Fiorella Design, LLC

I have worked with Mary Jo for over a decade on 10+ plus projects throughout the heart of the Peninsula, including the towns of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton and Portola Valley. Throughout those years I have also worked with numerous other designers on projects and I can say without hesitation that Mary Jo's designs, drawings, and details are a step above the others. In addition, her availability and quick responsiveness to questions and her ability to meet onsite when needed, are unmatched. I've been building custom homes for over 20 years and when I build my next personal home, I want Mary Jo to be my designer.

MaryJo is an extremely talented designer. She has a unique eye for colors, fabrics, textures, and furnishings that come together in a beautiful, cohesive whole. She's very responsive and has turned my new house that was very bland when I got it from our contractor into a house I'm very proud of.

Our new home was born from an unexpected journey. After a fire destroyed our second floor, we faced the daunting task of starting over. That's when Mary Jo entered the picture, accompanying us every step of the way. From the somber days of surveying the fire-ravaged remnants to the triumphant moments of adorning our walls with exquisite artwork, Mary Jo was there, attentive and dedicated. She possessed an uncanny understanding of our concerns and aspirations, working closely with our architect, builder, and AV team over the course of 30 months. Mary Jo's initial draft, brimming with wisdom and a keen reflection of our desires, revealed its brilliance weeks and months later, after we settled in. With meticulous precision, she ensured that every square foot of our home served a purpose, accommodating our organized and tidy lifestyle. A true polyglot in the language of home design, Mary Jo's expertise encompassed architecture, shape, size, space, materials, colors, windows, doors, lighting, and countless other elements. It was her symphony of inputs that transformed our home into a sanctuary, uplifting the spirits of all who crossed its threshold. For some, the allure lies in the vaulted living room with La Cantina doors opening onto an Ipe deck and fire pit. Others are captivated by the fusion of glamour and elegance, embodied in the furniture adorned with velvety colored fabrics. The kitchen, with its expansive 45 sq ft island and sleek black and white cabinetry, enthralls visitors. The adjacent family room facilitates intimate conversations while also providing a Dolby Atmos movie-watching experience. Each bathroom in the house is a masterpiece, surpassing high-end hotels in both aesthetics and functionality. The bedrooms, each uniquely designed, exude luxury and warmth, reflecting the personality of their occupants. Nearly two years have passed since we moved in and over a year since our project reached its culmination with Mary Jo and her exceptional team. As Winston Churchill once said, "We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our buildings shape us." Indeed, this home has profoundly shaped our lives for the better, as well as the lives of our children, family, friends, and even our neighbors. Adjacent to a popular walking trail, our home garners attention from passersby throughout the day. People frequently pause to snap pictures, and it's not uncommon for them to approach us, inquiring about our designer. At 3,850 square feet of living space on a 9,200 square foot lot, our home may not be the largest, but it has become an incredible space that fills us with awe each morning. We are incredibly fortunate and blessed. If you find yourself contemplating the construction or redesign of a home, I implore you to enlist Mary Jo as your guide. The partnership will undoubtedly leave you grateful, for without visionary designers like her and the tenacity of self-builders, the world would all be living in dull gray boxes.

We really enjoyed working with MaryJo on our home addition and remodel. She has a great eye and is very creative. She honored our style preferences but also had firm opinions, which gave us a lot of confidence when making choices. In addition to helping us nail down most of our design decisions well before construction began, she was very available and helpful during the construction process when we had unexpected choices to make. For example, when we were expecting our living room to have a flat ceiling, but learned that we could vault it, she took a complicated situation involving a large asymmetric beam and turned it into a beautiful cathedral ceiling with skylights; now that room is a showstopper! We highly recommend this experienced and talented designer.

