DON'T MISS A THING

Some design partnerships are built; this one was born, which makes National Sister Day (the first Sunday of August) the right moment to celebrate Kelly Smethills and Ann Marie Winkler, the sister interior designers behind Denver’s Huron Interiors. One came to design through a psychology degree and years in tech consulting; the other through a career as a traveling nurse. Those detours turned out to be the whole point. At Evergreen Ranch, a whole-home remodel tucked into the pines above Evergreen, Colorado, their two lenses meet: rooms that read like they grew out of the forest beyond the windows, and function so carefully drawn you never notice it working. We sat down with the sisters to talk about green tile, honest disagreements, and the mother who taught them both that a house becomes a home on purpose.

Inside Evergreen Ranch with Sisters Kelly Smethills and Ann Marie Winkler

Love Happens Magazine: Our name comes from a simple conviction: nothing worth building happens without love. Where does your love of design trace back to?

Kelly Smethills: In the back seat of the family car, honestly, every time we moved. Our mom made every new house feel like home, and she was fearless about it. In our Pennsylvania house she chalk-lined a two-tone green striped entry and painted it herself. In Omaha she did a limewash effect up a two-story stairwell. She’d rework the same half wall for two years and let us participate. So we grew up believing paint is not terrifying — it’s just paint. You can be brave, test it, and pivot.

Ann Marie Winkler: And what she was really teaching us is that a home can be deeply personal because someone was willing to try. Neither of us started in design, I was a traveling nurse, Kelly came from psychology and consulting, but both of those careers were secretly about the same thing: noticing how people actually live, and what makes them feel safe.

LHM: What’s it really like designing homes with your sister?

Kelly: Every project we touch is better because both of us are on it. Ann Marie is the calm in the room, clients exhale around her. And she’s the technical one: floor plans, AutoCAD, construction documents, standing in the mud talking to contractors about blocking. People meet us and assume we both just pick pretty fabrics. Then she hands a builder a full drawing set and can speak on every technical detail. The room goes quiet, and people notice and better understand our value.

Ann Marie: Kelly reads people. It’s the psychology background, she picks up on what clients don’t say, when one partner is tiptoeing around the other’s taste. And she can present an idea so a client actually sees it. The best part of working with your sister is the honesty. We can say “I don’t like that,” and it does not become personal. We’ve had that shorthand since childhood; you can’t hire that.

LHM: So what happens when you disagree on a design decision?

Kelly: We clash on at least one big piece almost every project. Sometimes I’ll push the pop, the sweetness, often sneaking in something pink, and Ann Marie pulls toward muted and grounded on a project, or vice versa. Usually the person who cares more wins that round, and we’ll admit the other person was right before the design is wrapped up.

Ann Marie: The disagreement is the quality control. The line between really cool and ugly is a very small thing, and having a sister who will tell you which side of the line you’re on, before the tile is presented and ordered, makes every design stronger.

LHM: Tell us about Evergreen Ranch. What was the brief?

Ann Marie: The house sits in the evergreens, and the clients, a couple who love to host, wanted calm, but calm that still had life in it. This project was especially meaningful because it was their first home together as a married couple and the place where they would bring home their first child. We wanted it to feel like a reflection of this season of their lives, a home that felt warm and grounded and could grow with them over time. For us, calm is not the same as empty. It’s about creating a home that feels connected and easy to live in, while still having personality. The palette came from what’s outside the windows: greens, walnut, stone with real movement.

Kelly: The brief we give ourselves on every project is the same: when it’s done, the client should feel like the house is them, like, “my home is me, and I never would have thought of these things.” That’s the feeling we’re chasing.

LHM: The kitchen stone is doing a lot of the talking. That black-and-white veining is dramatic. How do you use a material that bold without letting it shout?

Ann Marie: You let nature do the drama instead of the finishes. Nature has those irregularities and pretty imperfections that make a home feel layered instead of sterile. That veining is organic movement, completely different from hard, flat, high-contrast finishes. We’re honestly tired of the black-and-white Denver boxes. This is the opposite: the stone moves like weather, and we grounded it in warm walnut so it feels like a view, not a graphic.

Kelly: And we repeated it, the same stone carries into the bar. Repeating materials throughout the home makes your brain subconsciously say, “that makes sense here.” That’s how a bold material becomes calming instead of loud: your eye keeps meeting an old friend.

LHM: We have to ask about the forest-green bathroom.

Kelly: That room is the argument we’re both glad we had. The green tile was the easy yes, glossy, handmade character, so the color shifts in the light all day. And we worked together on the tile pattern to make sure it was subtle, yet elevated. Then I wanted some sweetness, since it was going to be their daughter’s bathroom: the plum towels, art with some pink in it. Ann Marie wasn’t sold on it at first and was leaning towards more grounded accessories.

Ann Marie: The green does the calming, the pink keeps it from taking itself too seriously. And the lighting mattered as much as the tile, I definitely have an aversion to the big lights. We want layered looks with lighting, sconces at the mirror, warmth at the tub, nothing glaring down on you. Lighting impacts health and wellness more than people realize, especially in the room where you start and end your day.

LHM: There’s a wine display tucked under the staircase: glass wall, black racks. Where did that come from?

Ann Marie: Dead space, honestly. Under-stair space usually becomes a closet nobody opens. We’d rather every awkward corner work for how the client actually lives, and these clients love to host. Behind glass, the bottles become the art.

Kelly: That’s the kind of thing people don’t expect from us until they see the drawings. It’s not just picking tile, it’s Ann Marie working out clearances and sightlines in AutoCAD so a leftover triangle under the stairs becomes the moment guests ask about.

LHM: Huron homes feel balanced: layered and full of personality, yet always composed. What’s the secret?

Ann Marie: A home can be layered, colorful, even a little eclectic and still feel composed. It comes from balancing texture and materials, vintage and new, color and story. Your brain recognizes coherence: repeated materials, softer transitions, natural variation. I spent years as a nurse; where someone else might see a cluttered, chaotic room, I see anxiety. Layout is the biggest one, because if the layout is off, it affects every day-to-day part of how you live. And in the end, the home should reflect the client, not us. Balance just makes room for whoever they are.

LHM: What do you wish clients knew before their first consultation?

Kelly: Don’t clean up for us. Truly. We ask clients not to pick up before we come over because we want to see how they actually live. If the house is immaculate and that’s not normal, it’s harder for us to figure out how to make it better. Even a neat pile tells us where the pile lives. The piles are data.

Ann Marie: And that the stressful parts are ours to carry. We want the process to feel fun, not like all the icky parts of a remodel landed on them. Just call Huron. We’ve got it.

LHM: Finally, advice for anyone standing in a room they don’t love, afraid to start?

Kelly: Be braver than the mood board. Our mom painted the same wall almost every month for a year or two. Her willingness to explore an idea instead of immediately playing it safe taught us that creativity comes from curiosity. Of course, every design decision we make for our clients is intentional, but we believe the most memorable homes come from a little courage and a willingness to embrace what makes them unique.

Ann Marie: And ask what the room is doing to you, not just how it looks. If a space makes you exhale when you walk in, or brings you joy, that’s the design working. That’s the house hug. Everything we do is chasing that.

All images by Elisabeth Gordon Photography, courtesy of Huron Interiors

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