An interview with Interior Designer Noz Nozawa

Earlier this year we got the opportunity to talk with Noz Nozawa, a talent and established interior designer, while she headed to her house in Lake Tahoe, also known as ‘Cabin One.’

Noz founded Noz Design to pursue her lifelong passion for interior design, following a successful career in marketing and technology. She has earned numerous awards, including a spot on the Luxe Gold List (2024) and recognition as one of Architectural Digest’s New American Voices (2020), as well as being featured in Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, and Luxe.

Chez Noz, the designer’s personal residence located in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, serves as a constantly evolving showcase of her innovative ideas. Since 2010, Noz has been using her condo as a test kitchen for her creative design concepts.

In her latest project, Noz collaborated with renowned decorative artist Caroline Lizarraga to create a custom Conspicuous Camo mural for the main room walls. Additionally, she worked with Isa Beniston, the artist and creator behind Gentle Thrills, to design bespoke drapery panels inspired by cartoon tapestries. Included in her impressive portfolio are various commercial projects, such as Hilda and Jesse, a charming eatery, as well as Fiat Lux, a sophisticated jewellery shop.

Among her fabulous work, is a project called ‘The Rainbow House’, which showcases a stunning hot pink living room featuring our Wave Rug, which you can see down below. This area rug would prove to be the perfect fit for the colourful and vibrant ‘Rainbow House’, as the design displayed 43 rich colours and bold graphic shapes. The Wave rug was a collaboration between Sonya Winner and New York illustrator Jade Purple Brown, who were both thrilled to see it featured in such an exciting project by Noz Design.

We are now excited to share the conversation we had with Noz, exploring her sources of inspiration, previous projects and all things interior design!

The Wave Rug by Sonya Winner and Jade Purple Brown

How did you suddenly decide to take the leap from working in tech to working in interiors ten years ago? Was there a particular light bulb moment?

I wanted to do this for years, but I was very chicken about it! I’ve wanted to be in this world my whole life. I remember being five or six and thumbing through the pictures of decor books at the bookstore rather than being in the children’s section like a normal kid.

However, I was discouraged from interior design, which is pretty typical for Asian kids, so I went into marketing. I hoped that I could be happy in marketing because it’s creative enough-ish. Then, I went into tech marketing because here in San Francisco it’s an industry with big opportunities and a means of staying employed and having a salary as well as being sort of entrepreneurial. Some bits of the tech industry operated in a way that I felt aligned with running my own business, but without me having to actually take any of that risk.

So no, there wasn’t a particular lightbulb moment, it was just me getting worn down over time. Working in tech had me travelling constantly, which is ironic now because look at my life now. But it was a more exhausting form of travel, and there wasn’t a lot of room for my specific ideas.

My last tech job was at Houzz. This was a deliberate decision as it got me as close to the interiors industry as I could get, without leaving my job. There I met people who had been accountants, doctors, CEOs, and lawyers, who were now landscape architects, contractors and interior designers. I realised that you could change your career and it doesn’t have to be catastrophic. It was really exciting for me to see all of that. Houzz was a great experience in terms of marketing because my job was to help teach business owners how to use house, so I knew how to use Houzz quite well to start marketing myself as an Interior Designer! Beyond this, I experienced the same struggle that everybody else goes through when trying to figure out how to have a business in this world. Houzz is a multi-thousand-employee business now, but I was actually the 35th employee back in 2012, so we were tiny back then. And even still, nothing prepares you for how to build your own brand and how to get people to take you seriously. I really thought that Houzz was going to have prepared me for this leap, but it did not. So, it was definitely extremely humbling.

However, a lot of my initial clients came from Houzz. They were mostly smaller projects, so it was very slow going. I think I had six clients the first year which were jobs like picking a few things or giving me one room to work on. So it was very slow for the first several years. But I guess this was all growing pains. When you’re new to something and you don’t have a lot of work yet, the people who call you are smaller opportunities. The scope is smaller, the budget is usually smaller. And so, these days, things are much easier in terms of people’s readiness to have a design shown to them. And then they buy the design.

How do you want people to feel in their homes?

I want them to see themselves. I want them to come in every day and just feel like this home is they are , it’s how they live, it’s what brings them joy, it’s what makes them feel relaxed and energised. I want people to feel that they are part of their home as it’s an entire ecosystem. It was made for them, so this is the environment where they get to truly be exactly who they are in all their various forms, whether they’re hungover, tired, grumpy, or overjoyed and celebrating. I want them to be able to just fully occupy each of those feelings wherever they are. I also want them to feel like their home helps take care of them on all levels – spiritually, cosmically, but also very practically and functionally. As much as I am very sort of “Joie de Vivre” and free, and extemporaneous in my use of colour, I’m actually a very technical and practical designer. So, nothing makes me happier than for a client to tell me that everything has a home in their kitchen, that it’s intuitive, and they don’t knock into stuff or get their jeans stuck on things I chose for them because I considered where their hips are in relation to their drawers and things. I think a lot of these details are what allow a client to feel like they belong in their house and that their home is taking care of them. So, that’s the greatest hope, and if we can get even 90 percent of the way there, I’m very, very proud.

