Luxury Interior Designer in Washington, DC
Elan Design provides luxury residential interior design in Washington, DC, led by Founder and Principal Designer Eryn Oruncak, SIDC, ASID. Based just outside the city in Great Falls, Virginia, our firm creates highly personal interiors shaped by thoughtful design, fine art, materiality, light, and the principles of neuroaesthetics.
Washington offers a very different residential design environment from the surrounding suburbs. Historic rowhouses, elegant townhomes, apartments, penthouses, condominiums, and detached residences coexist within neighborhoods whose architecture and character can change dramatically within only a few blocks.
Our goal is to respect that setting while creating a home that works beautifully for the people living there.
Interior Design for the Way Washington Lives
Washington is more than a center of government. It is a city of distinct neighborhoods, each with its own architectural, cultural, and residential character. Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Capitol Hill, Kalorama, Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, and other neighborhoods offer very different experiences of city living. The people living in those homes may work in law, diplomacy, government, business, technology, medicine, media, nonprofits, academia, or international organizations.
Their homes often need to provide a counterpoint to demanding professional lives while still supporting entertaining, family, work, travel, and city living. That requires more than making a room look polished. It requires understanding how limited space, architecture, storage, light, circulation, artwork, and everyday routines interact.
Historic Architecture Meets Contemporary Life
Washington's residential architecture is one of the things that makes designing here particularly interesting.
Historic rowhouses remain an important part of the city's identity, while townhouses, apartments, converted buildings, contemporary condominiums, and larger residences create a much broader architectural mix.
Older homes also create opportunities and constraints.
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Rooms may be narrower.
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Natural light may behave very differently from floor to floor.
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Original moldings, fireplaces, staircases, flooring, and architectural details may deserve preservation.
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Storage may be limited.
A traditional floor plan may need to support a much more contemporary way of living. Successful interior design has to find the balance between respecting the architecture and allowing the home to evolve.
Art, Culture and an International Perspective
Fine art has a particularly natural place in Washington interiors. The city is surrounded by museums, galleries, historic collections, embassies, international institutions, and residents whose lives and travels may span many countries and cultures. Washington has more than 175 embassies, with especially strong concentrations around Embassy Row and Upper Northwest, contributing to the city's unusually international character.
For Eryn, who is both an interior designer and practicing fine artist, artwork is not simply something added after the room is complete. We may work with pieces clients already own, artwork collected while traveling, inherited works, new acquisitions, or private commissions created specifically for the home. The art becomes part of the interior's composition and personal story.
Designing a Home Within the City
One of the pleasures of living in Washington is the relationship between home and everything immediately outside it.
Restaurants, theaters, parks, historic architecture, and neighborhood life can all be part of the daily experience. The interior should complement that life rather than compete with it.
For some clients, that means creating a calm retreat. For others, it means a sophisticated environment for entertaining. For a family, it may require extracting as much flexibility and storage as possible from an urban footprint.
For an art collector or frequent traveler, the home may become the place where experiences and objects gathered over many years finally come together.
There is no single Washington interior, and there should not be.
Work With a Washington, DC Interior Designer
If you are searching for an interior designer in Washington, DC, Elan Design brings together luxury residential design, fine art, and neuroaesthetics with a highly personal approach to the way each client lives.
We understand that designing in Washington may mean working with historic architecture, maximizing an urban footprint, incorporating significant art, balancing traditional and contemporary elements, or creating a private environment within a very public city.
Whatever the architecture, the finished home should feel thoughtful, cohesive, personal, and unmistakably yours.