Author: Jamie Morrison, Interior Designer and Creative Home Stylist

I used to walk into those cathedral-ceilinged living rooms and feel something close to dread. Not because they weren’t beautiful—they were, in that

I used to think staging a house meant throwing some pillows on a couch and calling it a day. Then I watched a real estate agent spend forty minutes repositioning

I used to think home spas were just expensive vanity projects until I watched my chronically tense neighbor transform after installing a cedar sauna in her basement.

I used to think three season rooms were just glorified porches where grandparents stored wicker furniture and dead plants. Then I spent a week in northern

I used to think wine country meant Tuscany or Napa, until I spent three weeks in Moldova’s Codru hills. The thing about Moldovan wine regions—places

I used to think Montenegrin design was just another Balkan variation—stone houses, rustic wood, maybe some Orthodox iconography thrown in for good measure.

I used to think glass extensions were just about letting light in. Turns out, designing a glasshouse dining room is more like orchestrating a very complicated

I used to think sunrooms were just glorified porches—places you’d use maybe three months out of the year before retreating indoors when the temperature got serious.

I used to think yurts were just those trendy glamping structures rich people rented for weekends in Montana. Turns out, the real thing—the Kyrgyz boz üy