Seldin Design Studios

I worked with Rachel when I moved into my new house. She was amazing and helped with everything from coming up with floor plans to picking paint colors and picking out furniture. She was super perceptive and understood my taste and vibe immediately and could translate it into pieces to help bring my ideas to life. Rachel was also excellent at helping to steer me in the right direction and pushing me a bit outside of my comfort zone. Rachel was able to take a couple ideas from my kids and help bring to life their dream rooms! I can't wait to work with Rachel on my next project to re-do our laundry room!

Rachel is an incredibly talented designer and I highly recommend her. We retained Rachel for an extensive remodel and design of our home, including the living room, the bedrooms, the study, the kitchen, and our outdoor space. She was not only knowledgable about the design aspects of the project, but she clearly had the technical expertise relating to different issues, including code requirements. Rachel's design aesthetic is beautiful, colorful, unique, and functional. My husband and I were extremely happy with her recommendations, which always came within or below our budget. Rachel was very easy to work with, and is friendly, very responsive, and collaborative. We loved working with Rachel and she helped create our dream home!

My partner and I hired Rachel Seldin for a major home remodel in San Francisco, and we did not regret our decision for one moment. Rachel helped us to design our kitchen, three bathrooms, and to choose fixtures and hardware throughout our apartment. When it came to figuring out the interiors of our "dream" home, my partner and I have very different styles, eclectic tastes, and a penchant for indecisiveness. However, Rachel was the best decision that we made in our two and a half year project. She was able to project manage us with her heroic organizational process, her ability to assess our likes, dislikes, price points, etc., her deftness in mitigating our differing tastes and frequent decision-making paralysis, as well as her expertise in materials, measurements, and colors. She is an excellent and professional communicator, both with her clients, and between her clients and the contractors, subcontractors, and architect. There were many points of frustration, break-down, and delays in our remodel, however, Rachel was ever present, easy to get a hold of, and always smoothed things over when things went awry. My partner and I lived most of our lives frugally and wistfully dreaming of a beautiful apartment filled with color, dark wood, historic charm, expert craftsmanship, and sleek interesting design. When we were given the opportunity to choose the elements of the interiors of our home, we entered an unknown country, and the adventure completely overwhelmed us. The two of us are in awe of Rachel for deeply investigating and navigating our tastes, our budget, our histories, and our stories, as she designed our home in a way that deeply matches who we are and what we love. Our home is more beautiful than we could ever have imagined it would be. We receive sincere and meaningful compliments on our home from friends, neighbors, and friends of friends, as they are blown away by the aesthetics: the unique combination of colors, wallpapers, finishes, fixtures and tiles that Rachel Seldin, as a master designer, artfully created for us.

We loved working with Rachel. Rachel was respectful of our budget, listened to our wants/needs and was always quick to respond with new and fun ideas. She always provided lots of options, alternative layouts and renderings which helped us envision what our dream space could look like. We never felt rushed in any of our decisions yet she was able to complete the project for us by our designated finish date. We would absolutely work with her again!

Rachel really listened to me and figured out how to create a great home-furnishings design from the vague and sometimes conflicting preferences I gave her. She was sensitive to my budget, never pushy, always happy to change course and came up with beautiful, modern, and totally livable furniture and decor. She was very communicative and clearly laid out her process and timeline. A pleasure to work with.

Rachel is organized, efficient, speedy and a lot of fun. This was a large project - 9 units in an old Edwardian - 9 kitchens, and 15 bathrooms. Rachel very quickly got the "look and essence" we wanted. Her choices were perfect. Both the contractor and project manager counted on her expertise. Every decision was made way in advance and if there was a change she quickly regrouped and came up with "Plan B". If there was ever confusion about a layout she immediately drew it for us. She can do anything!!!!! I wouldn't do a project without her in the future.

