Words by Loureen Murphy
A dad-crafted, red-roofed dollhouse started it all. Interior designer Melinda Mandell says she had just as much fun arranging a tiny blue teapot in that mini kitchen as she does now when accessorizing the quartzite counter in a renovated ranch home.
Melinda’s prescient parents, seeing her affinity for colors, shapes and furnishings, urged her toward interior design. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University and four years working under a Pasadena principal designer, she returned to the Peninsula to launch Melinda Mandell Interior Design in 2011. She’s been flourishing ever since.
Fusing the creative and the technical, Melinda renders designs unique to each client’s personality. “I think of the spaces that we create as works of art,” she says, but “not the stand-back, don’t-touch, museum kind of art.” Art to live in. When personalizing a wall or nook, she considers the whole composition—materials, textures and lines—and how her clients will interact with it.
Cover Photo: Courtesy of Michelle Drewes / Profile Photo: Courtesy of Bess Friday
Anticipating responses takes more than an artistic eye, it requires designer-client connection. To develop it, Melinda walks though each home with clients, asking fairly intimate questions. What side of the bed do you sleep on? Are you bumping elbows in the bathroom as you get ready? What do you trip on or have to step around?
Discovering day-to-day inconveniences lends vision to increasing the functionality of each room. In a recent Los Altos Hills project, Melinda’s clients wanted a handy place for their mother to make her morning tea without traversing the whole kitchen. The solution? An island refrigerator drawer for her cream near the tea cupboard. With many avid cooks as clients, Melinda prioritizes placing their go-to items within easy reach.
“Sometimes I will have a really crisp vision,” says Melinda. Other times, the solution emerges gradually. Once the concept gels, she elicits client responses, preferring to get gut reactions. Sometimes a color triggers a visceral childhood memory, positive or negative. People can’t always explain it, so sometimes sudden reversals occur. One client said “no way” to a kitchen color Melinda suggested, then changed her mind overnight. And she has remained delighted with her choice ever since.
Photo: Courtesy of Thomas Kuoh
Inherent in Melinda’s commitment to infuse homes with joy is reconnecting clients with nature. “We aim to blur the border between indoors and outdoors,” she says. For one client’s remodel, she increased the height of all of the home’s windows, resulting in well-lit rooms and expanded views. She cites the well-known mental health benefits of exposure to sunlight, birdsong and nature’s endless patterns. “The more natural light we can bring in, the better,” she says.
Along with mental well-being, Melinda puts a high value on her clients’ physical health and ecological sustainability. She explains that dust formed by fabric and upholstery foam as it breaks down exposes people and pets to microplastics and chemicals. To combat their harmful effects, she orders from companies that create fabrics that are gentle on the makers, the end users and the earth, and procures nontoxic linen for headboards. For one project, she commissioned a custom-made spalted maple headboard.
Photo: Courtesy of Bess Friday
Another win-win for clients and the planet: Melinda selects California-made furniture, delivered blanket-wrapped, and American-made light fixtures packaged in brown paper, instead of imported lights packed in single-use Styrofoam. Thanks to her highly skilled local artisan partners, “We can easily tweak their existing designs to meet our vision, or create something from scratch to meet client needs,” Melinda says.
Whether homeowners want all-new custom pieces or a blend of new and vintage, Melinda’s artistry colors the entire project. The Palo Alto owners of a 1920s Tudor Revival home preserved their stunning wood floors and installed period dining room doors, including original hardware. Meanwhile, Melinda updated every space with new furnishings and fixtures, keeping the atmosphere vibrant and the seating comfortable for the clients’ book club guests.
Photo: Courtesy of Bess Friday
In a recent project, Melinda’s team revitalized every surface of an even earlier Tudor-Storybook hybrid, including electrical and plumbing. They opened up the main floor for modern living and added another bathroom, before optimizing unused space upstairs, significantly increasing the livable area within the existing footprint. What’s more, Melinda fashioned the bathrooms and kitchen from scratch while safeguarding the home’s character, preparing this beautiful centenarian home for its next hundred years.
Looking ahead, Melinda describes her perfect future project. “I really am looking for clients excited about the creativity I’m going to bring to the table and open to the beauty of the creative process unfolding, their eyes open to new ideas.”