A home is more than just four walls. In Arlington, two formerly unhoused women now have apartments that truly feel home-like, thanks to local interior designers who offered their services pro bono, transforming empty spaces into warm, welcoming residences filled with comfort, style and dignity.
The makeovers happened over the course of a few hours on May 7, when a crew of volunteer designers and movers filled the apartments with beds, couches and decorative accents, all at no cost to the renters. The effort, called Home Reimagined, was a one-day event hosted by the D.C.-area nonprofit A Wider Circle, which provides furniture, home goods and job training to people in need.
From Shelter to Sanctuary
Lisha Quarles lived in a shelter with her 4-year-old son for a year before A Wider Circle helped her secure a two-bedroom apartment. But she had nothing but mattresses to put in it. Through Home Reimagined, she was paired with Andrea Maaseide, founder of design firm Casa Millie in Vienna.
Maaseide met with Quarles to ask about her furnishing needs and favorite colors. Her requests were modest. She wanted desks for her son and herself. She was partial to blues and purples. He liked orange.
With that feedback, Maaseide pieced together a design plan, tapping A Wider Circle’s donation warehouse and supplementing with donations from clients. She found a sleeper sofa at the warehouse and scored a console table from a client who was selling her house.
“I’ve mentioned it to a few of my vendors, and they said, ‘How can we help? We want to donate, too,'” Maaseide says. “My A/V guy said, ‘Let us donate the TV.'”
The transformation nearly brought Quarles to tears. “I wanted to cry. My house actually looks like a home now,” she says. “It gives us that security of us actually being stable now. We went from homeless one minute to a homeless shelter to a place of our own, and now we actually have a home.”
Her son loves it, too, she adds: “He’s been telling people, ‘I like my new room.’ He’s been hugging the TV.”
A Fresh Start
“Home Reimagined was born [in 2024] out of the conviction that a house that feels like home is not a reward at the end of the journey—it’s the foundation people need to thrive,” says program director Lara Gagrica. “The idea was to take what we already do—providing furniture and essentials to thousands of families each year—and ask: What if we could go all in? What if, in a single day, we could fully transform homes?”
A Wider Circle has helped more than 270,000 families since its founding in 2001. Anyone seeking assistance from the nonprofit may apply for Home Reimagined. Staff determine whether the space will be a good fit and pair applicants with designers. “It is about balancing many factors,” Gagrica says. “The size of the apartment, location, amount of furniture they need and more.”
The first Home Reimagined event transformed 10 residences in the D.C. area. This year’s effort involved 50 homes, and for the first time included two in Arlington.
“The families in these homes are our neighbors” Gagrica says. “They’re working, raising kids, showing up for school drop offs and community events just like anyone else. Some are rebuilding after homelessness. Some are starting over after domestic violence. More and more are navigating sudden job loss, including displaced federal workers.”
Dignity by Design
Fiona Grunwald, owner of Design by Conway in McLean, participated in Home Reimagined last year and was eager to do it again. This time, she worked with a woman who is a recovering addict and a mom of 10.
“She has done a lot of work and has come such a long way to be in a position where she’s in good health and ready to be fully in the community,” says Grunwald. “For her, the most important piece is reconnecting with her family and having this space she feels proud of, where she can bring her kids.”
After meeting with her client to take measurements and photos of the space, Grunwald visited A Wider Circle’s donations center to source furniture, lighting and decor. She was on the hunt for a big sectional where the family could gather to watch football.
“She really has nothing,” Grunwald says. “It’s such a big deal to fill that void and find things that mean something to her and represent her. I think it’s just going to be a huge starting point for her.”
Coming Together
The Home Reimagined program has grown quickly via word of mouth, Gagrica says. This year, 40 designers, 30-plus moving partners and hundreds of other volunteers contributed their ideas and elbow grease to makeover 50 homes in the DMV.
“Designers brought their creativity. Moving companies showed up with [donated] trucks and muscle. Corporate teams realized their employees could have a direct, lasting impact in just a few hours. Friends turned dinner parties into fundraisers, gathering their networks around a shared purpose. Ordinary people in neighborhoods across the DMV decided to step up,” Gagrica says.
She’s aiming to transform even more homes next year.
Niki Zoli, Maaseide’s sister and manager of Casa Millie’s marketing and studio operations, hopes the program model will be be adopted in other parts of the country. She floated the idea to the larger design community last month while attending High Point Market in North Carolina, the world’s largest home furnishings industry trade show.
“I was mentioning this at several of the seminars, including one around community-building, and people were really interested and excited about it,” Zoli says. “I really think it’s a replicable model. This idea of [addressing] furniture poverty is a really, really great fit with the interior design world. It leverages your superpower to do good in the local community.”