Full Interior Design
For new builds and full renovations. I handle the design from the first drawings through move-in day: space planning, finishes, custom millwork, lighting, furniture, and styling. One designer, start to finish.
Interior Design · Real Estate · Lifestyle
Interiors built
for the way you
actually live on the
South Florida coast.
I’m Carolina Maldonado. I’ve been a Florida real estate agent since 2014, and I trained as an interior designer at the University of Miami. Studio CM is where I bring those two practices together for clients who care about the home they end up living in, not just the one they buy.
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About Carolina
Ten years in real estate
taught me how a home
actually gets used.
I’ve been working with South Florida buyers, sellers, and investors since 2014. Walking through hundreds of homes teaches you what works and what doesn’t, long before the furniture shows up. It’s also what pushed me to study interior design at the University of Miami: I wanted to do more than tell clients what a property could be.
Studio CM is built around that combination. I help clients pick the right property, plan the renovation, choose the finishes, and style the rooms when the dust settles. The work tends to look coastal and modern because that’s where I live, but the real through-line is rooms that hold up to daily life. Sand on the floor, kids on the sofa, the actual stuff.
For me, good design is about more than how a room looks. It’s about how it feels to live there — the comfort, the calm, the sense that you’re finally home.
- Interior Design
- Real Estate
- Lifestyle
Selected Work · Islamorada, Florida
Smith’s Residence
Oceanfront Residence Full Interior Islamorada, FL
Aerial view · Islamorada, Florida Keys
The Brief
A second home
built to slow
everything down.
The clients are a professional couple who wanted a second home in Islamorada — somewhere to step away from the pace of everyday life, spend time with their young son, and be close to the water. The brief was calm, comfortable, and connected to the outdoors. Not a showpiece. A place to actually unwind.
So the architecture stays quiet and lets the setting lead. Inside, the bones are simple: light white oak floors, honed stone, soft plaster walls. From there it warms up. Calacatta marble and copper pendants in the kitchen, banana-leaf wallpaper in the powder room, a deep burgundy office for focus, a tropical mural behind the bed.
The pool, the deck, and the living room read as one continuous space. You can move from the entry straight through to the water without ever feeling like you’ve crossed a threshold — which is the whole point of building this close to the sea.
Formal enough to host a dinner.
Casual enough that nobody takes their shoes off at the door.
Renderings
Room by room
Select an image to enlarge
Materials & Finishes
Materials chosen
to age well by the water.
Salt air is rough on everything. The palette here was built to weather it. Light white oak, honed stone, vinyl plank that actually looks like wood, hand-made tile that will only get better with time and use.
- Sugar Sand Vinyl Plank
- Solis Marble Mosaic
- Cristallo Quartz
- Milk & Honey Mural
- Rêverie Tropicale
- Mandu Textile
- Light White Oak
- Maya Blue 4×4
Floor Plan
How the rooms sit together
Concept
What I was looking at
Services
How I work.
Buying With a Designer
For clients who want a designer in the room before they sign. I walk properties with you, run the numbers on renovation cost, and tell you honestly what a place can become. Then, if it makes sense, I design it.
Styling & Finish Work
For homeowners who already love their house but want it to feel finished. Material sourcing, lighting fixes, art and furniture, the layer that turns a nice room into one you actually want to sit in.
Real Estate & Design
“ Most renovation regret happens
before the keys change hands. ”
I’ve sold houses in South Florida for over ten years. The pattern I see again and again: a client buys a property because the bones look good, then finds out two months in that the layout they pictured will cost twice the budget and the contractor was never going to say so.
Studio CM exists to close that gap. I walk properties with you before you bid, sketch what the renovation actually looks like, and tell you what it will cost. If we buy it, I design it.
Most agents stop at the closing. I’m the same person through demo, finishes, and the day the sofa arrives.
South Florida · since 2014
Get in Touch
Tell me about
your project.
If you’re renovating, buying, or just trying to figure out whether a place is worth the trouble, call or email me. I’d love to hear about it.