By the COCINA Team

The coffee’s already poured. Someone’s halfway through peeling a huevo. There’s music low in the background, the kind you don’t turn off—you just let it carry the morning. That’s the energy we walked into with Ashlee Nino, and it’s the same energy she’s been chasing in her space.

Not more. Not bigger. Just better.

Ashlee Nino builds wellness the same way she builds everything else—by hand, with intention, and somewhere between what she needs and what she remembers. It’s not a reset button. It’s a series of small decisions that add up to something you actually feel when you sit down.

So when she set out to create a wellness nook for Build Well, it wasn’t about redoing a kitchen. It was about claiming a corner where life could slow down just enough to catch up with itself.

Because when Ashlee talks about a wellness nook, she’s not talking about some Pinterest-perfect moment that no one actually uses. She means a real spot. A lived-in, sat-in, come-back-to-yourself kind of place. The kind where breakfast turns into a pause, and a pause turns into something you didn’t know you needed.

And the best part? She built it herself.

And yes, we sat there. It works.

Ashlee Nino Moves Like This for a Reason

If you’ve seen her move—even once—you get it. There’s rhythm in everything she does. That same energy shows up whether she’s behind a drum kit, dancing in the groundbreaking “Benito Bowl” show, building out an installation for her company The Switch Events, or figuring out how a corner of her kitchen can feel better at 8 a.m. than it did the day before.

Then there’s the version of her that doesn’t make it into the highlight reel. Early mornings. Chickens out back. Fresh eggs that still feel warm in your hand. A kid moving through the kitchen while something’s already on the stove.

It’s a full life. It’s a good life.

It’s also a loud one.

As we spent time with her, Ashlee Nino kept coming back to the same idea: joy is present, but peace needs to be made.

That distinction matters. It’s easy to fill a day with things you love. It’s harder to create space within that day to actually feel settled in it.

For her, wellness is built through what she eats, how she moves, and how her environment supports both. It’s not separate from her life—it’s embedded in it.

That’s what Build Well, part of our Vive Bien vertical, is about at its core. Not reinvention, but refinement. Not escape, but integration.

The Corner That Needed to Do More

And in this case, it starts with a corner.

Every kitchen has a spot that doesn’t quite hold. You pass through it, you drop things on it, maybe you sit there for a minute—but it doesn’t pull you in.

That’s where she started.

Building from Memory

The way Ashlee Nino builds isn’t something she picked up recently. It’s something she’s carried with her.

She told us about being 11 years old and wanting black-and-white checkered tile in her room. Instead of stepping in, her dad handed her the tools and let her figure it out. Tile, saw, and the expectation that she could do it.

It wasn’t about the tile. It was about learning to trust her own hands.

That early lesson still shapes how Ashlee approaches every project now. There’s no waiting for the perfect setup. There’s no assumption that something needs to be outsourced to be done well.

“I love the idea that you don’t need a big budget or a big space to make something authentically you and beautiful,” she told us.

The wellness nook follows that philosophy exactly.

Soft Seats, Long Conversations

The banquette is the first shift—and it’s the kind you notice at once.

Ashlee Nino builds scalloped, velvet-upholstered panels, cutting soft curves into plywood and wrapping them in something that immediately changes the way the space holds you. It’s comfy and feels luxurious. Also, you definitely sit differently when the edges aren’t sharp.

We watched her put it together—jigsaw out, trim pieces lined up, screws where they make sense, Velcro where they don’t. It’s practical in the way that real homes need to be.

And that’s the point. Nothing here is too precious to use.

Because if you can’t lean back with your coffee without thinking twice, what are we doing?

A Tea Wall That Knows Its Role

Then comes the tea wall, and this is where Ashlee Nino explains the mood she leans into: it’s what she calls a “dopamine aesthetic.” Bright, energizing, a little playful (in case you haven’t noticed from her pink and orange striped walls that she prepared in advance!). The kind of setup that makes you reach for your favorite mug without thinking twice.

Shelves go up with intention—spaced just right, framed to feel built-in, anchored by an arched facade that softens the entire structure. Inside, a semi-gloss black (“little black dress,” because of course). Outside, a cooler gray that lets everything else pop.

It’s the kind of detail you don’t over-explain. You just feel it.

And suddenly, tea isn’t just tea. It’s a pause. A ritual. A moment to come back to yourself.

We’ve seen a lot of shelves. This one doesn’t just store things. It sets a tone.

Ashlee Nino Doesn’t Waste a Good Idea

What stood out most? Nothing stops at one use.

The leftover plywood from the tea wall becomes a table. Not an afterthought—a continuation. Same material, new purpose, clean lines that feel right in the nook because they came from it.

Ashlee Nino works like that. There’s no separation between phases. Everything feeds into the next thing.

It’s less about maximizing materials and more about staying in conversation with what you’re making.

You can feel that when you sit down.

The Plate That Grounds It All

At some point, you have to eat.

For Ashlee Nino, that means egg salad. The kind you don’t overthink. Eggs from her chickens, boiled, chopped, mixed the way she’s always done it. A family recipe that lives in her hands more than anywhere else.

It’s not plated for effect. It’s placed on the table and passed around.

And that’s when the nook really makes sense.

Because the space isn’t the point. The moment is.

The way the banquette embraces you while you eat. The way you don’t rush through it. The way conversation stretches just a little longer because no one’s uncomfortable.

That’s the return on all that building.

The Kind of Space You Actually Use

By the time everything comes together, nothing about it feels staged, despite the striking, rich colors used throughout.

The banquette holds. The tea wall sets the tone. The table does its job. The food anchors it.

And the space gets used.

We’ve all seen rooms that look right and feel off. This isn’t that.

Ashlee Nino made something that works on a random morning, when the coffee’s already poured and the day hasn’t fully started yet.

That’s when you know it’s real.

Ashlee and the Space She Made

A corner can change how a morning feels. A table can change how long you stay. A habit—something as simple as sitting down to eat—can change how a day unfolds.

Ashlee doesn’t present wellness as something distant or idealized. She builds it into what’s already there.

And that’s what stays with us: the idea that you can make space for yourself, right where you are, and that it’s worth doing.

A reminder that you can shift your day without changing your whole life.

That a corner can hold more if you ask it to.

That sitting down—actually sitting down—still matters.

Ashlee Nino didn’t build a wellness nook to impress anyone. She built it because she needed it.

And now that it’s there?

We’d move in.

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