At a recent house call, my client handed me a photo of a room from her childhood home. When it was taken, the shelving concept was not the subject matter. Instead the grainy snapshot from the 1980s was focused on a group of happy, good-looking people, sitting together in a family room on what might have been a Sunday evening after dinner.

As she looked at the photo and talked about adaptations to the design, she was suddenly overcome with emotion and we were both a little surprised when tears came to her eyes.

We all have them, those unfinished projects that accumulate because we ran out of steam for one reason or another. Waning house projects, in particular, add to the figurative clutter in our lives.

As a new homeowner and a designer, I can tell you that good interior design is all in the details, but these nuances can often be addressed with simple, cost-effective changes.

Maybe your home is older and the kitchen was small from the beginning. It might not be in your budget to expand the space or doing so would steal too much space from another area. Or maybe, like me, you’ve just come to realize that a big kitchen is not necessarily a good one. Here are some helpful ideas for making the most of a smaller kitchen.

I can still remember spending days as a child in our den with the windows open, the sunlight and cool breeze flowing over me as I read, using my very large golden retriever as a pillow. We spent many days joined at the hip. I remember Chancey as part of our daily activities.

So when I meet our clients’ furry friends I know how important it is for us to consider them in the design of our client’s homes. We’ve compiled our top tips to help you include your four legged companions without sacrificing style worth showing off.