Here are ten:

1.  Problem Solving – an interior designer is an expert in space planning, color, scale and light.  And that particular problem that plagues you.

2.  Avoiding Mistakes – this is a big one, mistakes are expensive. Designers have the experience to know what will work the first time.

3. Resources [...]]]>  

Ten Good Reasons!

Here are ten:

1.  Problem Solving – an interior designer is an expert in space planning, color, scale and light.  And that particular problem that plagues you.

2.  Avoiding Mistakes – this is a big one, mistakes are expensive. Designers have the experience to know what will work the first time.

3. Resources – access “to the trade” sources, as well as myriads of others, and the ability  to choose from unlimited selections to know which are best for you.

4. Rolodex – maybe not in rolodex anymore, but all the people to execute the project. Workrooms, contractors, carpenters and the rest. Takes years of experience to gather these.

5. Guidance – throughout the decision making process. Arriving at the aha moment when it clicks for you!

6. Timeless Design – the ability to incorporate the trends in a way that that will never look dated.

7. Priorities – helping to set them for the short and  long term

8. Marriage Counselor – small joke – but can help partners with different views arrive at a good solution that both are happy with.

9. Advocate – working with the tradespeople to execute your project to get the best possible result. Years of relationships come into play here.

10. Recipe – your ” instituional history”, the ability to add, redo, make changes that will always work with your original design.

Our 9′ x 15′ design studio floor plan!

Interior Design is a process. It can be overwhelming, expensive and fraught with error. You can do it yourself if you are confident of you taste, have the resources, an infinite attention to detail, lots of time, love [...]]]>

Our 9′ x 15′ design studio floor plan!

Interior Design is a process. It can be overwhelming, expensive and fraught with error. You can do it yourself if you are confident of you taste, have the resources, an infinite attention to detail, lots of time, love decision making and more important problem solving, and a courageous heart. Or you can work with a designer that can make the process manageable and even fun with a splendid result.

The collaboration, and it should be that, begins with an initial meeting, where dreams and wishes, needs and function are discussed along with budget and expectations.

This is where you share the size and  scope of  your project, and your sense of comfort and style. Budget should be discussed. Some people think this will encourage the designer to take advantage of that amount, that isn’t true at all, it is essential to determine if the budget is realistic for what you want to achieve. If not, it is  your decision whether  to scale back, do the project in stages or increase the budget. I am happy to accommodate.  Discuss how you like to be charged. Options are hourly consultation and discount on purchases, or a flat fee that includes one fee for the hours estimated to provide  you with the “recipe” for your project. Both options include floor plans, selections of fabrics, furniture, carpet, paint color and drawings for custom built ins as discussed. Purchasing can  be done by you or a combination of  you and designer. The industry has been moving towards the flat fee model and our design firm has embraced that.  We are both then attuned  to budget and time.

I encourage clients to bring pictures from magazines and books, shows a sense of your style and likes . Can also show what you aren’t comfortable with. It is  a reference point to begin . You should also like your designer’s taste. While our clients’ rooms always look like themselves and not me as designer, there’s a sensibility that you embrace and a style with the designer you choose. You should also feel a sense of rapport with your designer and that should increase over time. I have clients that have come back for over 20 years and the relationship remains a joy.

The length of the project from concept to installation should be discussed and  realistic. It depends on manufacturers, and carpenters and installers and of course how quickly you make decisions. In design we are dependent on so many people and relationships to delver the project.  I like to install the project all at once, complete with accents and accessories. The client can then choose what they would like to keep but in the moment,  it gives them the sense and splendor of the finished room. Voila!

How does the process begin?

Interior Design for me is a process that begins with listening. What does the client need, want, think, feel about their project. Just as important is what they don’t want, and are not comfortable with.

I feel my job is to bring them enough of a selection that [...]]]> ‘

How does the process begin?

Interior Design for me is a process that begins with listening. What does the client need, want, think, feel about their project. Just as important is what they don’t want, and are not comfortable with.

