An unexpected stunner, “very pale mint feels crisp and refreshing in any space,” says Stephanie Brown. “Its cool temperature helps the ceiling appear lighter and higher.” If you’re hesitant to introduce color but want to move beyond all-white, this shade is the perfect middle ground. Its whisper of color brightens a room without overwhelming it and brings a subtle, breath-of-fresh-air feeling the moment you walk in.

British-born designer Sam Donnelly of L.A. design firm Mercantile and Merchant is redefining what “family-ready” looks like. Her latest project—a fully gut-renovated five-bedroom home in Studio City for two young creatives expecting their first child—strikes the perfect balance between elevated and totally livable.

An unexpected stunner, “very pale mint feels crisp and refreshing in any space,” says Stephanie Brown. “Its cool temperature helps the ceiling appear lighter and higher.” If you’re hesitant to introduce color but want to move beyond all-white, this shade is the perfect middle ground. Its whisper of color brightens a room without overwhelming it and brings a subtle, breath-of-fresh-air feeling the moment you walk in.

Do you know when you talk to someone for the first time and they completely understand what you do, and you understand what they want? It was such a great synergy. My clients loved the fact that I’m very much into color. They wanted the antithesis of the modern farmhouse. They didn’t want white walls and cold spaces with huge volumes. I’m all about the house being easy to live in: We must live in [our residences] in a modern way, but they shouldn’t be cold, clinical, and miss all the charm and whimsy of traditional homes. I always work with Ryan Perella, who is a dear friend, on architecture. When we landed on that design, it was important to me not to have a garage. In fact, there’s no garage in the whole project. It was a better use of space to have a killer ADU and a really great house.

Interior designer Sam Donnelly of Merchant & Mercantile wanted to build a home in Studio City, California that was different from the McMansions and cookie-cutter contemporary and cold homes that can be found all over Los Angeles.

Do you know when you talk to someone for the first time and they completely understand what you do, and you understand what they want? It was such a great synergy. My clients loved the fact that I’m very much into color. They wanted the antithesis of the modern farmhouse. They didn’t want white walls and cold spaces with huge volumes. I’m all about the house being easy to live in: We must live in [our residences] in a modern way, but they shouldn’t be cold, clinical, and miss all the charm and whimsy of traditional homes. I always work with Ryan Perella, who is a dear friend, on architecture. When we landed on that design, it was important to me not to have a garage. In fact, there’s no garage in the whole project. It was a better use of space to have a killer ADU and a really great house.

These days, minimalism is waning and more and more interior designers are going bold with color, especially in kitchens. They’re trading all-white kitchens for personality-packed design schemes filled with moody tones and vivid hues that command attention.

While we all love to look at beautiful, inspiring, colorful rooms, the feedback we get most is that y’all want to live in a calm, neutral home. And because we want to both introduce you to new ideas, styles, etc., we also want to help you get the home you want. So when I was sent this beautiful home, designed by Sam Donnelly of Mercantile & Merchant, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to talk about great ideas to make a neutral home feel warm and inviting. Let’s dive right on in.

European homes always inspire me to lean into more color, comfort, and truly authentic pieces (one of my longtime favorite magazines is the UK-based Livingetc). So when I came across the latest project by British-born designer Sam Donnelly of L.A. design firm Mercantile and Merchant, I was instantly smitten.

America's Got Talent showrunner and producer Sam Donnelly welcomes us inside the Studio City home she built during the pandemic. Inspired by her English roots and California lifestyle, Sam transformed a modest property into a warm, collected retreat filled with estate-sale treasures, meaningful artwork, vintage furniture, and personal mementos gathered over a lifetime.

Planning your kitchen design is a careful balancing act between aesthetics and function, and no time is this clearer than when deciding the placement and positioning of your kitchen appliances. It's a tricky line to walk, and can quickly result in one of these common appliance positioning mistakes.

Mercantile and Merchant is grounded in Sam's belief that people want to buy and create new homes with old souls. People want thoughtful and carefully-curated homes. Ones built with the utmost care, craftsmanship, and quality materials. At Mercantile and Merchant, they firmly believe that just because a home is a new build, that doesn't mean it has to be bland and boring. Every part of a Mercantile and Merchant home is created by thoughtful and purposeful design, coupled with plenty of modern English flair.

There's certain things you expect from a new home, especially one built by a developer and not for an individual client. The modern approach to these builds isn't void of character, as such, given architectural features can be a big selling point — but you'll often find that they're "inoffensive" in style, and often channeling one particular style of architecture and design.

“The Kraft Avenue project was born out of a joint desire to bring development houses to the marketplace that are the antithesis of the bland ‘modern farmhouse’ trend that has dominated the LA Valley for so many years,” says Sam Donnelly, founder and principal at Mercantile and Merchant about this spec home she designed in collaboration with Perella Architecture. The two firms started the project over their shared goal to develop renovated and new turn-key Southern California properties with old soul. “For many neighborhoods the sale of a smaller traditional home brought with it a sense of loss as the community felt the newer construction homes were too often eroding the character of the street.”

We met with Sam in her luminous Southern California home designed to blur the lines between indoor and outdoor living. Her elevated yet down-to-earth sense of style and use of materials and color palettes found in nature make her home an extension of the beautiful California landscapes just outside her windows. When designing her home, she prioritized outdoor enjoyment and relaxation with an open floor plan where each space flows comfortably into the next for easy living and plenty of natural light.

When Sam Donnelly and her family moved from the U.K. to Los Angeles nine years ago, they did what most other English transplants do: got a house in the hills. “It was tough, because I didn’t know L.A. I’d only been here one time on vacation when I was really young,” says Donnelly, a former executive producer on Britain’s Got Talent, now an executive producer on America’s Got Talent. “I just landed and rented a house in Laurel Canyon.” While Donnelly considers their former Spanish-style abode “a dream,” it was proving to be an impractical one as her then 5-year-old son grew older. The rolling landscape and winding streets weren’t made for riding a bike to a friend’s place. So in 2019, Donnelly made the decision to move down to flatter ground.