Welcome to the Shine Design Journal
Every beautiful space starts with a spark—an idea, a material, a story worth telling.
This is where we share those stories—from design inspiration and behind-the-scenes moments to project reveals and the trends we’re loving.
We’re so glad you’re here. Whether you're a longtime client or just getting to know Shine, we hope these glimpses into our world leave you inspired.
Arkansas Times | June 2021
The Arkansas Times explores the Grumpy Rabbit in June 2021
At Home in Arkansas | August 2020
The August 2020 edition of At Home in Arkansas featured the South Central ASID Chapter’s Excellence in Design Gold Award Winners
Imperial Valley Kitchen Renovation
This family was spending more and more time at home together cooking their meals.
They quickly realized that there wasn’t adequate storage space - for food or kitchen necessities. Storage was being split between closets and the kitchen cabinets weren’t wide enough to accommodate normal sized plates and kitchenware - a common problem we’ve found with cabinets built in the 80’s.
Beechfield Renovation
Unlike the 90’s clothing fashion trends that keep popping up, it is coming to pass that houses built in the 1990’s are due for some serious upgrades. Our sweet friends came to us (after completing their super-fun Mudroom updatel) when they decided they wanted to get into remodeling their kitchen.
Center Street Guest House {Living Room}
The Center Street Guest House had been used as overflow student housing for many years, but our client had something a little different in mind when they approached us about this project. The goal was to update the home in a way that would bring new life and purpose to the property as a short-term guest house for guest lecturers, professors, and other campus guests.
The house in the state we were presented was drab and dark, but still fair condition. A perfect candidate for investing time and resources in. One of the challenges was that our budget included everything to finish out — all the way down to dishes and linens. While we looked to short-term rentals for inspiration, we knew the durability needed to be in line with a hospitality environment to make maintenance in line with being part of the University’s hotel system. Check out these blog posts on the Living Room and Kitchen to see some of the before pictures and our design process.
Center Street Guest House {Kitchen}
One of our project opportunities {Center St. Guest House} was located on the campus of Harding University - a mid-century home from the 1960's that was organized with individual rooms for very specific purposes. There was no room that functioned for more than one purpose. There was a formal sitting room, the formal dining room, the living room, kitchen, bedrooms, and bathrooms. We are not ones to flippantly say "let's take down this wall, this wall, and this wall" to create an open concept house because we strongly believe there are thoughtful ways to open up the space.
Imperial Valley Kitchen {design process}
We recently shared an overview of the details of this kitchen renovation. We are thrilled at how each element came together to create a space for this family to utilize, entertain, and feel like their home is a representation of themselves. Now, you know we like the fine details - let’s take a look together at how we used our tried and true design process for this family!
Marbais Place Refresh + Renovation
Shine had the opportunity to dream big with a client on the #MarbaisPlaceRefresh project over how to refresh their living space so that it represented their style and personality - light and airy, inviting and comfortable. There were elements of the spaces that carried too much visual weight - a large dark island, overstuffed brown leather upholstery, along with dark table furnishings. The before and after photos are fun to compare.
Short Term Vacation Rental: The Dogwood House
how do you make something both your own & open your home to guests?
The answer for this project was to approach it with the thought of hospitality and creating an extension of the open home that exemplifies this family. This vacation rental was a fun project taken on in the Fall of last year…the goal was to create an approachable short-term rental property that would also feel like home to the owners when using the property for personal stays and family visits.
Project Profile: Blue Water Barber Shop
When Cody approached Shine about some finishing touches to his barber shop concept, Blue Water, we were excited to help him with a few wrap up items to help increase the functionality and get the project across the finish line. Located in the new Pettaway Square development, we love the momentum behind this project and were grateful to be a small part of the process.
Marbais Place {fireplace & powder bath}
This family took the “go big or go home” approach to creating a focal wall in their living room. Shine designed a custom solution that involved many skilled trades to create a beautiful fireplace, additional seating, and a new location for their new TV.
Healthy Home: An Inviting Kitchen
The design for this kitchen is based on a clean traditional look with old-world touches.
Bringing the Outside In
Indoor air quality is about more than lots of windows! We knew in the Falstone New Construction project that we would have to avoid artificial plants. While we love a good faux floral arrangement, most are created by dipping the silk or fabric into latex, and in a latex-free home, this was a major red flag item.
Combined with talking to our local nurseries and researching, we set out to find the following plants to add greenery, bring nature indoors, and provide air purifying qualities.
Getting Started on Your Healthy Home
When getting started on your healthy home, there are a lot of things to consider. It takes careful research from reputable sources to help establish your goals for your healthy home (and patience to filter through the internet noise!) Whether you are trying to avoid allergens or chemicals or if you would like to incorporate other wellness features in your home, your design team can help you establish these goals.
What is a Shine Healthy Home?
What is a Shine Healthy Home? Introducing principles demonstrated in the #FalstoneNewBuild project. In this project, we set on a task to walk through their building process from foundation to finish as their interiors team. We built on many foundations learned in design school and through LEED and other design education regarding health and wellness in our home. It was a learning journey for each of us on the team and has inspired us to go deeper and fully develop the Shine Healthy Home concept.
2021 South Central ASID Award-Winning Projects
Project Award Winners for South Central ASID 2021 Excellence in Design Competition.
the Grumpy Rabbit {design process}
There is beauty and joy to be found in each step and it is exciting to us to reflect on the process that got us to the completed project. We love to share a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the finished product!
We hope that you’ve made the trip out to see the Grumpy Rabbit in person! The food is fabulous, the hospitality amazing and we’re pretty keen on the atmosphere, too!
the Grumpy Rabbit {before}
Not only were our clients looking to renovate the space, but they were also looking to develop a full-fledged restaurant concept that would infuse life, color, and bring really (really!) amazing food to Lonoke’s downtown.
The 5,000 sf building had experienced its share of layers of years of different uses— but behind the drop-down ceilings, vinyl floor coverings, and partitions, was a building waiting to shine.
Prelude to a kitchen
Unlike the 90’s clothing fashion trends that keep popping up, it is coming to pass that houses built in the 1990’s are due for some serious upgrades. Our sweet friends came to us (after completing their super-fun Mudroom updatel) when they decided they wanted to get into remodeling their kitchen.