I feel my job is to bring them enough of a selection that they have choices to make and are very much part of the collaboration. And then to add just the right amount of pop, whimsy and/or the unexpected that will take the project beyond their expectations.

When presenting to a client it is not unusual for them to say, “Well, I would never have thought of that” as though there might be a problem. And my response is to explain, that is just what we’re aiming for, something different, unique and a step further than the client would think of themselves. For what else is a designer for!

Ultimately the finished project will look just like the client, the very best of that client. That should always be the result.

The process continues.

Do I need bookshelves?

Well, maybe I do altho I rather like this “arrangement” where all my books are handy. Recent past, present, and future.  Fall a good time to reconsider shelves.  Always a new beginning, a new season, moving indoors after summer days and the freshening up projects that will make [...]]]>

Do I need bookshelves?

Well, maybe I do altho I rather like this “arrangement” where all my books are handy. Recent past, present, and future.  Fall a good time to reconsider shelves.  Always a new beginning, a new season, moving indoors after summer days and the freshening up projects that will make an impact. Here are five:

Paint a Room –  or two. biggest bang for your buck as they say. Use a jewel tone like Chinese red, or aubergine in your powder room. Or use a bright white where before you had color.

Plump up Pillows – another big impact, replace the tired with new.  Add texture with velvet, add print with zebra, add shimmer with silk. Big squares 22 inch always good. Down filled of course.

Wallpaper Again –  not the usual wall covering but the new and different version. Use a lovely greigey vine with a shimmer of gold in your hallway or a bright graphic in the kitchen.

Cover a Chair – loving velvets right now. Use an almost white lineny velvet, wears well, gets better with age.

Built Ins for Storage, even Books – have custom made, designed for your particular needs. Open shelving for books and to display collections and/or artwork, doors on lower half to hide the clutter, organized of course.

The Versatile Ottoman

Need a place to serve drinks, somewhere comfy to put your feet up, extra seating or a moveable feast ?  That would be a custom ottoman. We love to design custom ottomans for clients for all of the above uses.  Large or small, round or square, rectangle or even more [...]]]>

The Versatile Ottoman

Need a place to serve drinks, somewhere comfy to put your feet up, extra seating or a moveable feast ?  That would be a custom ottoman. We love to design custom ottomans for clients for all of the above uses.  Large or small, round or square, rectangle or even more than 1 in different shapes and sizes. The creative opportunities are endless. Suitable for every room.

This one designed for a client in her Connecticut living room filled with colors of the sea. Foamy blues and greens, with many textures of fabrics, silks and linens and velvets. And this oversized square ottoman is placed right in the center the seating area. Upholstered in a zebra style print, in a heavy duty needlepoint texture. We created the legs with a bit of a whimsical curve to complement the straight lines, and painted them in a metallic silver car paint which adds just the right amount of shimmer to the light filled space. Silver accents are repeated elsewhere in pillows on the sofa. This ottoman has a simple self welt but we’ve used fringe or tape or studs to vary the affect.

At the end of the bed, between 2 chairs, in front of your favorite reading chair, in your guest room, master bedroom, family room and library. I have one in all of those rooms.

Add a tray in clear lucite,  antique black painted tole, Asian laquerware or vintage silver tea tray and be ready for cocktails.

All Things Considered

Jason SheelerOne of Kermit Oliver’s designs for Hèrmes

October 21, 2012

About a year ago, writer Jason Sheeler was working on a story about Hermès scarves — the elaborately decorated silk squares that [...]]]> How A Texas Postman Became An Hermès Designer

by NPR Staff

Listen to the Story

All Things Considered

Jason SheelerOne of Kermit Oliver’s designs for Hèrmes

October 21, 2012

About a year ago, writer Jason Sheeler was working on a story about Hermès scarves — the elaborately decorated silk squares that can cost as much as $400. He traveled to Lyon, in southern France, to visit the factory, and on his first day there he found an even more interesting story: A French woman threw out a big scarf with a turkey on it and asked Sheeler if he knew Kermit. He didn’t.

