchen. A brushed metal finish can echo hardware used elsewhere in the home. Even the texture of a towel contributes to the balance of a bathroom.
I enjoy discovering independent makers as much as established Scandinavian design houses, particularly objects that show the hand of the person who made them.
And sometimes the right piece is one my clients already own. Every addition needs a purpose, whether functional, aesthetic or sentimental. Over time, these individual choices form a coherent interior.
The Work Behind a 120-Page Presentation
Our interior design presentations often surprise clients with their depth. Some exceed 120 pages.
For a substantial residential renovation, we develop spatial layouts, architectural elevations, bespoke joinery concepts, lighting schemes, material selections, furniture proposals and detailed specifications.
We study circulation, storage, the relationship between rooms, natural light across the seasons, and the practical demands of installation.
A kitchen alone can involve dozens of connected decisions.
If the sink sits beneath a window, how are the worktop and backsplash detailed? If the hob sits on an island, how much preparation space remains on either side? Where will the family sit, and is there enough clearance for someone to move comfortably behind them?
Then come the integrated appliances, concealed storage, drawer arrangements, electrical requirements and joinery details. Each decision affects another.
The work also depends on architects, builders, joiners and specialist suppliers, who help establish what is technically achievable and how the design will be executed.
A beautifully restrained interior can take a surprising amount of work. When the architecture is simple and the palette carefully edited, the proportions and material junctions matter most.
By the time I present a project, I want the client to understand why each decision was made and how the elements work together.
The Discipline of Slowing Down
The most personal influence on my design philosophy comes from an entirely different part of my working life. For many years, I held senior leadership positions, managing hundreds of sales representatives under demanding targets, significant responsibility and relentless commercial pressure.
My professional life was measured in months, quarters and annual targets. There was always another objective to reach, another decision to make, another result to deliver. That experience taught me discipline, resilience and meticulousness. Qualities that continue to shape the way I run Lou Joia Studio today.
But it also changed how I think about time.
Drawing introduced a different relationship with it.
I could spend hours exploring a single idea, with no immediate result to deliver, simply because I wanted to understand it better.
An evening could disappear into refining a sketch, studying the character of a stone, or researching a designer whose approach to craftsmanship fascinated me. And somewhere in that process, I began to appreciate the pleasure of giving something my complete attention.
I still work with demanding programmes, budgets and construction deadlines. Running a studio requires coordination and my responsibility to clients is significant.
But I have become more protective of the time needed to think properly: to visit a supplier, review a material again, question a proportion, or return to a drawing when something doesn't feel right.
Scandinavian design resonates with me for the same reason. Its relationship with craftsmanship, natural materials and everyday rituals reflects values I am learning to embrace in my own life, and I want to bring that perspective into the homes we create.
A dining room where family meals can unfold without hurry. A living room where the lighting feels right once the day is over. A home where thoughtful storage removes some of the friction from ordinary routines.
I know what it feels like to return home after a day filled with meetings, decisions and pressure. Perhaps that is why I care so much about what a home offers us when we finally close the front door.
A sense of comfort. Familiarity. The freedom to spend time with the people we love, or simply enjoy a quiet moment alone.
There is a quiet luxury in those details and creating them takes as much care as designing the architecture itself.
Before the First Wall Comes Down
Our residential projects continue to develop and I find myself increasingly attached to this early stage.
The hand sketches across my desk, the material samples from supplier visits, the conversations with architects and craftspeople, and the hours spent refining a detail that may never consciously register.
I love watching an idea move from a few pencil lines to something that can be built, touched and lived in. Sharing that vision with a client for the first time is its own satisfaction, knowing how much thought has gone into understanding their home and the life they want within it.
By the time construction begins, much of the transformation has already happened. The house has been studied, imagined, questioned and reconsidered.
I will always find it extraordinary to watch a design come to life on site, but the moments before it remain some of my favourites.
Long before the first wall comes down, a home's next chapter has already begun.