The beautiful—and at times frustrating—thing about design is that it almost never ends up exactly how you imagined it. You walk in with a vision, a mood board in your head, sketches on paper, ideas you’ve carried for years. But as the project unfolds, so does reality. Materials are delayed. Budgets tighten. Codes demand compromise. And somewhere in that messy middle, something unexpected happens: you adapt, you adjust, and eventually, you begin to see those shifts not as setbacks, but as signs. Fate, even. When we set out to design this space, we came in with conviction. We partnered closely with our architect, James Silvestro, and from day one, every corner, every threshold, every beam had intention behind it. But intention has to meet regulation. Dreams have to contend with building codes. So we moved through the process, line by line, sketch by sketch, always coming back to the question: “Are we still moving in the right direction?” Designing a space like this is a constant act of negotiation—between vision and feasibility, beauty and function, ego and humility. And it requires trust. Trust in your collaborators. Trust in your instincts. And trust that the final space, even if not what you first imagined, will be something better—because it’s layered with thought, effort, and a hundred decisions made with care. What stands today isn’t just a building—it’s a reflection of all those moments of course-correction, all those pivots and gut checks that make a space feel lived-in before the doors even open.