Kermit, as it turns out, is Kermit Oliver. He lives in Waco, Texas, and he’s the only American to ever design scarves for Hermès.

“As a matter of fact,” the woman told Sheeler, “he is a postman.”

A Deeply Humble Artist

Several weeks and many voicemails later, Oliver finally, reluctantly, allowed Sheeler to visit him at home. Sheeler, who wrote about Oliver in the October issue of Texas Monthly, tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered, that he was immediately struck by Oliver’s artwork.

“Every single bit of wall space is covered with incredibly beautiful, colorful paintings,” Sheeler says.

Most of them are portraits of children or farm animals. One huge painting showed a cat sitting on the back of a cow wearing a floral necklace. Another was a portrait of Oliver’s father sitting astride a horse.

Oliver is 70 years old. He wears his mustache trim and neat. And though he’s one of the most important living African-American painters, he just doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. Never mind that he’s the only American artist ever to design a scarf for Hermès — which he’s done 16 times.

Jason SheelerOne of Kermit Oliver’s designs for Hèrmes.

Again, he’s also an employee of the U.S. Postal Service.

“He doesn’t believe he can make a living as a painter,” Sheeler says. “He doesn’t even believe that he’s that good — those are his words. He just likes to paint.

“He works overnight at the post office, comes home, paints a little bit, takes a nap and then does it all over again. He survives on two to three hours of sleep. Eats a sandwich on his break at the post office. He gets a 30-minute break, and then he goes back to sorting mail.”

A Fateful Show

“I think that he’s a mystery to everyone. I even sometimes … wonder if it’s a mystery to Kermit, because I think he enjoys people” says Shelby Marcus.

Marcus is the wife of Lawrence Marcus, the founder of the legendary Dallas department store Neiman Marcus, which was instrumental in bringing Oliver to the attention of Hermès.

“He’s private, that’s the only thing that I can think of,” Marcus says. “He has a need for privacy.”

Oliver went to art school at Texas Southern University in Houston in the late 1960s. Almost immediately, his work stood out.

“His art is colorful. He works with very, very, very rudimentary supplies,” Sheeler says. “He works with acrylic paint that he gets at Michael’s [craft stores]. He works on very cheap watercolor paper. He draws, and then he paints. Oftentimes, he uses his family members in his paintings.”

Enlarge Hooks Epstein Galleries Inc.A self-portrait by Kermit Oliver

A gallery in Houston recognized Oliver’s talent and mounted a one-man show of his work in 1970. He became the first black artist represented by a major gallery in Houston. That’s how Oliver first met Shelby Marcus — and later, her husband.

“The Hermès company was looking for an artist to do a scarf with a Southwest theme,” Sheeler says, “And Lawrence Marcus said, ‘You know what? I know the guy. I’ve got the guy for you.’ ”

“The thing that intrigued me and made me think of Hermès, for using Kermit’s talent was the fact that Kermit tends to design from the outside in,” Lawrence Marcus says. “In other words, he designs the frames of the pictures that he’s painting. And that’s the way Hermès has chosen its path and it just fit in to what Kermit was doing.”

By this point, Oliver’s work was selling for tens of thousands of dollars. One of his paintings sold for more than $70,000. And all the while, he shows up at the post office in Waco to sort mail.

A Life-Changing Tragedy

Oliver’s story took a tragic turn in 1998 when his youngest son, Khristian, was sentenced to death for beating a man to death during a home robbery.

Oliver tried, in vain, to have his son’s sentence commuted. Hermès and the Marcus family helped him set up a legal fund. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers, but the sentence stood. In November 2009, Oliver and his family watched as Khristian was put to death by lethal injection.

According to people who know Oliver, he was never the same after that.

“He became even more reclusive,” Shelby Marcus says. “I believe he had some searching to do within himself about his religion, because he was so crushed.”

