Prior to enlisting the services of an interior designer, there are several things you and your family – your spouse especially – should have discussed and brought to a tentative accord: the range of interior styles to which you would be amenable.  Do you lean toward more traditional furnishings or more contemporary? the range of...Read More

Researching and enlisting the assistance of an interior designer is a formidable task.  Your home – your sanctuary – is where you should be most at ease, able to relax and recharge for the next day’s endeavors and any disruption to your recuperation will impact not only your home life, but, your well being and demeanor throughout the...Read More

With flooring material choices, the consistency, continuity, and overall sameness of the selections allows the eye to travel unimpeded and gives the impression of spaciousness – it is a passive approach. Less visual restriction lends itself to more space perception. Expanding space with wall treatments is more aggressive; it relies on manipulating depth perception. While...Read More

Your home has a specific number of square feet of living space – that is definite. Interior walls may be either modified or removed, but, unless exterior walls are demolished for expansion, you will still have the same number of square feet of living space. What is not definite is the visual perception of the...Read More

The housing crash of 1990-91 was as devastating to me as it was to anyone affiliated with the industry. New home construction dropped from 1.8 million to 1 million with sales plummeting a staggering 42%, the largest drop since World War II. “Recession” was no longer an allusion in the press, it was THE topic...Read More

I was born in 1958 in a suburb of Charleston, West Virginia “affectionately” know as Lick-skillet – our community, so poor, that residents purportedly licked their skillets clean. It wasn’t far from being a misnomer; I’d seen my father treat his dinner plate as a dog would its bowl on many occasions, but, mitigated more...Read More

Larger model home merchandising firms will assign a project manager/designer to oversee and delegate responsibilities to subordinates. The project manager will maintain the focus and overall coordination of the group, but, such tasks as window treatment design and specifications, art selection, and accessory purchases will be doled out to less expensive, and typically, less skilled...Read More

Once all the data has been compiled on the prospective home buyer, once the architects have produced a floor plan that Sales deem appropriate, up to three model home merchandising firms (usually, one favorite and two extra to keep the one honest and sharp) will be invited to bid on the project. Model merchandising is...Read More

Model home merchandising is blatant manipulation. It is a “smoke and mirrors” slant on interior design intended to showcase the positive attributes of an otherwise average living space, obfuscate its blemishes, and directly appeal to a specific demographic. A successfully merchandised product will stun you with its beauty, bring desires to the fore of which...Read More

Having been in the design field for thirty-seven years, and a practicing licensed Interior Designer for over half that time, I’ve been approached innumerable times with the question, “What’s the latest trend in interior design?” Usually, I’m able to subtly divert the conversation to another topic, or, if pressed for an answer I’ll simply state...Read More