We celebrate unique features
and tricky floor plans.
Thoughtful and thorough, Kathryn Murphy Interiors specializes in personalized design for the Vintage Modern home. We find innovative ways to transform the frustrating to the functional, and create inviting, livable spaces that work simply and beautifully and look simply beautiful.
ABOUT
Kathryn Murphy Interiors is a full-service residential design studio known for creating thoughtful, deeply considered homes throughout Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Working primarily within older homes, both locally to Chicago and nationally, the studio brings a nuanced approach to reimagining historic homes for modern living .
Led by Creative Director Kathryn Murphy, we approach each project with curiosity for those who live there - as a study in both form and function—transforming constraints into opportunities through rigorous planning, creative problem-solving, and a deeply personalized design process. From reworking challenging floor plans to integrating custom millwork, layered furnishings, and considered details, every decision is made with intention. From concept to completion, Kathryn Murphy Interiors delivers a seamless, full-service experience—guiding clients through each phase with clarity, precision, and a commitment to enduring design.
From the Founder
Kathryn Murphy (she/her) is an unapologetic artist with a soft spot for old homes and a fondness for odd, unruly shapes—the architectural equivalent of a well-loved, dog-eared novel. With a background in dance and choreography, she reads space the way others read text: attentive to rhythm, to pauses, to the way light and sound move like sentences unfolding over time. A room, in her hands, becomes less an arrangement of things and more a narrative in motion.
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As Creative Director at KMI, she views design as composing scenes—quiet mornings lit like first chapters, long dinners that linger like good dialogue, the small, unremarkable moments that, in retrospect, carry the most meaning. Home, after all, is where life gathers its stories. Kathryn approaches this with care, creating spaces that are as generous as they are beautiful—places where relationships deepen, community takes root, and people feel themselves written into the fabric of where they live. ​​
