Inspired Craftsmanship
Stories for the Ages
A reading list inspired by Brizo® designs.
“Storytelling and interior design go hand in hand,” says Mandy Cheng, studio principal and owner of Mandy Cheng Design. “A home is a story about its owners—who they are and how they live.”
interior Designer: Mandy Cheng / firm: Mandy Cheng design / Photographer: Madeline Tolle
Interior Designer: Mandy Cheng / Santa Monica & Los Felix, CA, 2024 / Photographer + Stylist: Madeline Tolle / Featuring the Litze® Widespread Lavatory Faucet with High Spout and Extended Handles in Brilliance® Luxe Gold®
“A home is a story about its owners—who they are and how
they live.”
Susannah Holmberg, owner and creative director of Susannah Holmberg Studios, agrees: “Just as the setting of any good book or movie is a character unto its own, I think of a home as a character in the owner’s story.”
This reading list, inspired by the design styles and cues of Brizo® collections, shows how the same instinct that drives beautiful design lives also in our most beloved literary works.
interior Designer: susannah holmberg / firm: susannah holmberg studios / Photographer: Malissa Mabey
Interior Designer: Susannah Holmberg / Park City, ut, 2022 / Photographer: Malissa Mabey / Featuring the Litze Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet with Knurled Handle in Matte Black / Brilliance® Luxe Gold®
“Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll (1865)
Beautiful, yet bizarre. Prim, yet peculiar. Or, as Lewis Carroll put it, “curiouser and curiouser.” Carroll's young heroine Alice, with all her English manners, comes face-to-face with the outlandish in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
The Beauclere™ Bath Collection is a similar meeting between classic design and eccentric detail. Its traditional silhouettes are inspired by British manor homes, yet embellished with unexpected curves and malachite accents.
Featuring the Beauclere™ Bath Collection in Brilliance® Polished Gold®
Cheng herself was inspired by “Alice Through the Looking Glass” as she designed a playroom for a celebrity couple’s children.
Considering the room’s design, she remembered a quote: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“Just as the setting of any good book or movie is a character unto its own, I think of a home as a character in the owner’s story.”
“Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman (1855)
A celebration of humanity and the nature that surrounds it, “Leaves of Grass” is one of America’s best-loved works of poetry. Walt Whitman spent much of his life writing and rewriting, editing and evolving—changing his collection as often as the seasons.
Frank Lloyd Wright, another American treasure, was like Whitman in that way. His work transcended easy labels and categories, yet always took its cues from the beauty of the earth. The Frank Lloyd Wright® Kitchen Collection and the Frank Lloyd Wright® Bath Collection do the same with their organic curves, asymmetric designs, and natural accents.
Wright named Whitman as his favorite author, kept “Leaves of Grass” in his library at Taliesin West, and referenced him often in his own writing.
“Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf (1925)
With its elegance and streamlined Machine Age sensibilities, the Invari® Bath Collection brings to mind Virginia Woolf’s Edwardian origins. “I love Virginia Woolf,” says Holmberg. “Always have, always will. Her writing illuminates so many of life’s mundane details and lets them be seen in a fresh light.”
Featuring the invari® bath collection in brilliance® Polished Gold
Nowhere is this truer than Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” As its main character prepares for a party, Woolf’s eye for detail reveals a bigger picture.
“The specific placement of a chair, or the right color, or the use of upholstery can ask us to see a design element that we’ve seen thousands of times in a new light.”
Holmberg says that design can accomplish the same task: “The specific placement of a chair, or the right color, or the use of upholstery can ask us to see a design element that we’ve seen thousands of times in a new light.”
“Casino Royale” by Ian Fleming (1953)
The chamfered edges of the Levoir® Bath Collection reveal its subtle 1960s influences, while slender proportions and graceful curves pay homage to classic British automotive design.
Featuring the levoir® bath collection in brilliance® luxe steel®
Who better to represent that sleek and suave appearance than James Bond?
Bond first appeared in “Casino Royale” and then in 13 more of Fleming’s fiction works. Since then, he’s been the subject of dozens of movies, portrayed by world-famous stars pulling death-defying stunts with trademark coolness.
James Bond is, by any measure, iconic—and so is the thrilling intrigue of the collection.
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
It’s difficult to say whether “The Great Gatsby” is the Great American Novel. But it’s absolutely a contender.
In just over a hundred pages, Fitzgerald’s commentaries on money, love, gender, the American Dream cemented themselves into the literary canon. And each theme is set against the larger-than-life backdrop of Long Island in the Jazz Age.
As in “The Great Gatsby,” the Tulham™ Kitchen Collection takes its cues from art deco motifs. The extravagant foundations and elegant contours craft a grand, yet playful aura—not unlike Fitzgerald’s own scene.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)
Family. Hope. Grief. Love. Like the Allaria® Bath Collection, García Márquez’ masterpiece novel is built from simple, unassuming elements.
But his magical realism, layered into this generational story so smoothly it’s easy to miss, transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Truly, both collection and composition are works of rare alchemy: simple forms, combined with a type of magic, to craft an alluring force.
Whatever the reference—film, novel, sculpture, song—any piece of art can inspire a space. For Cheng, those inspirations come to life in the details: “Small details are often the final touch that brings a room to life,” she says. “So every room becomes a little narrative that I help complete.”
