For Jessica Helgerson, interior design is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

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“My work is very reflective of the buildings I’m working in and the people I’m working for,” she says. Whether a desert house in Phoenix, a craftsman in the Pacific Northwest, or a cottage on the East Coast, each home has a palette hinting at its environment. This is one reason she was recently able to expand her Portland, Oregon-based studio to Paris, France. In her new office near Place des Vosges, she can easily service clients on both sides of the pond.

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But no matter where or for whom Jessica is working—from 55-minute consultations to multi-year renovations—the results are consistently warm, quirky, and joyful. It’s also the throughline of her Showroom, where she curated all the pieces that bring her joy. “The process was spontaneous,” she says. “It’s quirky, kind, happy, and playful. It feels like me and the things I love.” Here, she shares the first step of her design process, what makes a room feel cozy, and her secret to mixing colors.

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My go-to brands

I’ve used Marthe Armitage for a long time on a lot of projects. There was an article about her in the New York Times that I really loved. She started gaining recognition for her wallpapers in her seventies and I just think that's awesome. And I love the non-repetitive nature of them. I love the immersive quality. I love that when you back up it’s a whole universe.

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O&G Studio is reinterpreting American furniture and I love it. I love Windsor chairs and so do they. I just think Nickey Kehoe has a great aesthetic and it's one of my favorite shops. Filling Spaces is here in Portland. The founder is Indian and works with her sister and artisans in Dehli who do block printing. She’s just developed a really lovely business.

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The colors I’m loving right now

I love green because of the earth and plants. It's a very peaceful color. I find it very restorative and calming. Farrow & Ball Calke Green is the prettiest green in the whole wide world.

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The first thing I do when I design a room

We do a lot of fairly big remodels—a lot of interior architecture that sometimes bleeds into exterior architecture—so at the start of every project, we have a twofold approach. The first part, which is very practical, is the space planning. I liken this step to what a skeleton is to a body. Even if the skin is really beautiful and perfect, if the bones are completely skewed, it's got problems. A good space plan is the foundation for a good project.

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The other side is much more conceptual and that's the mood board that shows the color palette and the look and feel we're imagining. We tend to tell clients to blur their eyes and not fixate too much on any one item, but see how they generally feel as they're looking at them.

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A no-fail element that every space needs

Every space needs a little bit of natural wood. Either in the floors or in the furniture, that's the thing that makes it earthy. No matter how simple or modern it is, unpainted wood really helps.

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What makes a room feel cozy

Growing up, my father was an English professor, my mom was a writer, and I was an English major before I was a designer, so I'm a book guy. I love books and plants. I also appreciate imperfection and feeling like you can be in a room without messing it up.

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My favorite collaboration

I just designed two lighting lines for Roll & Hill. I don’t know if I approached Jason Miller or he approached me—it happened simultaneously, so it was kind of serendipity. I had two ideas since I have a foot in the United States and a foot in France, and I couldn’t pick, so I did them both. One is turned wood and the other one is turned metal. Del Playa the wood collection is the street I grew up on in Santa Barbara, across the street from the beach. Rue Sala the metal collection is the street my grandparents lived on in Lyon, where my mom grew up.

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I started with these two very abstract mood boards of driftwood and surfer kids and earthy ceramic pottery from California and fancy Frenchy things. Then I distilled each of those narratives into forms that made sense to me. I don't know that anyone would look at these light fixtures and think of the things that inspired them, but that's okay. I feel really proud of them. I love them.

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How I mix colors

We usually will have five or six tones that are happy together. Some of them are warm and some of them are cool, some of them are dark and some of them are light. And then we'll play with them. Maybe a light room would have the darkest tone on the sofa and the next room might be entirely that darkest color with a little bit of the light color. It's a mixing of the pot. We have these bins for all of the material samples. And even if it's a pretty enormous house, I love the idea that you can dump out the whole bin and everything is nice together.

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What I buy vintage versus what I specify new

I like to buy vintage casework. Armoires can be beautiful, side tables, chests of drawers. Beds are typically not good vintage because the sizes are wrong for what people want now. And sofas are usually better new just because they're more comfortable. But vintage chairs, yes. Vintage tables, yes. Anything other than beds and sofas. And even then, we might do a pair of vintage twin beds in a kid's room.

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How I give back

I started this project about five years ago called The One Percent Project, which came out of me working on an enormous pro bono project for an organization called Path Home. They help families that are struggling with homelessness. The average age of their client is seven. I wanted to help in a bigger way, so we began to add one percent to all of our invoices. We also give more than one percent of our revenue to local nonprofits who are working around issues of homelessness. We've already given close to $300,000 with client gifts and regular donations, and I feel proud of it, but I feel like it could be so much more if more people were involved.

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What I love about The Expert

I resisted The Expert for so long because I thought I couldn't help someone in an hour. But I have absolutely loved it. It's so fun to dive into somebody's universe. Clients are so excited and well prepared. I really enjoy it. I realize that I’ve been doing this thing for 25 years and I can really help them.

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What’s next

Our office is designing a rug line. I've been doing that with Mira Eng-Goetz, who has been at the office for 12 years now and is a fabulous designer. The two of us have been designing these quirky, cute, flat-lay rugs that I'm excited to see come into the world. We're waiting for the first set of samples, so it'll be a little while. And I'm excited about working in France because it's so different!

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