by Tabitha Swezea
For Jennifer Sucher, great design begins with a feeling.
As the founder and principal of Sucher Studios, Jennifer has built a practice around creating interiors that are unexpected, layered and deeply personal. Those spaces are shaped as much by instinct, travel and collected objects as they are by the people who live within them.
With more than 16 years of experience in interior design, Jennifer spent much of her career working with some of Chicago’s top design firms before launching Sucher Studios in 2023. Those early years exposed her to designers with distinctly different aesthetics and approaches, giving her the opportunity to explore materials and ideas she may not otherwise have encountered.
“I was able to try things I probably never would have gravitated toward on my own and flex design muscles I didn’t even know I had,” Jennifer says. “It helped me understand what I like and what I don’t like, but more importantly, it taught me not to be afraid of trying something I haven’t seen before.”
That willingness to experiment has become central to the Sucher Studios point of view.
Designing by Instinct
Jennifer doesn’t subscribe to a single aesthetic or formula. Instead, she often begins with an instinct—an unusual but perfect color combination, materials that create a unique tension, or pieces from different eras that somehow just mesh.
Photography by Sarah Crowley (left) and Ryan Van Ert (right)
“I don’t need everything to belong to the same period or fit neatly into one particular style,” she says. “It just needs to feel right together, while still being interesting and a little unexpected.”
The result is interiors that feel collected rather than prescribed. Antiques and objects with history might sit alongside contemporary pieces, while art, handmade elements, natural materials and color create layers of personality. Cleaner lines and quieter moments provide balance, allowing each element room to breathe.
How Do You Want to Feel at Home?
Despite the visual richness of her work, Jennifer’s process doesn’t begin by asking clients to define their aesthetic.
She asks how they want to feel.
Photography by Sarah Crowley (left) and Ryan Van Ert (right)
Cozy? Calm? Energized? Surprised?
“I actually don’t expect clients to have the vocabulary,” she says. “That’s part of my job.”
Images become a useful tool during the process. Jennifer asks clients to share spaces, objects and ideas they respond to, even when they can’t articulate why. Just as importantly, she wants to know what they dislike.
From there, the conversation expands beyond aesthetics. How does the family move through the house? Where does everyone gather at the end of the day? Do they entertain? Are there children or pets? What isn’t working about the way they currently live?
Becoming a mother herself has made Jennifer even more conscious of the relationship between beautiful design and everyday function.
“I love beautiful things, but homes are meant to be lived in,” she says. “I want our spaces to feel special without feeling precious.”
Her role, then, is both interpreter and creative guide: understanding what already resonates with a client while introducing possibilities they may not have considered.
A Different Way to Work With a Designer
That philosophy also inspired The Workshop, Sucher Studios’ intensive one-day design consultation.
Jennifer recognized that not every client needs, or wants, traditional full-service design. Some clients enjoy managing portions of a project themselves, while others have a smaller scope project or simply need an experienced designer to help establish a direction.
Photography by Sarah Crowley
The Workshop condenses that guidance into five focused hours.
“We’re sitting together, making decisions in real time, looking at options, talking through the space, and solving problems as they come up,” Jennifer says. “It gives people access to years of design experience in a format that is much more immediate.”
Jennifer and her Workshop clients have designed kitchens and bathrooms, worked through layouts, selected lighting and materials, and made the foundational decisions needed to move an entire project forward.
The format has also developed into something Jennifer didn’t necessarily anticipate: an ongoing relationship.
Some clients have returned for five, six or even seven sessions, booking another Workshop as their renovation or new-build project reaches its next phase. Jennifer has used the format to guide projects ranging from a gut renovation in Detroit to a midcentury home in Seattle and ground-up construction.
For clients who want to execute portions of the work themselves, it offers a middle ground between doing it alone and handing over every detail of a project.
Creating a History From Scratch
One of Sucher Studios’ current projects brings many of Jennifer’s design philosophies together: a ground-up home in Kingston, New York.
Everything about the house will technically be new. Jennifer’s goal is to make it feel as though it has always been there.
“We’re thinking about every opportunity to give the home a sense of history and permanence, from the materials and architectural details to millwork, wallpaper, lighting, and how one room transitions into the next,” she says.
Rather than building a pristine new home and layering character onto it afterward, the team is considering that sense of history from the beginning. Eventually, Jennifer hopes it won’t be immediately apparent what is new, what is old or what might conceivably have been part of the home for decades.
“The goal is for it to feel like a house that has evolved over generations and will continue to get better with time.”
It is also indicative of where Jennifer sees the studio heading. She is increasingly interested in the balance between color and restraint, pairing a confident use of color with natural materials, antiques, handmade elements, architectural details and cleaner lines.
What she isn’t interested in is developing a recognizable formula and repeating it.
“Some of my favorite design decisions have come from trying something I haven’t seen before and trusting my instincts,” she says. “I never want our work to become formulaic.”
Photography by Sarah Crowley (left) and Jennifer Sucher (right)
Rooted in Chicago, Inspired Everywhere
Although Sucher Studios’ work extends beyond Chicago, the city remains foundational to Jennifer’s career.
“Chicago is where I really learned how to be a designer,” she says.
Beyond the designers she learned from early in her career, Jennifer credits the city’s community of craftspeople, vendors, showrooms and fellow creatives with allowing designers to continually push their ideas further.
“Interior design is so collaborative, and having people around you who are exceptional at what they do allows you to push an idea further.”
Still, Jennifer sees her work as a culmination of influences that stretch far beyond any one place: Chicago’s design community, years of travel, creative collaborators, clients, motherhood and her own evolving instincts.
Together, those experiences have given her the confidence to create interiors without relying on a predetermined playbook.
For Jennifer, perhaps that is what makes a home feel truly personal in the first place, bringing together the unexpected until, somehow, it simply feels right.
To learn more visit, Sucher Studios online.
