Yahoo Lifestyle HGTV's 'Divided By Design' Stars Ray and Eilyn Jimenez Share How To Mix and Match Decor While Maintaining a Cohesive Look
Eilyn and Ray Jimenez of the new HGTV series Divided By Design know that collaboration can be a beautiful thing—but that competition can sometimes bring out their creativity the best.
The married designers each own their own separate firms in the city (Eilyn is the founder and creative director of Sire Design, while Ray founded the Raymond Nicolas Design House). In Divided By Design, the couple compete to win over clients while also planning, overseeing and managing the renovation of their own home.
Previously featured in the Netflix series Designing Miami, they're no strangers to celebrity clientele: Eilyn has designed properties for former NFL quarterback E.J. Manuel and rapper and activist Macklemore.
The pair each have distinct design styles—Eilyn tends to prefer clean, minimalist aesthetics, while Ray tends to embrace maximalism—but they agree where it counts: Aside from adoring each other, they both love dogs and hate matching furniture sets, and honestly, those are core elements for any enduring relationship.
Get to know Ray and Eilyn Jimenez of Divided by Design and their best design advice to keep your home feeling "timeless"—and how to compromise if and when you and your partner butt heads on how to style your space.
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What do you do when clients have conflicting design styles? Like if one half of a couple wants a rustic vibe and the other wants everything more contemporary, for example?
Ray Jimenez: "That becomes a lot! At that point, it's part of putting on your design hat. And we become therapists! It's hard to manage, especially when they both have very strong opinions. It's easy when one says, 'Babe, do whatever you want. This is your this is your world. Whatever you pick, I'm sure it's gonna look great.' That's the easy part. Those are the easy clients. We just try to side with whatever's best for both of them, for the overall vision, for the overall look, for how they live, how they operate and what's going to look best. At that point, I do try to intervene and say, 'Okay, based on the direction that we're going for the overall project, I think we should go in this direction,' and try to ease the blow to the other person in that manner."
Eilyn Jimenez: "We'll try to find a compromise for both of them up to a certain point, like, 'Okay, let's meet in the middle.'"
Ray Jimenez: "I'll try to infuse both of their aesthetics into that one space, or that one room, or into that whole house. So if one partner wants a light and airy approach, and then the other partner wants something a little bit more masculine, more industrial, I'll try to mix both of those kind of aesthetics into one space or into one design, put that together for them, present it, and hopefully now they're they're both happy."
How do you cope when your design styles conflict at home? Who usually wins those debates?
Eilyn Jimenez: "I'd say it's like a 60/40. I win sometimes a little more, but I say we're 60/40."
Ray Jimenez: "Okay, well, we're gonna go with that for the purpose of the interview, honey. Thank you!"
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You're pet parents! Papi is super cute. What's your best design advice for homeowners with pets?
Eilyn Jimenez: "We actually just got a new puppy, our third, so it's been a learning curve for us all. The puppy stage is something that's really short. I always say, 'Make sure your dogs learn to live in your environment.' Don't change your environment. For your dogs at the beginning of the puppy phase, there should be some separation, but I do think it's important to kind of select things that are going to be durable. But it's also about training your dogs to understand that at the end of the day, this is your home. It's not about them making it their home and you adapting. It should be a kind of infusion of both, and using things that are a bit more durable, high commercial-grade fabrics with long wear, stain resistant things. And I think in today's market, is very easy to go for things like that without having to compromise on look."
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What are some unexpected design trends that are becoming more popular right now?
Ray Jimenez: "More vintage pieces, pieces that look like they have a story to them, an aged feel."
Eilyn Jimenez: "We're seeing more old world materials like genuine stone, pebbles, and the use of different materials that were used years ago, and the heavy use of marble. For a very long time, it was like, 'Oh, let's get porcelain that looks like marble because of durability.' I think people are not looking for durability anymore, and they're looking for more, something that feels more curated, more rich, more lived in, than anything else."
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It definitely feels like kitchens and bathrooms are the quickest rooms in a home to look dated. Do you have any specific tips for those areas specifically to keep them looking timeless?
Ray Jimenez: "Try to go with natural materials, and don't stress the maintenance on the materials too much. It is a kitchen—you can you can go porcelain floors, porcelain countertop, synthetic backsplashes, but then it's going to feel like an office kitchen. It's going to look feel very a little bit sterile and a little bit mundane. If you want something timeless, install real wood cabinets, whether it's a veneer or all hardwood cabinets. Install a real quartz or real marble or a real limestone in your kitchen or in your backsplash, and let embrace the patina that the cabinets and the countertop and the backsplash are going to have over time. That is the beauty of having something natural and real in your in your in your space.
