Client: Solomon Interior Design Inc. · Role: Design & Development · Team: Matthew Christensen, Brennan McCandliss (development), Jessica Christensen (QA) · Duration: ~5 months · Stack: WordPress.org · Elementor · self-hostedWe had the privilege of designing and launching a new website for Solomon Interior Design Inc., a Solana Beach studio whose work has quietly defined a corner of California design for more than twenty-five years. From our base in Redding, California, we handled the full custom WordPress development, the visual design, and the platform migration end-to-end.
SIDI’s mission is “to design with intention, to elevate experience, and to create spaces that resonate long after the first impression.” Their philosophy of restraint, integrity, and connection to place is the kind of thing that’s easy to say and hard to actually build a website around. The site had to feel as composed as the rooms it shows.
A quick look at the studio:
- 25+ years designing from a studio on Cedros Avenue
- A team of six led by Principal Jan Solomon, LEED AP
- Portfolios spanning Residential, Commercial, and Hospitality, from intimate 1,200 SF homes to a 22-story Beverly West tower and a 21-room boutique hotel in Marbella
- Services across Interior Design, Architecture, FFE Procurement, and Branding
What the studio needed
The previous site was a broken WordPress.com build on Divi: slow, hard to update, and sitting on a platform where SIDI didn’t fully own their own data. Worse, adding a new project meant calling someone. For a studio that ships work constantly, that’s a tax on the team.
The new site had to do three things well: let the work speak for itself, give the studio team the ability to add new projects without a developer, and put SIDI in control of their own platform.
What we built
- A homepage rebuild aligned to the studio’s visual language: restraint, generous whitespace, photography-forward, with the small hover details that make a design site feel cared-for. Built mobile-first, so the work looks just as composed on a phone as it does on a 27-inch display.
- Three portfolio sections for Residential, Commercial, and Hospitality, each with a single-page project layout that lets the photography breathe, replacing the old paginated pattern.
- A reusable project template the team can populate themselves. New projects go up the same day they’re photographed, with no developer in the loop.
- About, Services, and Contact pages rebuilt around the studio’s own voice and team.
- A full platform migration off WordPress.com + Divi, onto self-hosted WordPress.org + Elementor. SIDI now owns their data, isn’t boxed in by a hosted platform, and has a page builder we genuinely prefer working in. We also tightened the foundations underneath: clean URL structure, image optimization, and the kind of on-page SEO that a beautifully designed site deserves.
- Ongoing website maintenance and support on a subscription so the site stays current, fast, and secure long after launch.
Credit where it’s due
Huge thanks to Brennan McCandliss, who carried a big share of the web development work, and to Jessica Christensen, whose QA caught the small things that separate a site that ships from a site that ships well. SIDI’s site is better because of them.
And to Jan Solomon and the SIDI team, thank you for trusting us with a body of work this thoughtful. It was a privilege to design alongside designers.
Always grateful for the opportunity to work on projects where craft genuinely matters.
Building something for a studio or boutique brand? We’re a custom web development team in Redding, California, working with clients across the country on WordPress design, redesigns, and ongoing maintenance. Let’s talk.
