— Interior Design & Home Furnishing
Interior Design & Home Furnishing in Lakewood Ranch
Brenton Gold helps homeowners in Lakewood Ranch design and furnish homes that genuinely suit them — their style, the way they actually live, what the house needs, and what they want to spend. We are not a furniture store. We are a design studio, and everything we specify is chosen for a particular room in a particular house.
Some projects are small: a living room that has never quite worked, a primary bedroom that needs pulling together, a home office to be built and furnished. Others are the whole residence — floor plans, furniture, rugs, lighting, window treatments, artwork and accessories, selected as one scheme and installed together.
We work with primary residences, vacation homes, second homes and investment or rental properties, and the level of service is set by the property and the people using it. Derval Phelan leads every project personally, from the first consultation through to the day the last piece is placed.
— What's involved
Interior design tailored to your home.
No two projects are scoped the same way. Some clients want help with furniture and finish selections and will take it from there. Others hand over the entire house and want a comprehensive interior design service — planning, specification, ordering, installation and styling.
Both are perfectly normal. We agree the scope at the start so you know exactly what we are doing and what you are not paying for.
Space planning
Scaled floor plans that settle how a room is used before anything is ordered.
Furniture selection & sourcing
Specified, ordered and tracked through our trade accounts and local makers.
Rugs
Sized and placed to anchor seating rather than float in the middle of a room.
Lighting
Decorative and architectural lighting, layered and on sensible circuits.
Window treatments
Drapery, shades and hardware measured and fitted to the opening.
Artwork
Sourced and hung at the right scale and height for the wall it sits on.
Accessories
The books, ceramics, textiles and small objects that make a room feel lived in.
Finish & material selections
Paint, tile, stone, timber and metal chosen as one palette.
Custom cabinetry & built-ins
Entertainment walls, offices, closets and pantries made to the room.
Final styling
The last day on site, when everything is placed, dressed and photographed.
— Newly purchased homes
Home furnishing services in Lakewood Ranch.
A great many of the people we work with have just bought the house. The rooms are empty, or half-filled with pieces carried over from a previous home, and the temptation is to start buying — a sofa this week, a dining table the next — until the house is full of things that have no relationship to one another.
Home furnishing in Lakewood Ranch works far better in the other order. We plan the rooms first: what each space is for, how people move through it, where the seating sits, how much of the floor a rug should cover, whether that great room can carry a sectional or wants two facing sofas. Scale and proportion do most of the work here, and they are the things most often got wrong.
From that plan comes the furniture selection and sourcing — colour, materials and texture chosen against the architecture you already have, the ceiling heights, the floor, the light coming off the lake or preserve, the finishes the builder installed. The result is a home that reads as one idea rather than a series of separate purchases.
— While you're away
Not in Florida? We can take care of everything.
Many of the homeowners we work with divide their time between Florida and somewhere else — the north, the midwest, occasionally another country. Being out of state does not need to hold a project up.
We can place and track the furniture orders, manage lead times, receive and inspect deliveries, and coordinate installers and trades so they are not tripping over one another. Once things are in, we handle placement, hanging and final styling ourselves.
Throughout, you get updates and photographs as rooms come together, and decisions are made by email or a call rather than a site visit. Furniture lead times are what they are and we will always be straight with you about them — but the aim is that the work progresses in your absence and the house is substantially ready when you return.
— Property types
Interior design for primary, vacation & second homes.
The level of investment and the depth of service are tailored to the property, the homeowner and how the house will be used. A full-time family home and a seasonal residence are not the same brief, and neither needs an unlimited budget to be done well.
Primary residences
Homes that get used hard, every day. Durable fabrics, sensible storage, seating arranged for how the family really sits — and enough character that the house still feels considered rather than merely practical.
Vacation & second homes
Seasonal houses that need to feel finished the moment you walk in, and look after themselves while you're away. Often furnished from empty, frequently while the owners are out of state.
Investment & rental properties
Furnishing packages specified for wear, turnover and photography, at a budget that makes sense against the return. Cohesive and welcoming, without over-specifying pieces that won't survive the use.
— Cabinetry and furnishings together
From custom cabinetry to the finished room.
Most studios do one half of this. Furniture showrooms sell you the sofa but have no say in the millwork; cabinet suppliers build the kitchen and leave the rest of the room to somebody else. In an open plan — which is nearly every newer home here — that split is exactly where things come unstuck.
Because we design and make cabinetry as well as furnish rooms, the cabinet colour, countertop, backsplash, hardware, pendants, rug, dining chairs and art can all be considered at the same time, against each other. Kitchen, dining and living read as one space, because they were specified as one space.
