Setting Intentions Through Decor with Kim Gordon
In this episode, I sit down with Kim Gordon, a self-taught interior designer, architectural designer, and real estate developer based in Los Angeles, to talk about the step most of us skip before we ever choose a paint color: setting an intention for a space before making a single aesthetic decision.
I'm calling this idea intention before aesthetics — the practice of deciding how you want a room to feel, and which of your senses that feeling depends on, before you touch a swatch, a finish, or a piece of furniture. Kim takes this further than almost anyone I've talked to: she asks a house what it wants to be before she designs it, and she buries a small package of written intentions in the foundation of every home she builds.
This episode covers Kim's full design philosophy: how she reads a home's future occupant before they exist, how sound and other senses shape her entryways, how her own experience with illness pushed her to research the materials our homes are built from, and her prediction for how the formal dining room might make its way back into modern homes.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Intention before aesthetics: why the first design decision isn't a color
In Kim Gordon's design process, the very first step has nothing to do with paint, finishes, or furniture — it's naming an intention for how the space needs to feel and function. Most people start decorating by picking things; Kim starts by deciding what a room needs to do for the people living in it, then lets every material choice follow from that.
The paquete: a package of intentions buried in every foundation
Before construction begins on any home Kim designs and develops, she assembles a small package — fragments of materials, a written intention for the house's happiness and a smooth build — and buries it in the foundation. It's a modern version of a practice as old as building itself: people have sealed objects into walls and foundations for centuries, treating a home's beginning as more than just structural.
Design for the senses, starting at your front door
Kim is especially sensitive to sound, so she installs water features at the entrances of nearly every home she designs — not for decoration, but because the sound signals a shift to the nervous system the instant you walk in. Her advice: identify which sense is doing the most work in your daily stress, and design one small, specific intervention for it at your home's threshold.
How to design a home for how someone actually wants to live
When staging spec houses, Kim imagines a specific person who might live there — down to the books on their shelves — before she knows who's buying. She says the imagined buyer she designs for almost always turns out to be the real one. The takeaway for anyone decorating their own home: design for how you specifically want to live, not for how a generic buyer might picture it.
Wellness and the materials your home is built from
Kim's own experience with cancer, and the time she spent at home during treatment, led her to research the building materials, paints, and chemicals most people never think to question. It reframed home design for her as something with real, physical stakes — not just an aesthetic decision.
Make the kitchen feel like furniture, not a utility
In Kim's kitchens, custom cabinetry often includes small decorative feet, and open shelving creates a furniture-like presence — while a hidden pantry behind the scenes handles the actual clutter. The visible kitchen tells one story; a hidden one does the practical work.
Why the formal dining room might be coming back
Kim predicts a return to small, separate dining spaces — not because open floor plans don't work, but because intentional, screen-free meals need a room built for that specific purpose. Her broader point: as open floor plans have taken over, we've lost some of the built-in cues that used to signal this is a different kind of time.
Kim Gordon is a self-taught interior designer, architectural designer, and real estate developer based in Los Angeles. Find more guest interview episodes and full show notes at SlowStyleHome.com/podcast.
Links mentioned in the episode:
