NY Times Recommends Hiring a Professional Designer

What is the difference between hiring a professional, educated, certified interior designer or hiring your local furniture store to design your home? Lots of reasons as stated in a recent NY Times article on interior design. Buyer beware of being sold services that may end up costing you more money, time and resulting in a home that is not what you planned. Many local furniture stores offer interior design services, but you will pay retail for furnishings and be limited to those sold by that store. Professional and certified interior designers offer a much wider scope of services, are aligned with a very broad spectrum of products and can purchase products for their clients at wholesale costs. Professional designers are also trained to think laterally about the vast array of decisions made simultaneously while designing & constructing your home. They know how to guide you through the process, coordinate with all the team players, your builder, architect, sub-contractors which is a very overwhelming task if one is not accustomed to doing this. Then once the home is designed, they are able to provide decorating services for completely furnishing your home from furniture to rugs, table lamps, window treatments, bed linens, dishes, art and much more!

See NY Times Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/09/business/AP-US-Service-Package-Internior-Designers.html?_r=1

Updating Vintage Furnishings for Your Mountain or Country Home

A desire to live in a nostalgic environment has attracted many homeowners to the log and timber design styles. Living in a world where change is constant, the design direction for retirement and vacation homes is leaning more towards “the way things use to be.” Log home living is a wonderful way to experience older times, but furnishing in that genre can be a challenge. Vintage furnishings are charming and add to the historical flavor. But they can also create interior design challenges in terms of fitting in with newer furnishings and supporting modern creature comforts. Antiques come to us from many sources and many of us bring vintage pieces with us that have been in our families for years.

We have fond memories from our childhood of being at our grandparents where we were surrounded by vintage pieces. The styles may vary, but vintage pieces add so much interest to a home’s interior and can help bring back cherished memories. They make great focal points and conversation pieces. My father passed a delightful Victorian Settee down to me several years ago that has been in our family for at least 4 generations, if not more. It came from my great grand-parents home in Hamilton, Georgia where dad remembered at one point the settee was moved to their front porch where everyone would gather and visit. He laughed when he remembered his granny throwing a fit when she discovered the pet coon-hounds had discovered and were napping on her Victorian Settee. A cherished family memory that I will pass to my children and grandchildren along with the settee!

Victorian décor has never been part of my personal design style, but I could never let go of this family treasure. When I moved from Atlanta to the North Georgia Mountains and opened Trimble Kelly Studios, this settee came with me and had to fit in! Victorian settees were traditionally upholstered in either a dark green or dark red mohair or velvet. The fabric upholstery on my settee when I got it was solid, olive green cotton velvet that was not the original, but changed by my grandmother. My guess is that when the original wore out, she replaced it with as close of a fabric as she could find. It worked ok in my first space, (below left) but when we moved to Strauss Village it needed an updated look. So I went through my fabric library and found a faux suede brown and white cowhide pattern. It was a big hit. All of my clients who visited my studio would comment on the settee and how cute it looked with a non-traditional fabric. This fabric was from Designtex, but is no longer available. However, there are many other similar fabrics available today including animal prints, great multi-colored textures and a huge variety of prints and wovens.

Other concerns with using antiques or vintage pieces relates to their size and construction methods. Most 18th century furniture was designed for people who were smaller and “proper.” Many antiques, especially Victorian pieces were not designed to hold larger people or sit sideways in with your legs over the arms like we sit today. When reworking a vintage piece, you will need to check the “bones” of each piece to make sure it will be safe for use. You may need to add additional or restructure the internal supports and framing. When we reupholstered my settee, I was told by my upholsterer that it had been reupholstered at least 8 or 10 times. The wood had been weakened greatly by so many nail holes that it required substantial restructuring so it could be used.

