Secret Base Design

Laura is a pleasure to work with and her knowledge, skill, and cool headedness guided us through a major remodel. We love our home, and credit Laura with creating our dream house! Our family relocated from Southern California to Upstate New York in the summer of 2015. Based on the available housing stock, we made the decision to purchase a 1960s ranch house situated on a beautiful piece of property with the intention of a major remodel. Our thinking was that buying a house with a simple floor plan would allow us a lot of flexibility to add on. In seeking out an architect to design our remodel, we were hoping to find someone who had experience with environmentally friendly building materials, a modern aesthetic, and who was local. Laura checked all these boxes! In our initial meeting with Laura we spent time talking broadly about what we wanted for our "dream house" and our budget. Laura then asked us to start saving pictures on Houzz so she could get a good idea of our design aesthetic. The next phase involved meeting with Laura at the house and walking through the space together and sharing ideas. She took lots of measurements and then, based our on discussion, she created a set of drawings. The drawing phase was iterative, meaning that we went back and forth in person and over email as we made comments and suggestions for changes, which she then incorporated into the design. For several spaces, she gave us two different design options, one which we had requested, and the other a design of her making. This allowed us to compare and contrast options. Once the design was finalized, Laura worked directly with the contractor and the town permitting office to facilitate construction. This was a huge project, one which involved a two-story addition and the remodeling of the entire interior space of the home (3 bathrooms, a new kitchen, moving numerous walls, and all new windows). When there were issues, she was readily available to be on site and worked efficiently and decisively to solve problems. In fact, I often told Laura that her presence on the job lowered my blood pressure -- she doesn't get ruffled by problems or personalities and is a great negotiator, especially between spouses! After construction was finished, I hired Laura to provide interior design consulting. She was a huge help when it came to choosing flooring material, paint colors, creating custom mosaic tile patterns and coordinating multiple materials in the kitchen and bathrooms. She was always available to look at materials in person or pictures over email and was a guiding hand when I felt overwhelmed by decisions. Since the house has been completed we have been pinching ourselves over how lucky we are to live in this beautiful home. We love having people over, as the space is great for entertaining, and the house always receives lots of compliments. Thank you, Laura, for everything!

I am not a writer and I fear I will not articulate how much my husband and I love Laura’s incredible work For one, Laura’s work ethic is solid: she will work till she gets it Right! No worries about that. As for Lauras creativity.... It’s outstanding the way she thinks about the environment and materials and resources. She’s absolutely the real deal!!! We love our straw bale house! Thank you Laura!

Upon purchasing a home built in the era of the 1960’s, we consulted with and hired Laura Intscher from Secret Based Design to reconfigure the space of the home which was very dated & closed off with all of the rooms separated by walls. The space needed special attention in light of the prior construction with load bearing walls which needed to be opened up for our floor plan desires. Laura was able to understand our desires and offer us a design that allowed for the rooms to be opened up, giving us a room to room flow with a more spacious desired floor plan which is exactly what we were looking for. With Laura, it was easy to communicate our wishes. Her knowledge and understanding of modern design layout and the challenges we were facing with building construction in general, allowed her to design and offer a concept that perfectly fit our wants and needs. In addition, Laura’s past experience and professional relationship with the surrounding Township’s building code department’s requirements, notwithstanding Laura’s knowledge of the processes involved was extremely helpful in obtaining permits and occupancy certificates. We consulted with Laura from start to finish on our project, including colors, furniture placement and fixtures. We would hire Laura again and have highly recommend her to our friends and family.