We tore down our Palo Alto bungalow and built a 3 story forever home for our family of 5. Mary Jo helped us navigate the steep learning curve of building a new house, and we couldn't be happier with the results. She lives up to her reputation of designing very functional spaces, and I knew from day 1 we wouldn't end up with anything kooky or impractical. Mary Jo has excellent taste, and her finish choices were perfect for our family-- clean and classic, never fussy or overdone. Mary Jo stayed well on top of the project so our decisions never felt rushed or down to the wire. We really appreciated how she simplified the universe of decisions through her design process. Her input is something we appreciate on a daily basis, from the gorgeous cabinetry, lighting and vaulted ceilings, to the space-saving pocket doors and practical materials in the kids' spaces. Thank you Mary Jo!

MaryJo was referred to me by a neighbor who had just completed a 2nd story addition to their house. "She's a great designer with a practical side." MaryJo was fantastic at parsing through Pinterest pages, the architect's drwgs., materials and fixtures, providing a guiding hand and design expertise. She provided us our overarching theme, in our case, "contemporary cottage with vintage details," that helped immensely throughout the project making the dozens of decisions about color, materials, etc. Mary Jo and her team at Fiorella Design, not only made improvements to the interior elevations, but were great providing options for plumbing, lighting, tile and stone. We are so happy with the results — thank you!

It was a pleasure to work with Mary Jo and her team, and we love our new home! Mary Jo listened to and focused on our goals in building our new modern home, and worked closely with our architects and builder to ensure that these were realized. She is talented and creative, and her attention to detail and wealth of experience were invaluable in guiding us and finding solutions to challenges encountered during construction. Mary Jo was our true advocate throughout the project, and she worked efficiently and attentively to bring our ideas to life in our beautiful new home!

Mary Jo has excellent taste and gave me great advice as we went through our remodel. Her experience is so valuable for all the millions of little decisions (chrome or satin? which white? what color temperature LED light? What size light fixture? What size canned lights? Where should the outlets be), as well as bigger questions, like layout. She saved me from making a major layout error in our kitchen, for which I will always be grateful. She is extremely responsive, which is important when a project is moving quickly. Mary Jo has a phenomenal memory--it is amazing to me the level of detail she can remember. She is a perfectionist in the best possible way.

Although the structural renovation work was mostly limited to the first floor the design changes can be seen throughout the house. Our project costs and dates were within scope even after making small changes to the original plans. I am really excited with the way the house turned out considering I really was not looking forward to doing a remodel. Mary Jo was great to work with, professional and I loved her design ideas.

This is a long overdue review. In 2017-19 we were fortunate to work with Mary Jo on a total home rebuild. Mary Jo helped us from re-designing the interior architect all the way through all aspects of home building and design (selection of floors, interior and exterior colors, furniture etc). Mary Jo is incredible – her designs are elegant and integrative, and she showed an outstanding ability to understand the style we wanted in the best light even if we could sometimes only articulate what we did not like. She would always offer several options and would show no frustration if we didn’t go with an original suggestion – and would come back with more great ideas (though frequently her original suggestions naturally turned out to be the best). Mary Jo kept us organized and a step ahead of the building so that the contractor never had to slow down because we had failed to consider one of the thousands of details ahead of time. Mary Jo also knows what good craftsmanship looks like and was very helpful in sharing her knowledge in providing feedback to the contractors. We owe the success of our project and the maintenance of our sanity to Mary Jo. She has great taste and a no-nonsense style that is efficient and appreciated – Mary Jo was just a real pleasure to work with, we love the house that she designed and we live in; we highly recommend her!

It’s been a pleasure working with Mary Jo. Throughout the process, she provided creative solutions, great designs and candid advice. We are very pleased with the outcome and love our “new” home. Highly recommend!

The idea of decorating our new home seemed daunting. We needed help from someone who could understand our style and pull a cohesive and modern but still livable look together. Letting go and trusting Mary Jo's vision was the best decision. She made the process easy and was very flexible with our family's needs. Her suggestions on how to improve our kitchen so it would last a few more years before we could do a full renovation was genius. All of her contacts/recommendations from electricians to painters were reasonably priced and superb in their line of work. We are incredibly happy with the results and would/will utilize her services again without reservation. Pictures: https://www.houzz.com/hznb/projects/castro-valley-refresh-pj-vj~5729243