Residential
Japanese Interior Design for the Home
Bring the Japan you remember home.
Design Kyo creates authentic Japanese home design: single rooms, washitsu with tokonoma, kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms, and whole-house renovations. Every project is drawn to scale, priced accurately, and built by a Tokyo-trained designer. We build across New England and take design-only commissions anywhere in the US.
The people who call us usually have a story. One client lived in Japan for years and wanted his garden and home to hold those memories. Another, a scholar who had studied Japanese for decades, asked for one perfect Japanese bedroom in his Boston condo. A third built his retirement home in the mountains, with every room Japanese, down to a hand-built altar, because the philosophy he had found there was the one he wanted to grow old inside.
We don't sell a look. We build the version of Japan that is already yours. Not a Japanese-inspired approximation, but authentic Japanese residential interior design.
Japanese, not Japandi
My job is coordination. I listen. I don't tell a client 'this is Japan, this is how it must be.' You have wishes: the ceiling, the light, how a room should feel. I hold the few points that cannot move: the floor, the entrance, the structure that gives a Japanese room its logic. Protect those, and within them, almost anything is possible.
A Japanese room from a general contractor usually arrives slightly wrong: proportions that miss, materials that approximate, details that read as costume. Authentic Japanese style interior decorating is a grammar. Every design has anchor points, and setting them precisely is what makes a room come together instead of scattering into expensive noise. Thirty years of practice, sixteen of them in Tokyo, is knowing where those points go.
Rooms we design
- Washitsu, the Japanese room, with tatami, shoji and tokonoma
- Japanese living rooms: proportion, low furniture, filtered light
- Japanese kitchen design and dining
- Bedrooms and tatami rooms
- Entryways and genkan
- Tea rooms and meditation spaces
- Shoji, sliding doors, custom furniture and built-ins
Many elements of a true Japanese interior cannot be ordered from a catalog here. So we build them in our workshop. When a client asks "can that even be made in America?" the answer is usually yes. We build across Greater Boston and New England, and take design-only commissions anywhere in the US: drawings, specifications and consultation with your own builder.
Related work
View full gallery →Frequently asked questions
Can you build a proper Japanese room in an American house?
Yes. Most of our residential work is exactly that. Japanese design fits inside a colonial, cape or standard-framed American house without gutting it. Usually the entrance, one room, or a set of windows becomes fully Japanese while the rest stays as it is. It is a hybrid that is honest and works well in New England homes.
What's the difference between Japanese and Japandi?
Japandi is a Western decorating trend: Scandinavian furniture softened with a Japanese mood. Authentic Japanese interior design is a grammar: the proportion of a room, tatami and shoji, the tokonoma, how light is filtered and where a stone is set. One is a look. The other is how a Japanese room is actually built.
Do you work outside New England?
We design and build across Greater Boston and New England. Anywhere else in the US, we take design-only commissions: measured drawings, specifications and consultation for your own builder to execute.
Do you do whole houses or single rooms?
Both. Projects range from one washitsu, a tatami bedroom or a set of shoji screens, up to whole-house renovations where every room is Japanese.
What does a room cost?
Each room is quoted individually after a free consultation, once the scope and materials are set. Clients consistently praise the accuracy of Toshio’s estimates, so you will have a clear figure before any work begins.