With our Book Club series, we hand over the proverbial mic to our Experts—letting them share their work, their thought process, and their best tips, all in their own words. The following is an excerpt from Jake Arnold’s Redefining Comfort, published this month with Rizzoli.

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Since as young as six I have always been fascinated by design for its immersive qualities and fundamental expression of self.

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I would move around furniture and reorganize my friends’ rooms while their parents would call mine to collect me from the house as it was too much for them. Design is the one thing I know I was given not only to express myself creatively but also to make people feel good—it’s my superpower.

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Through the years after opening my own studio and taking on my own clients, I have built incredible relationships with people who have enriched my life more than I could have ever imagined. In the quest to share my feelings of comfort and longing for connection, I have created homes that intend not only to support the people who live there but also to inspire through creating livable-yet-impactful spaces that evoke a sanctuary.

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It All Starts With the Home’s History

There is something freeing in working on an older home that gives you all the clues of how it should be treated. Through research and compiling references I like to take a look at what the rules would have been based on the period and the architectural vernacular as clues. Then comes the fun, where I will build upon the visuals with emotions that the client wants to feel in the space and find the balance through a delicate editing process.

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Understanding Your Own Definition of Comfort

Good design for me happens when all five senses have been tended to. Creating a space that transcends the daily burdens of life is the gift design brings to our world, where in a second you can be transported into another realm and relinquish the stresses of the day. When we start working together, I ask every client what their favorite hotel is. Their answer gives me the perfect insight into what they consider beautiful but also where they feel the most relaxed and at peace.

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Injecting a Dose of Escapism

The moment you enter the door to any of our projects the goal is to relinquish all the stresses and just immerse yourself and feel at home. There are projects where I love to introduce materiality that you may not typically find in certain contexts to evoke the feeling of escapism and the idealistic freedom felt on vacations, such as wicker in a New York City townhouse or greenery in almost any home I work on to breathe life and nature into its energy.

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Book a one-on-one consultation with Jake to get personalized advice for your own space, or shop his curated Showroom to bring his signature look home.

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Purchase Redefining Comfort.

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