"When you go to Italy, you see these beautiful restaurants, you see these beautiful flats, you see these beautiful villas and estates. Why are they so beautiful? Because everything in there is natural. You have natural stones everywhere, natural real wood everywhere. And over time it patinas, and it patinas gracefully, and it looks so decadent, so timeless, so authentic, so real. And that's how you get that timeless effect. And so my one recommendation would be, yeah, go as natural as possible when it comes to your kitchen and bathrooms."
Eilyn Jimenez: "I think people for so long have been so scared about marble, and there's this misconception around marble—like, 'Oh my God, the upkeep!' Everything has an upkeep. If you destroy your house, whether you have porcelain, marble, ceramic, it's going to get destroyed. Everything requires some sort of upkeep. And what's beautiful about marble is how it patina through time. I always tell my clients that marble is kind of like an art piece: There's no two that are identical. It comes from Earth—Earth created that! So the natural patina of it and having it age through time is what makes it so beautiful.
"And picking back off of what Ray said, the museums that we visit—we just came back from Washington and seeing the marbles that were done years ago, and how they still stand. The reason why they still stand is because it's marble. And not being scared to introduce elements like this, and having natural materials patina through time, that's what makes it so beautiful and really making it stand out that way. That's how you create a one of a kind piece in your kitchen or in your bathroom, by incorporating things like this.
"One thing that was really important for us in our house was, we wanted our house to walk in and feel like we were in our favorite hotel, when you walk into your favorite hotel. And I always add this to clients when I onboard them: 'Give me three of the hotels that you've been to that you can live in for the rest of your life,' and that says a lot about their aesthetic. You want to have that feeling every day as you walk into your home. That was what we were trying to envision through our home, and you can do that with materials."
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Circling back to what Ray mentioned about furniture sets: Mixing and matching furniture and design elements gives a curated look, but it can be tricky for beginners. Do you have advice on how to mix and match pieces and have it still look cohesive?
Ray Jimenez: "That definitely is a little bit of an art, right? So my recommendation would be to pick out the furniture pieces that you do like and put them together in one PowerPoint presentation. Then immediately, you'll see how the lines of this accent chair will go with your L-shaped sofa and then you throw in the area rug, and you see if the area rug helps tie in everything together. Then you throw in the coffee table, so on and so forth. You kind of start setting up all the furniture selections.
"These are the practices we do in-house. Right away, we start selecting a lot of pieces, and we start putting them together. Obviously we're we do this very quick, because what we do every day of our lives, right? You start there, and then you automatically start to understand, 'Oh, yeah. I like this. I like how these two pieces live together. I love how this this pendant looks with these bar stools, and I like how this stone looks with these floors.' You can start putting that together and immediately start creating your very own little mood board and start understanding, 'Okay, yeah, the curvature of this armchair works perfectly with what I'm thinking for this wall unit.' So automatically, it's going to make sense or not make sense for you."
Eilyn: "Yeah. And I have this golden ratio of design: When you are specifying these pieces, this golden ratio I always use is 50% new, 30% vintage, 20% client-owned or hand-me-downs from family, things like that. [The ratio] makes a space feels curated. It doesn't feel like a showroom. It still has character and history, and it still can feel like a space that is yours. I always love creating spaces that when you walk into the room, you know who they're designed for."
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What's the most bizarre design request you've ever had?
Eilyn Jimenez: "I had a request for gun drawers underneath the movie theater seating, and they were like legit gun drawers. The same project had a hidden door from the child's closet into the primary closet, which was like a bunker. I hope that's the last one I have to do like that!"
Ray Jimenez: "One of them was a little bit more on the ... exotic side, where it was a bachelor condo in downtown Miami. He said, 'I want a ceiling mirror. I want a mirror in my ceiling. That's what I want. This is what's going to happen here, so I need this."
Eilyn Jimenez: "Didn't you also have a guy who wanted an actual tiger's head rug?"
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Oh my God. Did you design Joe Exotic's house?
Ray Jimenez: "Ha! This one was culturally influenced, not the Tiger King. He wanted this super kind of ornate, a little bit over the top, not a lot over the top style. He's from Turkey, so he wanted that heavy duty, more traditional design approach for his condo in Miami Beach. I had a lot of fun with that project. That to this day is one of my favorite projects. So that wasn't necessarily bizarre, it was just very unique. He was like, 'I want 100% wallpaper everywhere. I want real teak vanities and kitchen cabinets. I want a black onyx for my kitchen countertop.' He was very eccentric, and we had a lot of fun. And that project came out beautiful."
Fans can stay connected with Ray, Eilyn and Divided By Design at HGTV.com and @HGTV on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and Threads using #DividedbyDesign. They also can follow Ray (@rayjimenez_) and (@eilynjimenez_) on Instagram. Each new episode of Divided By Design will be available to stream Tuesdays at 9 p.m. starting Aug. 20, 2024, on Max.
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