The inside story
about cornice
Cornice is a Chicago interior design studio for homes with character and people ready to make them their own.
Chicago has taught us to look twice at what’s already there.
A Chicago home rarely arrives as a blank slate. Its rooms have been added to, divided up and lived in by people with different ideas of what home should be. We find that history interesting, but we’re just as interested in what its next occupants need.
At Cornice, we look closely at the way a home is used before deciding what to change. A room may need a different layout. An old detail may deserve a place in the new design. Sometimes the most useful thing we bring is a fresh way of seeing a space you’ve walked through every day.
Meet Mara Ellis
Founder & principal designer
Mara founded Cornice around a question she kept returning to: why should a home with so much character feel difficult to live in?
Working in Chicago, she saw how easily a house could be admired for its architecture while the people inside it worked around rooms that no longer suited them. She wanted to build a studio that could appreciate both: the qualities that give a place its identity and the ordinary demands of life happening there now.
Today, Mara leads the creative direction of every Cornice project. She’s known for noticing the overlooked room, questioning a layout everyone has accepted, and knowing when one unexpected piece will make everything around it feel more personal. Her favourite part is hearing a client describe how they actually live. That’s usually where the best ideas begin.
The people behind the work
Our team brings a range of perspectives to the table, but we work closely enough that every decision feels connected. You’ll get to know the people designing your home and have room to tell us when something doesn’t feel like you.
Nina Park
Senior Interior Designer
Nina has a knack for making ambitious ideas work in real life. She shapes the layouts and finishes that carry a project from its first sketches to the rooms clients use every day. She believes a beautiful room should hold up to a full house.
Julian Reed
Interior Designer
Julian brings a sharp eye for proportion and a soft spot for vintage finds. He loves the search: the chair that changes the mood of a room, the material that makes everything else click. His work gives each space a little surprise without asking it to try too hard.
Camille Brooks
Studio Manager
Camille keeps the many moving parts of a project moving together. She’s the steady voice behind schedules, samples and the thousand small decisions between a design presentation and a finished home. She also remembers the details clients mention in passing.
Good design needs someone to see it through.
Cornice offers full-service interior design, from early plans through the work taking shape on site. We work alongside architects, builders and trades, giving them a clear design to work from and staying involved as decisions arise.
Interior design & space planning
We study how you use each room, then develop layouts and a design direction that make the whole home work together.
Materials & details
We select finishes, fixtures and hardware, and design the built-in elements that make a room feel resolved.
Drawings & specifications
We prepare the interior drawings and selections the project team needs to understand what has been designed.
Site collaboration & furnishings
As construction progresses, we review details with the team and respond to questions that affect the design. We also source the furniture and objects that make the finished rooms feel lived in.