Interior Designer in Rye, NY: Residential Interior Design Services

City of Rye households average 2.81 persons each, according to Westchester County's census profile of the city.

We design Rye interiors around households like these, with kitchens that feed a family on weeknights and a crowd on weekends. Azin Valy leads each project from our New York studio, starting with how you live in the house you already have.

Tell us how your household uses the house today and what has stopped working.

Request a consultation for your Rye home

Consultations are confidential.

Key Highlights

  • City of Rye households averaged 2.81 persons in Westchester County's 2016 to 2020 census profile.

  • Residents under 18 made up 30.1% of Rye's population in the same county profile.

  • Neshat Residence, a 3,000 sq ft SoHo loft renovation by I-Beam Design, makes the kitchen the social center of family life.

  • Cityzen's residential work includes layout changes, custom built-in cabinetry, and material and color palettes.

  • Azin Valy, a graduate of The Cooper Union School of Architecture, brings more than two decades of design experience.

Rye interior design services by project goal

Rye homeowners come to us with a goal for how the house should work, and each goal maps to specific design work and specific people.

What you want for your Rye homeWhat the design work involvesWho else is involved
A kitchen that handles family meals and partiesIsland, storage, and seating plans, plus materials, like the Neshat Residence island that serves family meals and a dinner buffetA contractor builds it. A registered architect or licensed engineer handles any structural change.
Rooms that open for guests and close for familyMoving or removing walls, sliding doors, and translucent glass partitionsA registered architect or licensed engineer prepares and seals any permit drawings.
Built-ins that do more than one jobCustom desks, shelving, platforms, and cabinetry designed as part of the roomA cabinetmaker or contractor fabricates and installs.
A home planned around furniture and art you ownLayouts and built-ins sized to your collectionYou decide what stays. The contractor installs.
Fresh finishes without starting overMaterial and color palettes and refinished existing floorsFlooring and finish trades carry out the work.

Interior design for Rye family homes

Interior design for a Rye family home starts with who lives there, and the county's census profile describes a city built around families.

Of Rye's 5,566 households in that profile, 3,576 were married-couple households. Residents under 18 numbered 4,746, or 30.1% of the city. Households of that size put daily pressure on the kitchen, the family room, and any room that turns into an office after school.

The city marks nearly four centuries of history through its Living Landmarks program. An older Rye house can arrive with a floor plan drawn for another way of living, with a closed kitchen and a formal room left empty most weeks.

A family floor plan works like a good train platform at rush hour. Everyone needs a clear lane, a place to set things down, and a way to pass without collisions.

Take a Rye family of five with a closed kitchen, a dining room used twice a year, and a den where the kids do homework. One design answer opens the kitchen to the dining room, gives the den sliding doors, and adds a long island that seats everyone at breakfast and holds a buffet on Saturday night.

Can an interior designer change the layout of an older house?

Yes. Layout is where much of our work begins. We have relocated bedrooms, removed the wall between a living room and dining room, and replaced a stair wall with an open cable railing. Where a change touches structure or needs a permit, a registered architect or licensed engineer prepares the drawings, and we coordinate the design with them.

Residential interior design services we provide

Our residential interior design service covers full interior renovations, from the floor plan through the final finishes.

Interior designers in general determine space requirements and select essential and decorative items, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our projects lean toward the architectural end of that work, because each one starts from the plan. The work shown across our residential interior design projects includes:

  • Full interior renovations of apartments, lofts, and houses

  • Open-plan reconfiguration, including removing walls between rooms

  • Custom built-in cabinetry and shelving

  • Custom furniture that doubles as architecture, such as platforms, built-in seating, and bookcases

  • Material and color palettes

  • Refinishing existing floors

  • Designing around a client's existing furniture and art

  • Translucent and smart-glass partitions that let light through

  • Interior and exterior renovation on some projects

Furniture purchasing, lighting design as a stand-alone service, and single-room projects are scope questions to raise at the consultation.

What does a full interior renovation include?

A full interior renovation reworks how the rooms connect, what gets built in, and what every surface is made of. Our projects have included new layouts, custom cabinetry that doubles as desks and seating, new or refinished floors, and color carried through the house. Kitchens and baths sit inside that scope on several of our projects, coordinated with the contractor.

Neshat Residence, a home designed for entertaining and family life

The Neshat Residence shows how we plan a home that hosts a crowd and still gives a family private space.

Artist Shirin Neshat commissioned I-Beam Design, the practice Azin Valy co-founded, for the Neshat Residence renovation, a full interior renovation of a 3,000 sq ft former manufacturing loft in SoHo. Two bedrooms were relocated to open a central space you see from the elevator. Transoms carry southern light from the tall arched windows into the private family rooms.

The kitchen became the social center of the home. A long island works as the everyday table for family meals and turns into a buffet for dinners, screenings, and fundraisers. The kitchen also links the formal living area to a family room set up for film screenings, so guests and family can share one evening or split into two.

