Interior Designer in Short Hills and Millburn, NJ

Households in Short Hills, New Jersey, average 3.20 persons each, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. We design whole-house interior renovations for families who want open, light-filled main rooms and built-in furniture that does more than one job. Founder Azin Valy brings more than two decades of experience in residential and architectural work to each commission.

Planning a main-floor renovation and wondering what a designer would change?

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Key Highlights

  • Cityzen Designs reworks floor plans, built-in furniture, materials, and color for whole-house interior renovations.

  • Freedman House, a 4,000 sq ft family home in Greenwich, CT, won a 2024 New York Architecture Design Awards Silver for Interior Design.

  • In Short Hills, households average 3.20 persons, so shared rooms carry most of the daily load.

  • Permit drawings come from a registered architect or licensed engineer; Cityzen coordinates with them and your contractor.

  • Founder Azin Valy studied at The Cooper Union School of Architecture and co-founded I-Beam Design.

What the design work covers

Each row below pairs a common family goal with the design work behind it and the person responsible.

What do you want from the renovation?What the design work involvesWho handles it
One open living, dining, and work areaRemoving interior walls and planning how the joined rooms flowCityzen designs the layout; a registered architect or licensed engineer prepares and seals any permit drawings
More storage without more clutterCustom built-in cabinetry, bookcases, and seating shaped to the roomCityzen designs it; your cabinetmaker or contractor builds it
More daylight deeper in the houseLighter floor finishes, lowered walls, open railings, translucent panelsCityzen selects and details the materials
A home that fits the furniture and art you ownPlanning rooms around existing pieces and collectionsCityzen, working from your inventory
One point of contact during constructionCoordinating design decisions with the architect, engineer, and contractorCityzen coordinates; the contractor runs the job site

Interior design services for Short Hills family homes

Our interior design services in Short Hills suit families who use the main floor all day and want it to open up, store more, and take in more light. Children are a big part of that picture. Across Millburn Township, 30.5 percent of residents are under 18 years old, so homework, meals, and guests often share the same few rooms.

Many Short Hills houses also carry age and character. The Short Hills Park Historic District is listed on the National Register for Queen Anne, Shingle Style, and revival houses from 1850 to 1924.

Plans from those decades tend to split the main floor into separate formal rooms. Divided layouts are the starting point for much of the work in our residential portfolio, from a Greenwich family house to Manhattan apartments.

Is an interior designer only for picking furniture and paint?

Interior design work reaches well past furnishings. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, interior designers sketch preliminary design plans, including electrical and partition layouts, and coordinate with building contractors. At Cityzen, the plan itself is often where the biggest change happens, with walls opened and furniture built into the architecture.

What Cityzen's residential interior design includes

Cityzen's residential interior design covers a full interior renovation, from the floor plan to the last finish. Project pages in the portfolio show this scope:

  • Full interior renovations of houses and apartments

  • Opening divided rooms into connected living space

  • Custom built-in cabinetry, bookcases, and seating

  • Furniture that works as part of the architecture, such as platforms and window seats

  • Material and color palettes, including refinishing existing floors

  • Translucent and smart-glass partitions that share light between rooms

  • Interior and exterior renovation on some projects

New Jersey protects the title "certified interior designer," and Cityzen does not use it. For Short Hills work, a registered architect or licensed engineer prepares any permit drawings, and we coordinate with that professional and your contractor.

Can an interior designer work with the furniture we already own?

Yes, and several Cityzen projects were planned around a client's own pieces. At Freedman House, new walnut furnishings were chosen to sit with the family's mid-century furniture. On the Lower East Side, the Lazzaro apartment became an open loft arranged around the owner's Eames collection. Bring photos or a list to the consultation.

Freedman House shows how a whole-family renovation comes together

Freedman House is a 4,000 sq ft interior renovation of a family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the clearest example of what we would bring to a Short Hills house. The family had a sunken living room, a dining room, and a home office divided by a wall. We removed it and joined the three rooms into one main living area.

A continuous walnut platform sits at the center. Part of it is a step. Part of it becomes a built-in corner sofa, backed by a low bookcase that can be reached from several sides and doubles as a serving surface for the dining room.

Light was the other half of the brief. At the entry, the stair wall was lowered and replaced with a stainless-steel cable railing, so daylight reaches the hall and the landing opens in three directions. The existing maple floors were refinished in light gray. Blue, the client's favorite color, runs through the house as an accent.

