Studio Shamshiri

A knack for crafting richly evocative yet delicately structured interiors has made Studio Shamshiri one of the most sought-after design firms in Los Angeles. This dining room-cum-study in a 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival on the city’s Westside illustrates its deft approach. “The client,” says firm founder Pamela Shamshiri, “requested that the bookshelf-lined room do double duty, being as ‘warm and welcoming’ as it was ‘peaceful and productive.’ ” Shamshiri solved this decorating koan by selecting furnishings with gentle rigor that might engage in formal conversation while also radiating a cozy calm. A set of graceful cane-backed dining chairs by Carl Malmsten from the early 1930s anchors the room, the pieces’ supple lines reflected in the contemporary brass and black-lacquer dining table by Dimoremilano and a pair of vintage hand-blown glass and cane pendant lamps by Carl Westman, sourced on 1stDibs. In a nod to the client’s links to the worlds of film and theater, Shamshiri turned old movie tapestries into draperies. “And because we wanted the room to also feel like a library,” says Shamshiri, “we sourced books that played to the client’s interests,” including a set of Rev. E.C. Brewer’s Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, circa 1902, found on 1stDibs.