You can read more about our custom cabinetry and kitchen design and remodeling, or see how the two come together across our whole-home interior design work.
— Recent work
Interior design projects in Lakewood Ranch.
Our Wild Blue project at Lakewood Ranch is the fullest example — mood boards and inspiration first, then custom furnishings, lighting and décor sourced largely from local Sarasota artisans and boutiques, with a custom entertainment wall and linear fireplace built as the living room's centrepiece. The Star Farms project took a quieter coastal direction: soft neutrals with blues and greens, layered texture and a custom feature wall running through the main living space and primary bedroom.
— How it runs
Our interior design process.
A guide rather than a rule. Not every project uses every stage — a single room may need only three of them.
- 01
Consultation
We visit the home or meet at our Sarasota showroom, talk through how you live, what you already own and what you would like to spend.
- 02
Design direction
Plans, palettes and reference imagery that establish the character of the home before individual pieces are chosen.
- 03
Selection & sourcing
Specific furniture, lighting, rugs, fabrics, finishes and art, presented together so you can see how they work as a whole.
- 04
Ordering & coordination
Orders placed and tracked, lead times managed, trades and installers scheduled around each other.
- 05
Delivery, installation & styling
Deliveries received and inspected, furniture placed, art hung, and the rooms styled and finished.
— Local to you
Interior design in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.
Our showroom is on Boulevard of the Arts in Sarasota, roughly twenty minutes from most of Lakewood Ranch, and we have been designing for homes across Sarasota and Manatee counties since 1999. That proximity matters more than it sounds: measuring visits, deliveries and install days are easy to attend in person, which is where most of the quality in a furnished home actually comes from.
The housing stock here has its own character. Newer villages tend to give you tall ceilings, wide sliders, generous great rooms and a lot of natural light — rooms that look enormous when empty and can swallow furniture bought at the wrong scale. Established neighbourhoods around River Club and Greenbrook often have more defined rooms and mature landscaping, and reward a warmer, more layered approach. We have worked on interiors in Wild Blue and Star Farms, and on kitchens and cabinetry in Greenbrook and The River Club, so these are conditions we know well.
We also work throughout the surrounding area — Bradenton, University Park, Parrish and across Sarasota. If you'd like the kitchen and cabinetry side of what we do locally, that lives on our Lakewood Ranch kitchen design page.
— Frequently asked
Frequently asked questions.
- Do you offer interior design services in Lakewood Ranch?
- Yes. Interior design is a core part of what we do, and Lakewood Ranch is one of the areas we work in most often. Our studio is in Sarasota, a short drive away, so site visits, measuring and installation supervision are straightforward.
- Can you help me furnish an entire new home?
- We do this regularly. We start with a floor plan and a design direction for the whole house, then work room by room — seating, dining, bedrooms, rugs, lighting, window treatments, artwork and accessories — so the finished home reads as one considered scheme rather than a collection of separate purchases.
- Can you work within a specific furniture budget?
- Yes. Tell us the number you have in mind and we will plan around it, prioritising the pieces that carry the most weight in a room and being more measured elsewhere. We would rather work to a real budget than present a scheme you have to unpick later.
- Can you coordinate deliveries if I am out of state?
- We can. For clients who are away, we place and track the orders, receive and inspect deliveries, coordinate installation and handle the final styling, keeping you updated as things arrive so you are not managing tradespeople and delivery windows from another time zone.
- Do I have to be doing a kitchen renovation to use your interior design services?
- No. Plenty of our interior design projects involve no cabinetry work at all. Furnishing, finishes and styling can be commissioned entirely on their own.
- Can you help with only one room?
- Yes. A single living room, primary bedroom or home office is a perfectly normal way to begin, and a good way to see how we work before deciding whether to take it further.
- Do you provide furniture sourcing as part of interior design?
- Furniture selection and sourcing is included in our interior design service. We specify pieces, place the orders through our trade accounts and local Sarasota makers and boutiques, and track them through to delivery.
- Can you coordinate cabinetry and furnishings as part of the same design?
- That is one of the main reasons clients come to us. Cabinetry, countertops, finishes, furniture, lighting and art can all be selected together, which matters enormously in the open-plan layouts common in newer Lakewood Ranch homes.
— Begin
Let's create a home that feels like yours.
Whether it's one room that has never worked, a newly purchased home to furnish from empty, or a more comprehensive interior design project across the whole house, we'd be glad to talk it through. Tell us about the home and how you use it, and we'll tell you honestly what we'd suggest.
Or call the studio on (941) 285-9540.