‘Home Represents Belonging, Safety and Warmth’ – Sean Anderson Is on a Mission to Make All Homes Feel as Cocooning as the One He Grew Up In

Sean Anderson doesn't just decorate houses – he creates places that feel as though they've quietly existed for generations. Rich in patina, layered with texture and wrapped in a palette of earthy, enveloping tones, his interiors have become synonymous with warmth and atmosphere at a time when many homes still lean towards crisp minimalism.

Yet in this latest in our Layered Lives series of interviews, Sean Anderson reveals how his instinct for creating spaces that comfort rather than simply impress didn't come from design school or a glamorous upbringing. It began in a modest family home in rural Mississippi, where sharing a bedroom with his sisters and growing up surrounded by love shaped his lifelong understanding of what home should feel like.

With the publication of his new book, Interior Narratives, published by Rizzoli this month, Sean talks about finding his way into design by accident, why darkness can be generous, the importance of collecting slowly rather than styling quickly, and why every successful interior should tell a story long before anyone walks through the door.

Homes & Gardens: Is there anything in your childhood that hinted at the career path you’d take?

Sean Anderson: I think so – I had really humble beginnings in rural Mississippi. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, on a large parcel of land that was 50-plus acres. We couldn’t see and didn’t know our neighbors and were in a small home, so we became a tight-knit family. I shared a bedroom with my two sisters until I was 16, so we were forced to be close! But that upbringing gave me a sense of a home, and so much of what I do now – while it is about aesthetics – is really a hope that a home possesses that same feeling.

Homes & Gardens: What was that feeling?

Sean Anderson: I just remember warmth. It always felt warm. We were surrounded by love. It was a safe place – I felt safe and secure and embraced in warmth. And that's the feeling that a home, to me, possesses.

Homes & Gardens: Was there much time for creativity in your family home? A sense that you might become a designer?

Sean Anderson: I didn’t grow up with designers, but when I was a bit older I developed a fascination with interiors magazines, and would rip pages out thinking, 'one day, when I'm a real grown-up, I'll have a house, and it will look like this.' But as a kid, my mom would strive to make it nice, and there were heirloom pieces from grandparents, but there wasn't a real sense of decor, you know? I loved to paint, and my mom was attuned to our gifts and forced me to paint more and critique what I'd done and think about what could be better. To this day, she remains my best critic. She was definitely creative, but she was a stay-at-home mom who only had time to dabble in art – she was a caregiver, and instead, she created the surroundings that developed who I am today.

Homes & Gardens: When did you first start to think about design as a career, and how did you get into it?

Sean Anderson: My path is random. I was living in a religious bubble in a tiny place – my high school graduating class had six kids in it. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so I tried a bit of everything. I painted houses, I was a bartender, I worked at Walmart, I was a janitor. And then I met my ex-partner, and he had a large, lovely home, and of course I wanted to change things, and he was gracious about letting me. I started off doing his office, and then his whole home, and his friends would come over and start asking me to help them, too.

Homes & Gardens: What was inspiring you decoratively – how did you know what to do?

Sean Anderson: I still had all those torn-out pages from those interiors magazines as references. It was the early to mid-2000s when everything was white, and that just wasn't me. Not that I never use white, but I tend towards richer colors. So I did his office black, and that helped me hone in on a moody aesthetic and create that feeling of warmth and being in a cocoon that I'd had as a child. That sense of being enveloped.

Homes & Gardens: At what point did it start to seem decorating could be an actual job?

Sean Anderson: It took me a minute. I helped a few friends, and then I had a friend who was a massage therapist, and he gave me $1,000 to do his studio. I was painting the office myself in order to try and meet the budget! And then when it was done, one of his clients came in and said, 'Who did this? I want him! Can I call him?!' I had had no training, but it was right when Instagram was starting to come about, and I had this sense that if I could show people what I could do, then it might just all come together. So every dime I made went back into photographing the work. Eventually, I made enough to hire a legit photographer who flew in from Nashville to shoot a project – that got picked up by a top-level interiors magazine in 2014, and it just took off – now we're a team of 17 or so.