Custom stained-oak desks and shelving line the work area. Wide-plank oak floors, 14-foot ceilings, and the loft's oversized industrial sliding door keep the building's manufacturing past in view. The New York Times covered the home in an article by Elaine Louie, and our press and publications page collects coverage of our work.

A Rye house comes with a different shell. The planning question carries over, since a family that hosts needs to decide where guests gather and where the private rooms start.

Plan your kitchen and gathering rooms with the person who designs them.

Talk through your floor plan with Azin Valy

How a Rye interior design project with Cityzen runs

A Rye project with Cityzen starts with a confidential consultation about how your household lives, what you value, and what the house already offers.

Our design approach rests on three ideas. Context comes ahead of style. Rooms and built-ins should adapt over time and serve more than one purpose. And clients get room to dream past convention, with space for curiosity and play.

From there, the design moves from the plan to the built-ins to the materials and colors. We coordinate each stage with your architect, engineer, and contractor, so the drawings, the budget, and the design stay in step.

Client testimonials describe one I-Beam renovation that came in on time and on budget. Another client wrote, "They are great collaborators and pay careful attention to detail."

How involved do I need to be during the design?

You set the level of involvement, around a few key decisions. We need your time at the start, when we learn how the household lives, and at the points where layout, built-ins, and materials are chosen. Between those points, we coordinate with your architect, engineer, and contractor and bring each decision to you in a clear order.

Recommended: gather photos of the rooms you use most and a list of the furniture and art you plan to keep, and bring both to the consultation.

Azin Valy leads the design work

Azin Valy, who founded Cityzen Designs, leads the design work on our residential projects.

A graduate of The Cooper Union School of Architecture, Azin co-founded the architecture and design practice I-Beam Design and has spent more than two decades on design, interiors, and architectural projects. Her work has ranged from 250,000 sf of international headquarters to 250 sf of refugee housing. Schools including Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, and City College of NY have invited her as a guest critic.

Freedman House in Greenwich, CT won Silver in the Interior Design category of the 2024 New York Architecture Design Awards, one of the honors on our awards page. Cityzen does not file permits or seal drawings. On projects that need them, a registered architect or licensed engineer does, and Azin shapes the interior design alongside that work.

Commercial and hospitality interior design in Rye

Cityzen Designs also designs offices, showrooms, restaurants, and bars, so a Rye business can work with the same studio that designs homes.

Our commercial interior design projects include the 7,000 sq ft Andrew Davidson & Co. offices, which I-Beam Design, the practice Azin Valy co-founded, planned around a circular conference room inside Louis Sullivan's Bayard-Condict Building. Inc. and Architizer named the space one of the World's Coolest Offices in 2011.

In restaurant and bar design, the work starts with how guests arrive, sit, and stay. One example is the Macao Trading Co. restaurant in Tribeca, a 4,000 sq ft I-Beam Design project with an 82-seat dining room under a mezzanine. Salvaged teak lattice screens divide the room into smaller zones, and custom light fixtures reuse antique bicycles, boats, and rickshaws.

Both sides of the portfolio share a habit from the residential work: built-in pieces that organize a room without adding walls.

Key Takeaways

  • City of Rye households averaged 2.81 persons, and 30.1% of residents were under 18, in Westchester County's census profile.

  • Cityzen designs full interior renovations, including layouts, custom built-in cabinetry, and material and color palettes.

  • The Neshat Residence, a 3,000 sq ft I-Beam Design loft, centers family meals and entertaining on one kitchen island.

  • A registered architect or licensed engineer prepares permit drawings, and Cityzen coordinates the interior design with them.

Rooms that fit your Rye household start with a conversation about the house.

Arrange a design consultation for your Rye house

FAQ

  • An interior designer turns how you want to live into a plan a contractor can build. On our projects, that covers layout changes, custom built-in cabinetry, material and color palettes, and floor finishes. We also coordinate with the architect, engineer, and contractor through construction, so the finished rooms match the design you approved.

  • Many renovations need both. A registered architect or licensed engineer prepares and seals drawings for structural work and permits. An interior designer plans how the rooms work, from layout and built-ins to materials and furniture. Cityzen Designs handles the interior design and coordinates with your architect, engineer, and contractor so the drawings and the design agree.

  • Yes. Designing around a client's existing furniture and art runs through our portfolio. The Lazzaro Residence was planned around the owner's mid-century Eames collection, and the McFarland Residence built a wall of cabinetry around a red and pink painting. At Freedman House, new walnut pieces were chosen to sit with furniture the family already owned.

  • Our published projects are full interior renovations, and some include exterior work as well. Cityzen Designs welcomes inquiries about a newly purchased home, an existing residence, or a commercial or hospitality project. If you have a single room in mind, bring it to the consultation, and we will talk through whether the scope fits.

  • The first consultation is a confidential conversation about your house and your household. We ask how you live now, which rooms are falling short, what you value, and what you want the house to do. Bring photos, a floor plan if you have one, and a list of pieces you plan to keep.