Kate Hartman Interiors

Kate Hartman Interiors Kate Hartman Interiors

A detail like this gets decided way earlier than most people expect.Filtered water at the sink isn't just a faucet swap....
08/28/2026

A detail like this gets decided way earlier than most people expect.

Filtered water at the sink isn't just a faucet swap. It's a dedicated line that has to run during rough plumbing, before drywall goes up and before the counters get templated.

Wait until the kitchen's finished to ask for it, and now it's a demo job instead of a quick add.

This is the kind of thing we're flagging in the first plumbing walkthrough because plumbing hiccups in the design world are what we try to avoid.

08/27/2026

There's a feeling that happens when a home fits exactly how you live in it.

That gets built early, well before the parts people usually associate with design. It starts with questions most homeowners don't expect us to ask:

- How do you move through this space on a normal day?
- What have you never liked about the homes you've lived in before?
- Who else is in it, and what do they actually need from it?

The answers change the floor plan. They decide where a hallway goes, how a kitchen gets laid out, which room catches the morning light.

That's the part of the process that decides whether a house feels like an obligation or somewhere you'd choose to be even when you didn't have to.

If you're planning a project in Colorado, we’re in Vail and would love to start with those questions.

Hardware looks like a finishing touch. It's actually a functional decision we make drawer by drawer, not cabinet by cabi...
08/25/2026

Hardware looks like a finishing touch. It's actually a functional decision we make drawer by drawer, not cabinet by cabinet.

A narrow drawer holding utensils or spices doesn't need much to open it. A wide one holding trays and bakeware does; that's real weight coming toward you, and a k**b makes you fight it every time.

That drawer gets a bar pull instead, something you can hook your whole hand around.

The finish stays consistent across the kitchen. What changes is the shape, based on what's actually inside.

Small decisions, but they make a real difference every day when your kitchen gets used.

08/24/2026

We check these during framing, while the layout is still adjustable.

Once the walls are finished, paint colors and fixtures can't fix a room that was built too tight.

Save this for your next walkthrough.

A room feels collected because of how it's planned. Layout and proportion set the direction, and decorating fills in fro...
08/21/2026

A room feels collected because of how it's planned. Layout and proportion set the direction, and decorating fills in from there.

We hear this from clients across Vail Valley and Boulder often: they've furnished beautifully, and the room still doesn't feel finished. That gap almost always traces back to the planning stage.

If your Colorado home has beautiful pieces but doesn't feel collected yet, send us a DM. We'd love to talk about what's happening underneath it.

08/21/2026

A lot of these don't show up until a home's been through a full year here.

We plan for that from the first walkthrough, because a Colorado home has to hold up through every season it's actually lived in.

What's a detail about living here that surprised you?

It comes down to a few numbers most people skip:1. Center the whole arrangement at eye level, about 57 to 60 inches off ...
08/18/2026

It comes down to a few numbers most people skip:

1. Center the whole arrangement at eye level, about 57 to 60 inches off the floor, measured to the actual center point.

2. Space frames 2 to 3 inches apart, based on the real gap between pieces. Frame thickness throws this off fast if you're just eyeballing it.

3. Above furniture, keep the gallery width to about two-thirds of what's below it, with 4 to 8 inches between the lowest frame and the furniture.

4. Map the full layout on the wall with painter's tape before a single nail goes in. What looks right on paper can look completely different at scale.

5. Choose the largest piece first. Everything else builds out from that anchor point.

Save this before your next gallery wall.

08/17/2026

Just a few things we happen to find kinda chic around here.

Being a designer who understands the technical side of a build, and being just as willing to let a home take its time to feel like the people living in it.

Tag the friend who needs this reminder mid-renovation (or mid-daydreaming about one).

A chair leg you can visually see changes how grounded a whole room feels.Furniture that lifts slightly off the floor let...
08/14/2026

A chair leg you can visually see changes how grounded a whole room feels.

Furniture that lifts slightly off the floor lets light move underneath it, so a fully furnished room still feels open instead of heavy.

That matters even more in the open floor plans common in Vail Valley homes, where one room's sightline carries straight into the next.

Rugs work on the same principle. Scale and pattern density decide whether a room settles or feels crowded, and that's a proportion call more than a color one.

These are the decisions we make early, and they're what makes the rest of the room work.

Save this for when you’re deciding on what type of chairs to bring in.

08/13/2026

Start with how the space actually needs to function.

Think through how you move through the room day to day, and what's frustrated you about it up until now. That's what decides the layout, and everything after gets chosen to support it instead of guessing at what looks good.

Skip that step and you're picking finishes for a room whose purpose was never settled.

If you're staring down a project and don't know where to start, that's exactly where we'd start too.

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Boulder, CO
80301-80310, 80314, 80321-80323, 80328, 80329

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