The 1990s may not seem so long ago, but in terms of house decor it’s an eternity, as Tamsin Mascetti of Tamsin Design Group can attest. Tamsin encountered a walk back in time with the recent redesign of client Christine Shore’s master bath. The home had undergone a refresh to most rooms, but the bathroom remained 220 square feet of anachronistic dysfunction. The interior design equivalent of the plaid flannel shirt, distressed jeans and Birkenstocks.

“My passion is bringing out the best in the floor plan,” says Peg Hammerschmidt, interior architect at Hammer & Schmidt Design. And while the homeowner describes her house’s original style as bland – “builder-grade late-90s contemporary,” she says – the catalyst for a stunning whole-house transformation was closet space, not aesthetic. 

While there were plenty of doors and windows built into its original layout, this retro two-story house was always dark. When he was ready to revive his outdated kitchen, the homeowner initiated a major remodel by eliminating features that obstructed natural light: Old-school sliding patio doors – the kind with light-diffusing screens – were swapped for clear-panel French doors, and windows with between-the-glass blinds were replaced with sleeker double-hung models.