Tips for buying Vintage Pieces:
· Not all vintage pieces should be altered from their original state. If you find or inherit a piece that has great value, you may dramatically reduce the value by changing it.
· Consider the scale and ergonomics of the piece if you are intending to use it. As mentioned above, pieces from the 18th century were smaller for the smaller physiques of the day and will not be comfortable for most people today.
· There are so many resources available for finding unique vintage pieces and the search can also be very entertaining and exciting. When I moved to the North Georgia Mountain area, I made a map of all the flea markets and antique shows in the surrounding towns and states. When it is market time, it is a lot of fun going on field trips across the countryside, hopping from town to town and shop to market in search of treasures for special places. You can establish a network of valuable contacts from these markets and shows that are glad to help you find that special piece. It is amazing how many of these vendors travel the countryside from market to market and can be great resources for finding unique pieces.
· Last but not least, don’t be afraid to have some fun with mixing the old with new.

2009 - The Year of "RE"

It amazes me how everyone is adapting to the stressful economic times we are all enduring. I am seeing the changes across the board from client to real estate agents to builders to my own design studio. My projects have definitely changed in their personalities, the project scope and their design direction. I have decided to call 2009 the "RE" year: RE-duce, RE-novate, RE-pair, RE-upholstery, RE-use, RE-vise, RE-claim, RE-work, RE-paint, etc.

People are being much more sensitive about how they spend their personal funds. Plus, the general public is becomming aware of Green and Sustainable. They are much more sensitive to throwing away their old goods for new ones - a sign that the sustainable mind-set is catching on. This photo is from a current project where we designed and built a bar in a client's basement from RE-claimed wood from their barn that had blown over from a tornado. In my 30 year interior design career am I being asked the question "can we use what we have, but "RE" it (reuse/rework/reupholster) to give a new look more than ever. We have been using RE-claimed wood, brick and stone for years as architectural materials, but RE-using so much of the interior furnishings is new. I have been going through client's attics, drawers, garages, basements searching for items that we can "RE."

But on the "whole house" design front, we have had more "REnovation" work than any other year. REnovation work is much harder because you do not know what you are going to find behind walls. And many builders are leery of taking on the responsibility of someone elses work. Many clients who were planning on tearing down and building new, are RE-considering.This new direction has been positive, since we are demolishing and throwing away less, stimulating new trades and really having to be creative about what to do with what we already have. It is like the Apollo 13 movie where the astronauts get the bag of parts dumped on the table in front of them and they have to get the others back to earth with what they have. We have been getting some quite unattractive caterpillars put in front of us and have to turn them into butterflies.

This is also leading to the support of some trades that have been going out of business in years past, such as the RE-upholsterers. And we are also buying more raw fabrics for RE-doing existing pillows, furniture and bedding.Guess what? It works. The RE-year will not be known as the year of bad or ugly design, but the RE-naissance of being comfortable what you have with modifications. There is also a RE-alization from homeowners that they feel good about using what they have, being more kind to the earth, living with less and RE-thinking their desire to have the newest products on the market. They find they are actually participating in the latest design trend, which is adopting the sustainable mind-set and RE-newing the idea that RE-novation and RE-working existing is a good thing.

Time to Spring Clean and Freshen Your Home's Interior

Spring is here and it is a great time to freshen up your home. Don't be disappointed that you don't have funds to go shopping and buy new things. That is the easy way out! You may be surprised that what you already have in your house can be brought out of storage, drawers or your attic or existing pieces can be rearranged to give you a great new look. Challenging economic times makes the creative juices spark higher! While you are dusting the winter dust and cobb webs away, open old boxes and go through drawers of linens to see if there may be a treasure hiding.

Last week I visited neighbor who was frustrated did not know what to do in her home with her limited funds. I am hearing this more frequently now. I visited her and started talking about specific areas. As we walked the house, she was remembering things she had packed away - old linens that she thought did not work in her house, antiques from family, etc. She brought them out and we found new places for them. We also rearranged some furniture to give the rooms a new look and focus and made the spaces support her lifestyle better.

While reviewing your rooms, consider items that really don't help the space and create clutter. More is not better. Creating focal points in spaces that are primary, then adding other items to support the focal point is a great way to organize your spaced and give a controlled, organized look.

Use this down time to clean out clutter, and freshen up your home while keeping your budget in tact. If you have to go shopping, there are some great deals that you can take advantage of. I have noticed thrift stores opening up all over the place and a flurry of yard sales. You may be surprised what you may find that is right in front of your eyes!