Some design projects are a single room. This one has been a decade in the making.
As a luxury interior designer in Dallas, Baker Design Group has had the privilege of walking alongside one family for more than ten years. The very first space we ever designed for them was a little girl’s bedroom. That little girl, Ava, just left for college. So this year, we came full circle: we packed up, flew to Palm Beach, and designed her dorm.
Between those two rooms is a story we love telling, because it is really the story of how we work. Not one project at a time, but one relationship at a time. And at the center of it, from the very first room to the most recent, is our lead designer, Lisa Floyd.
Designing for Her Through the Years
More than ten years ago, Baker Design Group began designing for Ava’s family, creating a home that reflected the way they lived, gathered and grew together. As part of that residential interior design project, our team also had the opportunity to create Ava’s childhood bedroom, a space designed especially for her at that stage of her life.
Over the years, our relationship with the family continued, and so did the opportunity to design spaces that evolved alongside them. As Ava grew, her personal style grew with her. Each new space reflected a different chapter while still carrying the thoughtful, personal approach that comes from truly knowing a client and their family.
That history is what made this latest project so meaningful. More than a decade after designing Ava’s childhood spaces within her family home, the Baker Design Group team was invited to be part of another milestone, this time traveling from Dallas to Palm Beach to create a college dorm room design for her next chapter.
A Decade of Trust: What a Long-Term Design Relationship Looks Like
People often think of interior design as a one-time event: you hire a firm, you finish a room, you move on. Some of our favorite work looks nothing like that.
When you work with a full service interior design firm over many years, something different happens. We learn a family’s taste as it evolves. We design for real life, not for a single photo. And we become the firm they call back, not because they have to, but because we already know them.
Ava’s family is the clearest example we have. Lisa Floyd has designed a series of rooms for Ava as she grew up, each one a snapshot of who she was becoming. That kind of continuity is rare, and it is only possible when trust is built one room at a time. It is also why, when the family needed a dorm designed nearly a thousand miles away at Palm Beach Atlantic University, there was never a question of who they would call. They called BDG, and we traveled to Florida to make it happen.
"Ten years ago, I had the joy of designing Ava’s ‘big girl’ room at just eight years old. Now, as we just wrapped up her dorm room design and install, it feels like the sweetest full-circle moment. What a privilege it is to be entrusted with the spaces that mark life’s milestones, and even more special to watch the little girl who loved her room so wholeheartedly grow into an incredible young woman with an even bigger heart of gratitude."
The Dorm Reveal: Designing the Next Chapter in Palm Beach
Designing a college dorm is a different kind of challenge, and we loved every part of it. A dorm has real constraints: it is small, it is temporary, it comes with rules, and everything has to come back out at the end of the year. The goal was to work within all of that and still create a space that felt unmistakably like Ava.
So we made the trip to Palm Beach Atlantic University and got to work. We brought the same eye for warm, layered, personal design that shaped every room before it, and translated it to dorm scale: comfortable, functional, and styled down to the details, without a single thing feeling like an afterthought. The through-line was impossible to miss. The little girl whose Dallas bedroom we designed a decade ago now had a college space that felt just as intentional, just as her.
For Lisa, getting to reveal this room to Ava was a full-circle moment years in the making.
Full Circle
Ten years and a thousand miles apart, two rooms tell one story. A little girl’s bedroom in Dallas. A college dorm in Palm Beach. The same designer, the same care, the same family who has trusted us through all of it.
This is what high end residential interior design in Dallas looks like when it is built on relationships instead of transactions. We do not just finish rooms. We stay. And we cannot wait to see what chapter Ava writes next, because we have a feeling we will be helping design the room for it.
Watch the video below to see Ava’s room reveals from 2016 to 2026.
Looking for a luxury interior designer in Dallas who will grow with you, room by room and chapter by chapter? That is exactly the kind of work we love most. Let’s start a conversation about your space.
w: https://baker-designgroup.com | p: 972.417.3800 | e: info@baker-designgroup.com