Nystrom Design

Ellen's interior design expertise transformed our space beyond what we thought possible. Her exceptional ability to listen and translate our vision into reality resulted in a home that perfectly reflects our aesthetic while maximizing functionality. The thoughtful attention to detail—from ensuring bedside table heights complement the bed to creating clever furniture arrangements that define spaces within our open-concept living and dining areas—demonstrates her meticulous planning and visualization skills. What impressed us most was how she managed to incorporate more elements than we imagined possible without creating a cluttered feel. Ellen's brilliant solution to the challenge of placing a TV in a room with expansive views is just one example of her innovative problem-solving. She skillfully balanced investment art pieces with budget-friendly options, including a digital print that became one of our favorite art pieces. Throughout the process, Ellen was responsive, transparent with billing, and delivered precisely on budget and on schedule. The end result speaks for itself—a beautiful, functional space that exceeds all expectations. We wholeheartedly recommend Ellen to anyone seeking an interior designer who truly understands how to bring their vision to life.

Nystrom Design helped me refresh the first floor of my SF home. Ellen and her team listened to my vision, and solved both my functional and design challenges. Ellen took the design to the next level, and delivered a beautiful, cohesive design that not only gave me a functional office, but made all the rooms on the main floor come together to look both intentionally connected from a design perspective, but also give each a distinct flair. The process was very professional and collaborative, where Ellen presented clear options and direction that made decisions easy! Ellen and Amy were incredibly responsive, and attentive to detail, and once we agreed on a plan and a budget, executed seamlessly to give me a beautiful new space. The team provided regular updates, and were always easy to reach. I knew what to expect at every step of the way. It was a great experience, and I would work with the team again in the future!

When deciding to update the main living areas of our house, I feel fortunate to have found Ellen Nystrom for our project. She had the vision to revamp our living room, dining room, kitchen and family room to allow for more light, more seating, and more storage. The goal was to repurpose some of our old furniture and blend in newer more contemporary pieces. Ellen has a great eye for color, lighting, carpeting and furniture. She clearly communicated with us from the beginning and kept us fully updated along the way. I always appreciated her responsiveness to any of my concerns and her execution of the overall project was very professional. I highly recommend Nystrom Design and I hope to have the opportunity to work together again.

Ellen and her team did an amazing job on our home. We wanted to redo the kitchen area and our bathrooms and were looking for someone with fresh ideas who wasn't afraid to suggest something completely different and she didn't disappoint. Thanks to her we dared a lot more than we would have otherwise, she really understood what we wanted and pushed us just enough so that the result was absolutely perfect. Ellen didn't only redesign the general layout of our rooms, she also took care of finding and acquiring the right materials and furniture/appliances to make it look awesome and had brilliant ideas when it came to color schemes, tiling design and decorational objects, always making sure she'd go along with what we were envisioning. We love our new home and can only recommend Nystrom Design!

I would 100% recommend Nystrom Design! Ellen and her team are fantastic! We worked with Nystrom Design for our master bathroom remodel. Throughout every step of the process - from drafting plans through picking finishes - I felt Ellen and her team really focused on incorporating my style and making my vision a reality. They created a functional and thoughtful design for my master bathroom and helped me pick out amazing finishes. Ellen and her team were professional and friendly and always prompt in deadlines/ turning around plans/ etc, and efficient! Ellen has great attention to detail, and was incredibly helpful on site during the construction process. I would definitely hire Nystrom design again!

I had never worked with a designer before so I was very excited to get started with Ellen for our new home. We worked with Ellen for our living room renovation and for small decorating projects in our primary bedroom, dining room, and outdoor patio. Throughout the process Ellen considered all of our specific requests and factored in where my taste might differ from my husband's to find a common ground. It was a long process due to some contractor delays and inventory delays, but Ellen and her team were very communicative through it all and worked hard to resolve any challenges. Would definitely recommend!

Ellen came in and immediately got to work. She understood the main needs I had and together with her assistant got a sense of how to guide me and put forth some lovely options. I needed help refreshing my living room and changing some outdated fixtures throughout the house. The process they supported me through helped me to zero in on good selections and get things moving. They set me up with a clear shopping list so that I could move forward confidently. The living room is on its way to looking great and I could not have done it without Nystrom Design.

Ellen effortlessly combined creativity, big picture vision and attention to detail to create the perfect home for us. We were initially a bit nervous about hiring a designer. We wanted a home that reflected our personalities rather than current design trends. When we first met Ellen, we described our design philosophy as quirky, bordering on eccentric, with a love of color (no white walls) and a need to work around our own eclectic decorative items. Ellen really listened and came to the next meeting with a samples of orange wallpaper with a turtle pattern and persimmon colored wallpaper with starbursts (for the dining room ceiling!). We gave an enthusiastic yes to both and expanded the project to include furniture design and sourcing. While we hired Ellen for her creative ideas, she also brought order to our project. She translated all of our decisions to the contractor and worked out the many challenges in implementation without needing to involve us. Hiring Ellen was the single best decision we made during our whole home remodel and we would enthusiastically recommend her for any project.

We thoroughly enjoyed working with Ellen and her team on our kitchen and bathroom remodel. We appreciate her spatial design sense and simple but elegant color choices. The experience was well worth the investment of hiring Nystrom Design. Their charges were very reasonable. During construction Ellen was involved in reviewing material and sample submittals and made very helpful recommendations in resolving construction issues. We are very pleased with the transformation that she made to our home. We highly recommend this company.

We worked with Ellen on a large full home remodel last year in Berkeley. Ellen is one of the most professional, well organized, and clear designers we have had the pleasure to work with. She presents a comprehensive package with incredible features like storage management plan, detailed plan sets, and finish samples. Any client or contractor would be lucky to work with her and her firm.

Ellen helped us out with a kitchen, sitting area, master bath and powder room as part of a major renovation. We were first time renovators, so we weren’t great at articulating our needs, whether in terms of budget constraints or aesthetic preferences. On both counts, Ellen was really amazing at figuring out what we wanted through very efficient process of elimination. Very quickly it felt like we were in a groove, and our main challenge was narrowing down her choices because we loved (and could afford) them all. The best part of course are the constant compliments we get from everyone who sees our “new” house (particularly for the wallpaper in the kitchen, which was all Ellen :)

Ellen came to us 5 months into the construction portion of our whole-house remodel. We had a great architect & contractor, but found that we needed more communication and help with deciding on the many many details of the project along the way. Our contractor suggested we hire a designer, and our architect suggested Nystrom Design. It would not be too much to say that Ellen & her team saved our sanity. We worked with Nystrom Design for the final 12 months of the construction, and it could not have been more of a pleasure. Between her calm and gracious demeanor, her skill as a thoughtful listener, and her unwavering competence, Ellen helped us navigate many decisions -- some very challenging, others fun -- and greatly facilitated communication with our contractor, as well as with several of the craftspeople we worked with. A good portion of the assistance Ellen's team's gave us involved creating technical drawings and troubleshooting technical issues with the renovation which she was very knowledgable about. She and her team were all extremely attentive to detail, which was just what we needed. I honestly do not know how we would have satisfactorily resolved many of our issues without Nystrom Design on board. Besides Ellen's professionalism, communication skills, and technical savvy, she was a great match for us from the aesthetic standpoint as well. Her shared love of color was vital -- we wanted to incorporate color in terms of tile and paint/wallpaper in addition to furnishings, and she totally got it. She also very successfully helped us create a transition that makes sense between the relatively unchanged 1931 details in the entryway, living room, and dining room, and the new modern spaces (kitchen, stairwell, family room, bathrooms). I saved photos on Houzz of projects that had details we liked and shared them with Ellen, then she and her team created idea boards for us with possible choices for light fixtures, furniture layouts and fabrics, furniture and rugs, wallpaper, paint colors, and fixtures and finishes. The process felt very collaborative, with Ellen knowing just when to listen to feedback and happily explore more options, and when to weigh in with an opinion when we were stuck. She made us feel there was no such thing as a stupid question and respected choices that mattered to us. Most of all, she is such a positive presence, supportive and encouraging and so nice. We loved working with her and the whole team and cannot recommend Nystrom Design enough!