Translating the Soul of a Home

There are designers whose work is beautiful. And others who have the ability to give a home life, breath, movement and depth.

Carley Summers is one of those designers. Before she ever began designing homes, she was a photographer first. Her work documenting interiors eventually led her to create them herself, and that origin story is still visible in the way she sees a space. Her rooms are composed the same way a beautiful photograph is composed, through light, proportion, quiet restraint, and a deep awareness of what gives a room emotional weight and movement.

But what has always drawn me most to her work is the feeling of safety in it… not at all in the sense of playing it safe. Safety in the sense of being held.

I’ve had her book, Sacred Spaces, for quite awhile and have always admired the sense of structure that supports her work. Strength. A sense that the house itself is steadily holding the life unfolding inside it.

And that feeling of steadiness always begins with architecture and millwork.

The common thread in nearly every home she designs (and in all exceptionally designed spaces), the millwork establishes the foundation of the room. Built-ins, paneling, cabinetry, shelving; these aren’t decorative additions that are simply nice to have, they’re the essential framework that gives a space permanence.

Without that framework, design can easily become a collection of objects- a new paint color here, a new light fixture there, a decorative object on a nightstand.

But those individual decisions rarely create the depth people are actually truly seeking when they set out to create a home that will hold them. Layered homes aren’t built through isolated choices. They’re built through structure and material working together.

Millwork without materiality feels sterile, materiality without architectural structure can feel like patchwork. But when the two work together -wood, stone, brass, paint, textiles- something quieter happens. The room begins to feel comforting, enveloping, rooted. As though it had always been there.

That sense of permanence is something I am always seeking in my design work and something Summers is able to capture in each of her projects. Learning more about her story today only deepened my respect and admiration for her work. Her life journey, from addiction and homelessness to becoming an interior photographer and eventually starting her own design business, gives her work a perspective that feels unusually rich, layered and deeply moving.

Her rooms don’t chase trends. They create refuge. The whole purpose of coming home. The reason that I love what I do.

You can see this in the restraint. In the way light is allowed to move gently yet unevenly across paneled walls. In the presence of organic materials and antique pieces that feel collected rather than simply installed.

There’s warmth, but there’s also order. Personality, but also protection. It’s the balance between those things that makes her work feel truly soulful. As designers, it’s easy to become focused on the visible details like paint colors, fabrics, lighting, hardware. Those things matter, of course. But the homes that truly endure and truly envelop us always begin with deeper decisions about structure, proportion, and material. The bones of the room.

When those are right, everything else falls into place, and the result isn’t just a beautiful space. It’s a home that feels calm, grounded, and deeply lived in. It’s not surprising to me that Summers began her design journey as a photographer. When someone learns to see a room through light and composition first, they often design with a deeper awareness of how space actually feel and the subtle details that create that sense of life.

I’ve always loved photographing interiors for that same reason. It slows you down and forces you to notice the quiet relationships between what’s speaking and how- the way light moves across millwork, the way brass warms a space, the way flowers, angled just imperfectly enough, soften an otherwise rigid corner.