We are in love with the hospitable & thoughtful space that Nicole Alvarez and Matt Tomasulo have created at Guest House Raleigh, and were thrilled when they asked us to create a custom installation for this staircase. The outcome is a perfect example of the unexpected awesomeness that emerges from having creative freedom in a project, and getting to work alongside other amazing designers. We proposed some concepts to Nicole & Matt and they gave us a sense of the general look & feel that resonated most with their vision for the space. From there, we went with our intuition. The general plan was to create a wall installation with some dried floral clusters attached, giving the sense of the piece climbing up the wall following the line of the staircase. We pulled a few Corkscrew Hazel branches from our branch collection at the studio (our dried material hoarding totally comes in handy sometimes!) that wound up lending a beautiful sense of depth and movement without any additional embellishments. The branches came from our friend Susan Clarke’s magical backyard in Wake Forest.
We love the interplay between the curves of our branches and the stunning painting on the landing by Jason Craighead. The elegant, narrow lines of the staircase itself, designed and installed by Tactile, also inspired our choice of material and shape — always an honor to work alongside Tactile! We hope you’ll book a stay at Guest House and spend some time looking up through the skylight from the foot of the stairs — see how those hazel branches echo the canopy of the old pecan tree you can see through the skylight? We live for that stuff 🙂