As a former magazine editor I see a lot of remodels and designers’ portfolios. When I set out to search for a designer, Rachel rose to the top for a few reasons. (1) She’s down to earth. No pretenses. (2) She’s versatile. Bay Area design strikes me as slightly repetitive: same palette, same flavor. Rachel doesn’t approach all spaces with a “playbook.” (3) She’s flexible yet opinionated. I personally believe a client/customer, in any business, is sacrosanct. I wanted the space to reflect our personalities and lifestyle. The creative world is difficult: Is a designer creating a space for his or her portfolio and to further his or her vision? Or should the client get what he/she wants? This must be one of the hardest lines to toe. Rachel bridged this. (4) She’s creative and curious. Rachel’s traveled. She’s worked in other places. And she is active in the design space. She reads the blogs, the magazines. She's a DIY-er I think that’s so important. She was a walking-reference-book. We had so much material to tap. If we wanted something different, she might riff on something she’d seen. We hired her for the above. Working with her we discovered another side. (1) She’s super organized. She knows in which order to get things done, and she shows up and does it. She is always on time. She is a project manager extraordinaire. (2) She may be down-to-earth, but she’s firm. If trades hassled or delayed, she dealt with it. If trades did something sloppy, she had them redo it. She didn't dodge hard conversations. And she didn't alienate trades by being a diva. (3) She's a diplomat. Sometimes my ideas would be off the mark. Rachel gave feedback to help me understand why something wouldn’t work (the science rather than the art of it). Sure, we disagreed at times. I think that was all healthy and made for a better designed place. (4) Rachel’s got superpowers: She found a middle ground between my husband’s aesthetic and mine. Which is laughably different. His: Arts and Crafts, woods, dark finishes, loves brown, library-ish decor. Mine: British colonial India/Caribbean rattans textures, light, florals. Hate the color brown. Boho-ish Wabi-Sabi decor. The redesign of our condo had been debated (that's a friendly word) between my husband and I for two years. Paint swatches were on the wall that long. Rachel swooped in and got the project done in six months. It went from looking dark, depressing and dorm-room-y to colorful, light, happy thanks to Rachel. When we moved to Oakland, we called Rachel to see if she could take on the complete project of furnishing our San Francisco condo so we could rent it furnished ... in a month. She got the job done. I stepped aside because I trusted her. We've tapped Rachel again for help with choosing colors at our new house and laying out rooms. She did that, like snap your fingers fast. I love the colors. We're not quite ready for a full on re-design though. :)

I can't recommend Seldin Design Studios enough. Rachel is amazing. She gets to know you and your style, makes recommendations you might not have considered, and makes creating your home a joy. She managed all of my contractors for me, staying on top of them to make sure we were getting the best deal and service possible. We went to the flooring store together and while I was totally overwhelmed, she quickly narrowed it down to a few great options for me to choose from. I get compliments on my hard wood floors every time guests come over. I needed to replace my tub/shower, so I took it as an opportunity to redesign the entire bathroom and love the new look. Best of all, she's super fun and easy to work with.

Rachel was a pleasure to work with. We hired her to design 2 bathrooms and a baby room and were thrilled with the final results. She really has a great sense of space and worked well with us to create a look and feel according to our tastes and desires.

We absolutely love Rachel's interior design work. We moved into a new house that needed quite a face lift. She completed two rooms for us and we LOVE how they turned out. They have very different looks, one bold and modern, the other whimsical. She filled our house with color -- which is what we asked for. Friends of ours often comment on the kids room: "this room is beautiful." This project involved a million little details in addition to these two rooms. It was our first house purchase, first experience hiring a contractor, and first experience working with a designer. Rachel did an excellent job guided us through it all - explaining how things work, what to expect, what we need to consider, etc. and kept track of everything. I was very anxious about all the design decisions. When it comes to making things look aesthetically pleasing, I feel like a deer in headlights. She patiently helped us as we went back and forth about many of the decisions. We were on a tight timeline. Rachel was extremely accessible and accommodating. She really stepped it up, kept us on track, and helped us finish in time. She can make things happen! We were absolutely clueless and didn't realize how difficult it was to do some of what we wanted to do in the time frame we had. She figured out how to give us what we wanted. I highly recommend Rachel Seldin for your design needs!

So happy with the work that Seldin Design Studios has done transforming my new house into the home I always wanted. With little direction from me, Rachel came up with amazing ideas exactly in the style I was thinking. She has been one step ahead of my the whole way through this upgrade — selecting items that work really well together for the spaces. She really took it to the next level with finds that I would have never come up with on my own, but when its all together: it really does reflect my taste and style.

I had the pleasure of working with Rachel this summer to come up with a refresh/redesign concept for my current living room. Working with Rachel was a fantastic partnership. Using existing furniture pieces, Rachel came up with 3 design concepts and included new and creative elements and furniture options/ideas to further enhance the space. I really loved the design options she provided and her ideas inspired me to see my living room space differently. She is a pro and has so much talent. She really listens to the client needs and knows how to convert ideas into realities. I would highly recommend Rachel to anyone considering a design project. She is amazing!