Golden hours on the California coast. Bluebird days when the sun shines on untouched, snowy mountain slopes. McKenzy Golding’s firm, Goldenbird Design, is named for these two moments, and her mission is to design “spaces that evoke this feeling and sense of beauty in our clients’ lives.” Discover this San Francisco designer’s elevated California aesthetic, and shop her Chairish faves.
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Shop Goldenbird Design's Chairish Favorites
Shop Goldenbird Design's Chairish Favorites
What made you passionate about interior design? How’d you get your start?
My background is a winding road. I am a competitive skier, turned brand marketer, turned interior designer. I’ve been passionate about design since my family custom built my childhood home in Lake Tahoe, CA and I can still remember making trips to the Design Center with my mom and playing pretend in the showrooms. It wasn’t until my husband and I purchased our first home – a true fixer upper – that I really considered interior design as a career and began to imagine Goldenbird Design.
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The studio is named after two of my favorite California moments that give me a feeling of calm and
inspiration unlike any other: golden hour on the coast, when the light shimmers across the Pacific Ocean, and a bluebird powder day in the mountains, when the sun first shines on a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Designing spaces that evoke this feeling and sense of beauty in our clients’ lives is our purpose, and it’s a responsibility that I personally take great pride in.
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What do you find most compelling about Chairish?
What is that saying? Don’t let the destination get in the way of the journey. You can start with one specific piece in mind, and before you know it, two hours have gone by and you’ve discovered something totally new and unexpected. I love that feeling of landing on a project-making piece that just feels so right you actually proclaim out loud (to yourself, at your computer) “that’s it!”. It’s a feeling that happens quite a lot on when you allow the journey to unfold on Chairish.
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How does sustainability factor into your design choices and love of vintage?
To me, vintage is the antithesis of “fast fashion.” It’s become too easy to get pieces that are fast, affordable and trendy. And that can be appealing for a lot of clients. I feel a responsibility to educate clients on the downstream impacts of making a “fast fashion” decision. Not only are there the immediate production and shipping and packaging implications to consider, but – and this is the part that really gets me – what happens to that piece in 2 years when it is beat up and you tire of it? Vintage has a staying power to it that’s inherently sustainable – preserving, repairing and lending a new story to a special something. I really love that.
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What are three of your favorite pieces on Chairish now?
I’m loving this English Roll Arm Chair swathed in a beautiful ginger wool. It’s such an inviting and cozy, yet totally polished accent chair for a living room. I’m always drawn to a good Japanese Tansu Chest. They are such striking and functional pieces. I think a sculptural lounge is always an interesting element to consider for a living or bedroom space. The combination of polished chrome and patinaed leather in this Grosshopper Chair is particularly stunning.
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Favorite way to create a statement-making moment in a room?
While there is always an element that we anchor our design around (an oceanic limewash wall, a tapestry-inspired drapery), our design process isn’t centered around statement-making moments. Instead, we are all about layering color, texture and pattern in a space. We live for the careful curation that brings many different elements together in a unique way. To us, this is what results in a space that feels authentic to our clients and a home’s surrounding environment. The multiple layers and the fresh way that different pieces interact and play off of each other is the true statement in our book. It is what makes a space just feel good.
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Do you have any go-to color palettes and color combos?
We incorporate a range of color in our projects. The throughline is that our color palettes have an earthiness to them. Our selections are always grounded in and inspired by nature – whether that be the Sonoma Coast or the English Countryside. There’s a surprisingly unending color palette in nature, so we don’t often find ourselves looking to the same palette from project to project. That said, I find myself gravitating towards buttery yellows at the moment. And Farrow & Ball’s London Clay – a rich, earthy brown – is a perennial favorite.
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What advice do you have for first-time clients to make their space truly personal?
In our onboarding process, we always ask our clients about their favorite restaurants, hotels, places to travel and even articles of clothing. It may seem random, but really taking the time to reflect on the places and pieces you choose to surround yourself with outside of the home can give you a lot of clarity among the noise. I’d encourage you to focus on procuring items that bring you joy locally and that catch your eye during your travels. You can build off of these one-of-a-kind pieces to curate a space that is uniquely yours and that has great staying power.
Lead Image: Interior by Goldenbird Design, Photography by Jessica Burke.