People’s homes are like the clothes they wear, they choose certain clothes to express their personality and moods, but being  practical is the foundation of it as well. Fashion and interiors are so relatable in that regard. The thing that’s a bit different when it comes to our homes is that you don’t need to prove anything to anyone in your home. Every day you have to dress yourself to go out into the world, but the home that you create for yourself (or that a designer helps you create) is the thing that you come back to. It’s just for you and the people you choose to share it with, you don’t have to show anyone. If you want it out in the world, you can have it photographed. If you want to throw a party, host friends, or host family over the holidays, that’s up to you. But you don’t have to show anyone. The funny thing is when we have these homes photographed, of course, they’re so beautiful. But the next time I visit the clients have decorated it with their stuff. There are pictures all over the wall. It’s really joyful to see. For example, in the Rainbow House there’s artwork all over the place now that they’ve moved in. And every time I’m there, the dining table is completely different because they’ve got a different kid’s birthday or they’re hosting something. That’s really a reward for me. I ask a lot of clients if I can feature their belongings and their sentimentality in my portfolio photos. I really enjoy that part of the design process and the photography process. It’s less about my ego and more about how my design and their lives come together because that is really the nature of what we do.

Noz and her Riviere Chandelier in collaboration with Hudson Valley Lighting Group

Do you have a favourite colour?

No. I have a favourite colour every day, and it’s different from week to week. I do have one enduring colour combination that I love so much – turquoise and tomato red. It’s because one of my core memories as a little kid was the hot and cold water dispenser at my dad’s office. I loved that thing so much. It had a tomato red top and it was a very light turquoise blue. It wasn’t cobalt. It wasn’t sky blue. And those colours together are appealing, it’s colour theory. Those two colours are opposite one another on the wheel

You see colour theory appears in my work, like a deep peacock with a burnt orange. Even in Rainbow House, there’s an indigo-blue dining room with tomato-red chairs. So, for clients, I’ll adapt that in different ways, but my own personal enduring favourite is specifically turquoise blue and tomato red.

Recently I’ve been entering a beige period. My vision of beige is giving me a lot of feelings. So, the answer is I do have a favourite colour, but I just don’t know what it is as it truly changes all the time.

Do you have any favourite materials to use?

I don’t think I have any favourite materials. I do generally have a hard time with very scratchy textiles that go on sofas, so I’m always doing field tests. If it’s a medium dislike, I’ll still show the client and ask them to see if they can handle it. But if I personally don’t like it at all, I just won’t show the client.

With rugs, I prefer wool. My personal favourite is a tufted or a knotted wool rug when it comes to floor covering. They’re so practical. I love how easy they are to keep clean, they’re easy to vacuum, they’re durable, the colour lasts and they’re versatile.

Noz and her Daith Chandelier in collaboration with Hudson Valley Lighting Group

What’s been your favourite space to design? Is that the Rainbow House or is it other ones?

I mean, it’s one of those ‘I love all my children’ situations.

The Rainbow House was very easy to design actually, which is funny because it’s one of my more wild and out-there projects. This is because I’d known the client for quite some time casually, and their direction was so open, and the house was so beautiful, and they already are such colourful people who live with such authenticity.

There was such an alignment between who they are as people and family, and what they wanted from the aesthetics of their house, so there was such an easy way of translating that into the interior space design. It was an easy project, not that it was effortless, but certainly there just felt like such a pull to all the rooms and the ways that we wanted to design them. There was also such an easiness with their feedback – what they wanted to say yes to and the things that they wanted to change. So, for how wild a project it was, it was an easy one.

But, no I don’t have a favourite project because I’m fond of all of my projects. It’s just when there’s alignment like this one, those are the ones that really are my favourites. And, also when what I designed for my clients is so much like who they are, and they love it. That makes me really happy. Most of my projects are like this in that I don’t have clients who come to me asking for somebody else’s design, or somebody else’s house that they saw and liked. Instead, they’re like, what are you going to design that looks like me? What is my story through your eyes? That’s really cool, and I’m really lucky that this is often what we’re asked to do.

Learn about the difference between Hand Tufted and Hand Knotted Rugs here.

In the Rainbow House, what inspiration did you have for each room with the different colour themes?

I knew I wanted most of the foyer to be neutral because it was the entry and the artery through the rest of the house. I wanted it to be colour-contained so that it was mostly white walls with gold line work on them that would lead into the other rooms which each have their own saturation levels. And, we had a wild rainbow runner rug coming down the stairs which puddles into the indigo dining room.

I specifically chose soft indigo and blue because in the clients’ old home, the only home their kids had known, the dining room had an indigo blue wall area and a big painting. I wanted the new house’s dining space to be directly inspired by their old dining room.

The kitchen was a very cosmetic remodel. Before, it was just a boring and lifeless, but otherwise functional kitchen. So that’s why I had the idea to colour block the kitchen. I specifically chose those colours because they felt like a really vibrant and very happy way to do the kitchen.

For the living room, I had actually suggested hot pink long before the barbie movie, which is quite funny but that was a really great conversation, and the client was super down for it.

Apart from the rainbow runner, in every version of a rainbow I’ve ever done, one of the colours is actually removed. So, in the kitchen, there’s no green because I thought that would look messy, and in the living room yellow is missing and orange is repeated twice to match the sofa and the rug.

As soon as there’s a complete rainbow in any room, I feel like the rainbow starts to get too literal and it becomes very childlike in a way that is specifically best in a child’s room. So we designed the room to have sophistication in it. The wave rug was perfect because I loved that your take on a rainbow in the rug was kind of similar in that regard. And, the shape of it with the wave in the window was just perfect.

You can see photos of all these rooms here on Noz’s Website!

Do you have some favorite designers you worked with on the Rainbow House project?

I’ll shout out Caroline Lizarraga, since she’s kind of a co-conspirator and a collaborator. We do a lot of our decorative wall finishes together.

The Wave Rug by Sonya Winner and Jade Purple Brown

We extend a heartfelt thank you to Noz for taking the time to speak with us. Your insights have provided a captivating glimpse into the world of interior design, showcasing your passion and innovation. Your unique perspective and creative approach have truly inspired us. We eagerly look forward to the possibility of collaborating with you again in the future!

You can explore all of Noz’s incredible projects on her website: Noz Design.