When designer Sandra Moncada-Mainz of Couture Haus Interior Design moved into her home, she was a little nervous about how they would make it work. In the fast-moving housing market of 2015, with very little inventory, her family looked for a home that had the most potential. Though it was dark and dated, they landed on one that could work—Moncada- Mainz just wasn’t certain how. “I think we just wanted to live in the home for a while to see how we used it,” says Moncada-Mainz. “It had dark cabinets, it was almost ten years old, and we needed to figure out what we needed.”
Fast-forward, and Moncada-Mainz’s home is a stylish and layered abode that is highly functional and the perfect fit for her family of three. “As a designer, I can experiment in my own home. So that’s what I did. I knew I liked geometric patterns and color,” explains Moncada-Mainz. “I love bright colors mixed with black and whites. I wanted to feel happy when I come home, and I wanted some funkiness to it, but I didn’t want it to be too out there.”
The result is clean, bold, and collected, with a decidedly personal feel. As most designers can attest, their homes are constantly evolving, but the pandemic helped Moncada-Mainz realize that their home was actually the perfect fit for them. “Prepandemic, my husband and I thought we’d move once our daughter left for college, but now, we feel like it’s the ideal house. Like most people, the time at home gave us a chance to really use our home in the most functional way,” she says.
Moncada-Mainz turned her formal living room into a lounge and cocktail room for her and her husband, where they now spend most evenings relaxing and chatting by the green-painted fireplace. The dining room, which had previously been a catch-all for their old furniture and not-yet-placed items, became a showstopper of an entertaining room, with bold wall color, paper on the ceiling, and the photographic art that drove the design placed front and center on the wall. “Those photographs just weren’t fitting in anywhere, and I knew I eventually wanted a moody dining space, so I just let the art drive the concept,” she says.
They turned the bonus room into a study space for their daughter, using black and white as the base, and pops of her favorite pink color combined with red. “It’s funny because I originally picked out a Cole & Son wallpaper called Circus for this room, and everyone hated it, including me!” recalls Moncada-Mainz. “It was far too busy for the size of the room, so we settled on this more neutral black-and-white pattern.
Again, I get to experiment!” With an industrial engineering degree, Moncada-Mainz cannot design without function. “There is definitely a balance between beauty and function for me,” she admits. “But in the end, if it isn’t functional, I won’t do it.” In buying a house “with potential,” this industrial engineer-turned-designer took potential to functional and made it beautiful.