Photo credit: MetaphorEdge.com,
Location: SF Showcase 2025, San Francisco, California,
Wood Highlights: Crown moulding, vertical trim, baseboards, flooring

SF Decorator Showcase: Refined Reading Room with Plum Trim

Plum, as in the prize—a richly layered room that has both coveted features and a sensory delight.

In the world of interior design, the most powerful spaces often feel like they’ve existed for a long time even when they are new—whispering elegance, intelligence, and history from every corner. This year’s SF Decorator Showcase features an immersive reading room that accomplishes exactly that. Designed by Kathleen Navarra of Navarra Design, the room is a masterclass in architectural balance and quiet luxury. With its dreamy, almost peacock-feathered ceiling, rich walnut wall panels, and sculptural custom details, this space reframes what we mean by reading room moulding—and how trim work can help hold a room’s character and soul.

The atmosphere is rich with visual tension: masculine and feminine, modern and timeless, bold and restrained. But the thread that binds it all together? A deft hand with moulding and gorgeous wall treatments. A balanced mix of patterns plays out here moving the eye around and drawing you into the space, beckoning you to look closer and stay.

Where Reading Room Moulding Meets Architecture

Unlike in many minimalist spaces where trim is reduced to its functional minimum, here the reading room moulding is elevated as an essential design element. The casing, panel moulding, and crown all contribute to the room’s rhythm. From the richly framed shelving bays to the elegant plinth blocks anchoring verticals, every profile is doing work—visually reinforcing symmetry, scale, and story.

Let’s start with a look at crown moulding for libraries. This detail is far from only ornamental. It frames the ceiling’s swooping treatment—an enveloping cascade of feathery brushstrokes—and acts as a strong counterbalance to the custom modern chandelier. It grounds the eye in classical language while letting the ceiling soar.

The reading room casing surrounding built-in shelves and doorways is equally considered. Each casing section has depth and proportion, allowing it to bridge transitions between finishes and define functional zones. Nowhere does it feel flat or forgotten. The shelving niches feature inset moulding profiles that create dimensionality and depth, without overshadowing the artwork and objects within. The back walls of the bookcases are lined with a vibrant floral mural wallpaper—an expressive new Fromental pattern called Plumeria—which offers the shelving movement, color, and modern botanical energy. Plumeria is a genus of flowering plants in the dogbane family, native to Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and parts of South America. Known for their fragrant, colorful flowers, and exquisite geometry, plumeria plants are commonly grown as ornamental trees or shrubs in tropical and subtropical climates. Adjacent Boyd sconce lighting is expertly featured in wider vertical moulding elements, feeling substantial and yet possibly also inspired by delicate flora and fauna.

The Power of Trim to Establish Mood

This space—officially titled A Modern Library—reimagines the traditional library as a space of connection as much as solitude. Wrapped in deep, saturated hues and wallpapered from bookcase to ceiling, the room balances luxury and comfort. Whether curling up with a good book, sipping a mocktail from the in-room bespoke hidden bar, or enjoying a game night with family, the room is built for more than literary endeavors. The custom banquette offers a cozy work or conversation nook, while the unique Blue Roma Quartzite library table—with its asymmetrical Randolph & Hein wood base—creates a sculptural centerpiece.

In a room designed for introspection, the trim must be both commanding and quiet—especially when paired with bold materials like hair-on-hide and richly figured stone. This duality is reflected in the use of solid walnut and fine joinery. Navarra’s decision to wrap the entire room in paneling creates an architectural envelope—a library in the truest sense, a space built for ideas, inner dialogues, not trends. And yet, within this formality, there’s surprise: layered floral patterns, matte ceramic sculpture, linen-bound books.

Library trim in a warm natural wood has the unique job of blending structure with softness. Nowhere is that more evident than here. The reading table’s stone veining echoes the branching motif of dark, natural wood moulding and its lightness gives a much needed punctuation with contrast. Even the millwork’s corner transitions soften what could be imposing geometry. Light plays differently across each profile’s reveal, creating layers of visual interest without a single loud gesture. The directional texture of the Kyle Bunting Lunar hide rug in pale greens anchors the space with quiet movement—its placement enhances the rhythm of the architectural trim.

Moulding as Heritage and Innovation

Trim often functions as memory—a nod to craftsmanship, tradition, history and the permanence of well-built structures. Yet in this Showcase library, it also acts as innovation. Navarra updates historical trim language by pairing it with abstract art, minimal seating, forward furnishings and a directional ceiling treatment that would feel at home in a gallery. It’s both a touchable art museum and enveloping living space.

Designers who want to evoke heritage without heaviness can specify custom profiles that play with scale, layering, and material contrast.

Design Lessons from the Showcase Reading Room

For architects, interior designers, and owners planning libraries, lounges, or hybrid study spaces, this room offers some lessons. Here are five takeaways:

• Navarra defined the ceiling. Trim here works with lighting and color to frame, not fight, a statement ceiling.
• Navarra created rhythm through repetition. Library trim echoes across paneling, doorways, and shelf surrounds.
• Navarra built depth into the casing. Every profile tells a story of material transition.
• Navarra unified mood and materials. Trim was used to carry emotional weight—stability, comfort, gravitas.
• Navarra let quiet details shine. Sometimes the most expressive element is a perfectly mitered corner or soft shadowline.

Further Reading

Want to see how other talented Showcase designers used trim to frame meaning and atmosphere? Explore these featured articles from the Lowpensky Moulding blog:

• Study Materials: SF Decorator Showcase Office Built for Focus
• The Art of Trim: High Style in the Showcase
• SF Decorator Showcase: Marine Layers Trio of Kitchen Trims

Read these primers before finalizing your wood finish selections with your team:

• Build Green: Sustainable Interior Design & Sustainable Construction Materials in Millwork
• How to Select General and Baseboard Moulding Styles for Custom and Luxury Homes

Navarra generously shares all of the amazing artisan vendors that she selected for this room in Room Highlights.

Ready to Refine Your Reading Room Lounge?

Whether your next project is a quiet library, a dramatic and cozy lounge, or a moody media room, the right moulding makes all the difference. At Lowpensky, we help designers turn vision into buildable detail—from reading room moulding and reading room casing, to crown moulding for libraries and custom profiles made to order. Send us your drawings or browse our catalog to get started.

Let our experienced team help you place your order for the mood and specific design you want to create. Because every great idea deserves a well crafted space to be seen and read.

Photo credit: MetapohrEdge.com,
Location: SF Showcase 2025, San Francisco, California,
Wood Highlights: Crown moulding, corner trim, window trim, baseboards,
diamond inlay flooring

 

Photo credit: MetapohrEdge,
Location: SF Showcase 2025, San Francisco, California,
Wood Highlights: Crown moulding, corner and panel trim, baseboards, inlay flooring

 

Photo credit: MetaphorEdge.com,
Location: SF Showcase 2025, San Francisco, California,
Wood Highlights: Vertical trim, S4S shelving

 

Photo credit: MetapohrEdge.com,
Location: SF Showcase 2025, San Francisco, California,
Wood Highlights: Crown moulding, panel trim, baseboards, flooring