“There was no common thread within his family that would lead one to believe that Khristian wouldn’t have taken the same path as the other children,” she says.

“His faith has shifted,” Sheeler says. “He’d definitely lost his faith, lost his way in the world, and at the same time having to go to the post office every day. And at the same time having to create these incredibly luxurious 410 squares of silk that are sold in exclusive boutiques worldwide.”

The business of interior design is creative but it’s so much more than that. People frequently think it’s handling pretty fabrics all day, that it’s glamorous because it is an art or that it is a business they’ll start one day when they’re finished with whatever job they’re in now. [...]]]> Design Studio

The business of interior design is creative but it’s so much more than that. People frequently think it’s handling pretty fabrics all day, that it’s glamorous because it is an art or that it is a business they’ll start one day when they’re finished with whatever job they’re in now. And those people are so wrong. The smallest percentage of a designer’s time is spent on the creative, the actual designing of the space that includes the colors, fabrics, furniture etc. The rest is business.That would be administration, bookkeeping, solving problems, taxes, education, licensing, credentials, marketing, and attached to the creative part, researching, sourcing,  estimating, ordering, solving more problems, tracking, scheduling, coordinating, overseeing workrooms and keeping the client informed and comfortable with the process every step of the way. And even more. I can’t promise clients that there won’t be any problems, many beyond my control,  but I do my best to solve the problems so that the client doesn’t have to be involved or distressed by them. Doing all that behind the scenes frequently makes it all look seamless and even easy. Don’t be fooled. It is an extremely detailed business and every detail has to be tracked from start to finish.

It takes great organizing skills and business acumen which does not necessarily complement designers’ creative talents. But without learning, developing, and implementing the business skills there comes a point early on that an interior design business cannot sustain itself.

But there is also passion and that is really what makes a successful design business, the passion for the creative process, the passion for creating the best for each client and the passion for following it through to the best possible result for each client which includes all of the business skills required.

One would wonder why it would be wise or necessary to work with a designer. After all, there is a proliferation of how to do it your self shows on t v from design to antiquing, 24/7 you can watch and find the tips and tricks [...]]]> Why work with an interior designer?

One would wonder why it would be wise or necessary to work with a designer. After all, there is a proliferation of how to do it your self shows on t v from design to antiquing, 24/7 you can watch and find the tips and tricks to do it on your own. The online options are also limitless. You can research it on your own, order it on your own and  pay less for it on your own. Simple, and I will say if you have the time to create a floorplan and  research and order and schedule and manage the deliveries and of course the vision and the taste then you can certainly do it on your own. However most people fare better  having an expert to do all that for them. In this case it is the interior designer, and what she does day in an day out, and has amassed  the knowledge, education, resources and of course the vision, taste level and creativity to create a splendid result for you.

And yes, it is expensive but like any worthy endeavor it is an investment. And will give you years of function, beauty and pleasure. Mistakes are expensive and difficult to rectify. All too often I am called after the mistake has been made. The family room additon that doesn’t have the perfect wall for the television is an extreme but true story. More often are the paint colors or wallcoverings that aren’t what one hoped, too subtle or worse too garish. Furniture out of scale and fabrics not as pretty as the small swatch they saw.Getting the skilled workrooms and craftspeople to do the work  is also difficult  and designers spend years searching for and  keeping the best skilled resources in their folders. Overwhelming for the person doing it on a one time basis.

As for the vision, I listen to my clients needs and hopes and dreams, narrow down the choices and bring them the best choices for their project. One doesn’t need to see 359 choices of  paint colors, fabrics, or window treatments  just the best choices for them. Then there is the WOW factor, clients often say, “Wow, I would have never thought of that”  and I say , “Great because why would you want me to show you exactly what you would have thought of.”  And the final product is always WOW, with a room that is functional, elegant, comfortable and inviting. A wonderful color palette, beautiful and interesting pieces, fabulous accessories and alway a pop of the unexpected. WOW