Homes & Gardens: In your brand-new book, Interior Narratives, you’re described in the foreword by the architect Jeffrey Dungan as a modern composer who builds atmosphere. What do you think this means?

Sean Anderson: Jeffrey Dungan was on my bucket list of people I wanted to work with, and when he asked me to his own home, it felt amazing. Then when he sent me that foreword, I cried! He was very kind. I think what he means is that it's not just the physical choices I make, but the culmination of feelings I try to create. People give me the resounding feedback that these spaces don’t just look good, they also elicit emotion, and that is what I am going after.

Homes & Gardens: Jeffrey also says that you understand that darkness can be generous. What layers does darkness add to a home?

Sean Anderson: Growing up in an era when everything was all white, to me it just felt sterile. There was nothing that spoke to me, but it calms me to use darker colors, which represent stories to me. We work on a lot of new builds, and I don't want people to walk into a finished project on Day One and feel like it's brand new, like it's all precious and pristine and they can't touch anything. I want them to feel welcomed right from the start.

Homes & Gardens: And this must be why you love patina so much, that feeling it gives of making a home feel careworn?

Sean Anderson: Exactly. My love of patina harks back to where I grew up. We spent hours outdoors, I was in nature all the time, seeing wood. We had an old barn, and my dad was a bit of a hoarder, and we would see metal scraps and old tools and distressed wood, and those things still resonate. I wanted everything in a home to feel like it has always been there. That's when it all feels cocooning.

Homes & Gardens: Being as involved in the curation as the furniture, how do you know when a project is done?

Sean Anderson: We curate the art and the objects for every project, and that actually starts at the very beginning. I will spend the duration of a two- or three-year build amassing all these things that represent the client to me, and that means that we're not going out a week before completion buying glass jars randomly off a shelf. I also have a warehouse full of crap, so when it comes time to do an install, we have all those designated things I've been collecting specifically, and then we pull all the additional stuff. And then there is just a moment when you know organically that it's all done. You put one extra tchotchke on a table and think, 'Well, that is just one thing too far.'

Homes & Gardens: Texture feels like as much of a material for you as the fabrics – how do you approach it?

Sean Anderson: I just feel like it’s an integral part of what we do. If you have a whole room of linen, then it becomes flat, and you need a different material that will allow that main material to shine. It can be subtle, it doesn't have to scream, it just has to create a point of difference.

Homes & Gardens: How does light play into how you layer rooms?

Sean Anderson: Picking the lighting is one of my favorite things to do. I actually find the fixtures first, before anything else, and build the bigger pieces around them. I like to mix old and new, to use a lot of secondary lighting instead of always big overhead lights. I take inspiration from dimly lit restaurants – that's the sort of mood and ambience I am always trying to create.

Homes & Gardens: You work to a restrained palette, but are you surprising yourself by being drawn to any specific colors at the moment?

Sean Anderson: I was never the color guy until working on a project where the client liked red, and I started exploring earthier versions of that, like terracotta. Now, I feel like I'm all in to color. I am embracing it, doing a project in Atlanta that has a purple stone countertop. And it looks great!

Homes & Gardens: Lastly, what does the word 'home' mean to you now?

Sean Anderson: I have been building my business for so long that all home has been for years is a place to drop my bags before heading back to the airport. But I am finally at a place where I am starting to feel settled, and now at a point when home is becoming what it was when I was a kid. It represents belonging, safety, warmth and a place to recharge so you can tackle the next day.

For Sean Anderson, beautiful interiors have never been about perfection or chasing trends. They're about creating rooms that welcome you in, tell stories through every layer, and quietly improve the way you feel. Whether he's introducing the richness of darker colors, balancing texture with restraint, or patiently gathering objects over years rather than days, every decision is rooted in emotion rather than aesthetics alone.

It's an approach that feels refreshingly timeless, and one that reminds us the most memorable homes aren't necessarily the grandest – they're the ones that make us feel safe, settled, and completely ourselves.

Interior Narratives by Sean Anderson, published by Rizzoli, is out now

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