The project won a Silver in the Interior Design category at the 2024 New York Architecture Design Awards, listed on our awards and recognition page. The family's own verdict carries more weight with us. "Everyone who walks in, all love what we have done. You get all the credit," M. Freedman wrote, adding, "We are definitely happy with the product and working with you to get the outcome we wanted."

What does a built-in platform do in a family room?

A built-in platform works the way a kitchen island works in a kitchen. Several activities gather around one piece of furniture. At Freedman House, the walnut platform is a step, a sofa, a bookcase, and a dining-room serving surface at once, so the open room stays organized without extra walls.

Ready to see what your main floor could hold?

Plan your main floor with Azin Valy

How an interior design project with Cityzen runs

An interior design project with Cityzen runs on three principles from our approach to design. Context comes first: how your family lives, what you value, and the character of the house. Flexibility follows, with rooms and built-in pieces that serve more than one purpose. Imagination closes the set, and we encourage clients to picture options they had not considered.

In practice, the work begins with a confidential consultation about your house, your goals, and scope. Design follows from there, with layout, built-ins, materials, and color developed together. During construction, we coordinate with the architect, engineer, and contractor.

Consider a hypothetical Short Hills family of five in an older center-hall house. The parents work from home two days a week, and the children do homework at the dining table. A Cityzen plan might join the dining room and a little-used front parlor, then add a built-in desk wall with closed storage for school supplies and laptops.

How involved do we need to be during the renovation?

Clients decide on the big choices, and Cityzen manages the process around them. One couple living in Europe wrote that they "did not need to travel from Europe more than on a few occasions to make decisions," according to our client testimonials. A Short Hills family can expect a similar arrangement, discussed at the consultation.

Azin Valy leads every design

Azin Valy founded Cityzen Designs after co-founding the award-winning architecture and design practice I-Beam Design in New York. A graduate of The Cooper Union School of Architecture, she has more than two decades of experience across design, interiors, and architectural projects, at scales from 250,000 sf headquarters to 250 sf of refugee housing.

Students at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, and City College of NY have heard her as a guest critic. Work by Azin and her studios has appeared in outlets collected on our press and publications page, including The New York Times.

Commercial and hospitality interior design for Short Hills and Millburn

Cityzen Designs also designs offices, showrooms, and restaurants, so a Short Hills or Millburn business can work with the same studio as the house.

Our commercial interior design work includes a 9,000 sq ft bridal showroom and offices on Fifth Avenue for designer Reem Acra, completed with I-Beam Design. The plan leads clients through the collections, then into smaller rooms for consultations and fittings.

Our hospitality interior design includes 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.

Planning around how people move, then building in what they need, is the same method behind the Freedman House renovation.

Key Takeaways

  • Cityzen Designs plans whole-house interior renovations: layouts, built-in furniture, materials, and color.

  • Short Hills households average 3.20 persons, and 30.5 percent of Millburn Township residents are under 18.

  • Freedman House joined three divided rooms around a walnut platform and won a 2024 NYADA Silver.

  • A registered architect or licensed engineer prepares permit drawings; Cityzen coordinates the team.

Have a house in Short Hills or Millburn that needs to work harder for your family?

Request a consultation for your Short Hills home

Tell us about the rooms you use most, and we will take it from there.

Frequently asked questions

  • In a whole-house renovation, an interior designer plans how the rooms are laid out and used, then designs the built-in furniture, materials, and color that make the plan work. At Cityzen Designs, that work has included removing walls, adding custom cabinetry and seating, and refinishing floors, all coordinated with the architect and contractor.

  • Many renovations in New Jersey need both. An interior designer shapes the layout, built-ins, and finishes, while a registered architect or licensed engineer prepares and seals any drawings filed for permits. Cityzen Designs handles the interior design and coordinates with those professionals, so the family works from one plan across the whole team.

  • Cityzen Designs works on newly purchased homes and existing residences, and its published projects are full interior renovations, many of them whole homes. Scope varies with each house, so a single-room project is a fair question to raise at the consultation, where Azin Valy can talk through what the work would involve.

  • The first consultation with Cityzen Designs is a confidential conversation about your house, how your family lives in it, and what you want to change. Bring floor plans, photos, and a sense of which rooms matter most. We talk through the likely scope and who else the project needs.