Old houses need love. (And ugly houses, too.) That’s the crux of my design philosophy. My name is Lauren Copeland Benusa and I am a designer, salvager, dreamer, and ‘old stuff buff.’ I love to find the good in what houses have hiding in their unloved corners.

I believe in embracing the good, reusing what you can, and repurposing what you can’t. We live in a time when we can no longer afford to cut and paste over homes with today’s trends, only to do it again in 5 to 10 years time. We’re all just passing through and for those of us lucky enough to own our own homes, it’s our responsibility to take care of them now and for the next generation. My goal is to spurn trends in order to create timeless, eccletic interiors that outlast us until the next caretakers take over.

I always consider three things: the house, the people that live there, and the creative process. My approach is to start with the age of the home in order to inform the aesthetic. Without being too rigid, I layer in the personality and modern funcionality needed by the current homeowners. I then finish with a dash of my own creativity.