Kathleen Monroe Design

I have worked as the general contractor on numerous projects that Kathleen Monroe has designed. These have included bathroom remodels, kitchen remodels, and general condo updates. My most recent collaboration with her involved the remodel of a condominium in a historic building in downtown San Francisco. We installed a new kitchen, powder room, and hardwood floors in addition to updating the dining room, bathroom, and master bedroom. Kathleen assisted the owner in the selection of the cabinets, flooring, furniture, lighting, and paint colors. She provided all drawings including everything required for pulling permits with the building department. She supervised the ordering of all materials in order to assure that everything was delivered in a timely manner.

I have always been impressed with Kathleen’s excellent design sense and attention to detail. She is attentive to the owner's ideas and builds off of them by not only incorporating their thoughts but also providing fresh and creative alternative solutions for them to consider. She has an excellent grasp of color that often leads the owners to select palettes they would not originally have even considered. I highly recommend working with Kathleen Monroe Design. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

Kathleen Monroe is exemplary at understanding the clients design aesthetic. She has an innate ability to weave environmental, design and budgetary needs together. She is warm, intuitive, and an amazing listener. I feel like she understands my design aesthetic better than I do myself. She has a knack for attention to details and brings to light endless potential design mistakes that most people miss. Her awareness and keen observation skills make her an exceptional designer. She has an endless grasp of different design sensibilities. She will keep you laughing and can lighten up any stressful situation. Truly a pleasure to work with. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

We had the best experience with Kathleen! We remodeled our bathrooms and curtains. Kathleen was great at helping us past major roadblocks (color indecision, patterns, tiles, and more). She really cared about our project and gave us the time we needed. Highly recommend! More...

Reviewed on Houzz

Kathleen is a consummate professional and a gifted artist. We have a very small condo in San Francisco, but she designed plans and suggested furniture that made the place seem much larger, accommodated all our needs, and had a beautiful outcome. She had inventive ideas, worked within our budget, and gave us much more than we anticipated. Her service was over and above. She even assembled furniture from Crate and Barrel and supervised the installation of window treatments, so all was set up when we arrived at our new condo. I would hire her in a heartbeat for any project—large or small. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

Kathleen designed my mother’s home in Seattle, top to bottom, and did a gorgeous job. My mother raves about her, and since she is based in San Francisco, my partner and I hired her to help us design our new penthouse apartment. She works really collaboratively, she came in with amazing ideas, and she helped us transform our space into our dream home. She’s amazing at what she does, she’s hilarious, she’s really balanced in terms of creativity, and she understands how to define and follow a budget. She’s fantastic!!! More...

Reviewed on Houzz

Kathleen has done very good work with our clients. I have seen several "before and afters". Really quality work, even with lousy contractors. Would recommend her anytime.

Reviewed on Houzz

Loved working with Kathleen, It was our first experience working with a designer. We moved from Denver to a house half the size in San Francisco and Kathleen created fun, elegant and practical solutions for all our storage needs. She has an outstanding eye for color using it to integrate our antique family pieces and Japanese wood block collection into an industrial shabby Edwardian. She also created great rooms for our kids that reflect their personalities and unique styles.

She is amazing and a lot of fun to work with. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

My experience working with Kathleen has been extremely positive, and pleasurable too.
My husband and I were putting our house on the market, time and budget were tight, and our real estate agent suggested to use the services of a trusted designer to stage the house, using mostly our furniture and decor - she recommended Kathleen. Being a non fashion-oriented, no frills kind of person, I was worried at the thought of having a designer go through my stuff to see what was "display" worthy, and rearranging everything. After my first meeting with Kathleen, I was completely reassured, and by the end of the process, I actually made a friend. She was very tactful, worked fast, adjusting to our tight schedule, bought only few cost-effective additions, and was very creative in the use of our knickknacks. The results were amazing! Many of the prospective buyers remarked on it, even seasoned real estate agents could not believe that it was not a full staging. A process that could have been really stressful was made a lot easier working with her, and we had some really good laughs as well! I highly recommend her. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

I've followed Kathleen Monroe Designs work for over a decade, and I am always highly impressed by the level of attention to detail and refined sense of color and texture. Beautiful tile work is certainly another hallmark of this firm, as is the ability to juxtapose traditional and contemporary design elements for the enhancement of each. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

We had a few unusual ideas for our home and she was excited to accommodate them, while still steering us back to reality and good taste when we found ourselves getting a little carried away. For our bathrooms in particular, her attention to detail was impeccable -- her renderings literally showed every last tile!

She also introduced us to vendors that we wouldn't have otherwise known about, or had access to, and she stood up for us at times when we might not have done so on our own (e.g., when a new bathroom mirror arrived with a small scratch.) More...

Reviewed on Houzz

Kathleen Monroe Design worked with me on an extensive remodel project. Kathleen really listens and designs within your budget and respects your design preferences so that you end up with results better than what you could have imagined yourself. She has a great sense of humor and knows how to work collaboratively with architects and contractors. She keeps communications open among all the various service providers and does a great job of project management all the way through the process. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

I did a major renovation to a 2000 square foot condo. The project had to be managed remotely so when Kathleen and I were able to be on site, we had to work quickly and make decisions sometimes over night. Most of the work and communications had to be handled by email and telephone. I did have a sense of what I thought I wanted, but Kathleen took that vision and made it far more fabulous than I could ever have imagined. We often had to work together with the contractor and other vendors to make selections and she has very good relationships with the right vendors who do what they say they are going to do and can relate to the contractors in their language. Kathleen has a great eye for color, scale and materials and proposed things within my budget and offered alternatives if they were not. Overall Kathleen has been a true collaborator and I value her expertise as well as her professionalism and desire to work with me to make what I have a beautiful, comfortable space for our future. Her creativity is inspiring and a true gift! More...

Reviewed on Houzz

I am a busy mom, and although I like to be very hands on in choosing all my interior finishes, I simply don't have the kid-free time (plus, even though I fancy myself as having decent taste - I'm not as good at it). Stepping back and seeing the big picture in your room's design, or getting outside of a design problem you're envisioning, can be hard. Kathleen cuts through it all and comes up with great ideas. She has helped me select many finishes, often giving me a brilliant short-list that I've felt happy choosing from. Her paint color choices are inspired, and for someone who wasn't sure they needed design help, I now see that I clearly do, and that although it's an added cost, the payback of a beautiful, relaxing space which I get compliments on makes it absolutely worth it. More...

Reviewed on Houzz

I have worked with Kathleen Monroe on multiple residential projects, and have been very satisfied with the results. Her expertise has been instrumental in bringing out a high sense of quality and style. Her skill with color and materials selection is excellent. She is a delight to work with, very flexible, and well worth the cost. I highly recommend Kathleen Monroe Design. More...

Reviewed on Houzz