Do-it-yourself designing woman gaining fans

Nicole Baxter, said Durham landscape architect Dan Jewell, is a “very well-rounded interior designer.”

“She gets around, she knows everybody, she’s involved with a lot of different things … she really knows her stuff,” Jewell said. “Always filled with great ideas.”

One idea is a customer-friendly entrance for the Urban Ministries Center. Some others involve dos and don’ts for remodelers of historic homes. Then there is the light-rail system she mentions on her professional biography.

And here lately, there’s decorating for do-it-yourselfers on budgets.

“At this point, it’s a new idea,” she said the other day.

Baxter, 37, is proprietor of NBaxter Design, at nbaxterdesign.com and in the old Penny Furniture building near Five Points. It’s your conventional full-service interior-design and -decorating business: concepts, purchasing, installing and dealing with architects and contractors.

However, not everyone who could use a designer’s ability can afford a designer’s fee.

“How do I help everyday people get the home they want?” she said. “How do I bring design down to everyone?”

Her answer is a sideline niche — selling advice while leaving the labor to her clients — and giving them a lot of homework.

“I can sort of hold their hands,” Baxter said, “and check in with them periodically.”

Hand-holding could involve discerning a client’s tastes from magazines the client has dogeared and marked up with pictures she likes. “People tag the same things over and over,” Baxter said. “They don’t see [the connection], but I can see it.” She can remind them what to think about that they might not on their own — space for hobbies, what furniture they actually need, “how a home is run.” She can then help clients make up budgets, and coach them on getting the most for their money.

“You need to know how to deal with the salespeople,” Baxter said. “They’re like used-car salesmen: They want to get you in that sofa.”

Martin Blazevich is a client. He’s renovating a 3,200-square foot, 1913 triplex in the Watts-Hillandale neighborhood, turning it into a single-family residence in conformance with historic-preservation standards.

“She’s kind of teaching me things as I go along,” Blazevich said. “She helped me pick out lights and floor tiles and cabinets. … I can build lots of things, but I’m a computer guy and I don’t have that design knack.”

Baxter is a native Floridian, educated at the Ringling School of Art and Design. She came to Durham in 2000 after practicing her profession in Denver and Miami. Her client list includes Greenfire Development, the Town of Chapel Hill, Grubb Properties and the Revolution restaurant coming to downtown. She is a volunteer mentor to schoolchildren, taught a class on designer thinking for Preservation Durham’s Renovators Network, and has taken the Urban Ministries homeless shelter under her wing.

She learned that some local business people were helping Urban Ministries do a better marketing job, said UM director Lloyd Schmeidler. “And the next thing you know, Nicole was doing some planning around remodeling our entrance and reception area.

“I’ve not yet seen the fruits of her labors,” Schmeidler said. “I’m anxiously looking forward.”

People who have no place of their own can still have a sense of belonging, she said. “I understand the impact space has on people.” She can’t say just how or why, she said, but, “I know it does.

“I work from my gut.”

She just has a way with people, said Jewell, the landscape architect.

“Whenever we have a project that we’re asked to do facilitating … we always want her to participate,” he said. “Because she gets people to open up … helps people get ideas out. …

“She’s one of the most Renaissance interior designers I’ve ever met.”

Decorating partnership evolutionary

When people grow up, sometimes their decorating does too. Jill Fireman had just begun working on a project with interior designer Tom Stringer when she did a decorating about-face. She realized that the baggage she’d been lugging around wasn’t American Tourister; it was her furniture.

“When Jill and I first started we were planning a very sleek townhouse, very single-girl-in-the-city,” says Stringer. “Then she up and sold the townhouse, bought this co-op and got married.” Stringer was unfazed. This adaptable award-winner is known for his versatility – his portfolio runs the gamut from 1880s restorations to the cutting-edge interiors of celebrated North Side Chicago restaurant Alinea.

“I feel like I’ve watched Jill grow up. And now that she’s a mom, she’s a real grownup!” says Stringer. “My life took a turn,” agrees the mother of infant Sophia. “When Tom and I first started working together it was just me and my dog Max.”

She and Max had inhabited a modernist world of streamlined furniture and white walls, fun while it lasted, but today Fireman lives happily amid an assemblage of soft pretty colors and playful detailing accented by her eclectic art collection. The results are the culmination of lively discussions among Fireman, her English-born husband and Stringer (with some serious baby-proofing a late addition to the agenda). Their goal, according to Fireman, was to come up with a style that would complement the European feeling of their 1920s-era Gold Coast apartment. “This is a very ‘panel and crown molding’ building,” says Stringer. “Some of the detail was good and some was not.”

A fake fireplace, for instance, was not. It was quickly removed, as were some of the more “goopy” moldings. Stringer says that he dreamt up the “inexplicable style” of the living room shelves and cabinets himself. “As I was sketching, I came up with that wacky Moorish cutout top and Jill loved it.”

In fact the whole apartment echoes the style of those bookshelves – unconventional yet worldly – a meticulously edited stash of antiques set against Fireman’s edgy mix of ethnographic, primitive and modern art. “The clean lines of this neoclassical furniture smooth out the dichotomy of Jill’s art collection,” says Stringer of the 18th and 19th century European pieces he chose: “If I could explain why that works I’d get a great prize from the design world.”

No worries. There’s explanation aplenty in the living room where, for one, an intensely emotional Luis Gonzalez Palma photo collage is softened by the soothing serenity of the furniture’s classic lines. “It’s infinitely more interesting to work with a client where art is not an afterthought,” says Stringer. “We had to keep the decorating kind of understated because the art keeps changing.”

Air Force Generals Add Interior Decorating to Resumes

The Air Force is defending plans underway for pricey luxury quarters that can be constructed and inserted into military jetliners, saying they are necessary for official travel for both military and civilian leaders, and end up saving costs in the long run.

The Washington Post reported Friday that at least four top generals have made tweaks like changing the color of leather furniture and wooden floor panels, adding cost to the price tag of the program, which has met with friction on Capitol Hill.

The program will build living quarters pods as well as pallets holding chairs that could be inserted into planes for the military’s top brass and civilian leaders to fly in comfort. Photos obtained by the Post of scale models show wide and high-backed swivel chairs and wood-paneled living and sleeping quarters.

Current plans are for three pods and four pallets. Each insertable pod also would feature a 37-inch flat-screen TV, a full-length mirror, a couch and stereo equipment.

The Post also reported that the military at points has sought as much as $16.2 million targeted for counterterror activities, although one instance in which officials decided to divert money ended in a reversal: The Air Force bucked a decision last year to tap a counterterror fund for $331,000 last year to cover a budget shortfall for the pod development.

The Air Force on Friday admitted they initially sought money labeled as funding for the Global War on Terror, but since Congress rejected the idea, they’ll find other areas of the budget to fund the project.

Air Force spokeswoman Vicki Stein told FOX News that a total of $3.83 million has been allocated for the four pallets and one prototype capsule; and they are currently seeking money for two more capsules, each of which would cost about $1.9 million. None has been completed, but the prototype pod is under development.

Officials point out that the pods remove the need for flying and building additional planes, and that it is provides a less obvious method of transporting VIPs into the battle theater. The Air Force also points out that these devices will be used not only for Air Force leadership, but for all high-ranking service members and even congressional delegations.

Celebrating Ten Years Of Style, The Decor&You(R) National Conference Moves To World Market Center Las Vegas

National interior decorating franchisor Decor&You® has moved its annual conference to Las Vegas this year, and will bring 100 decorators from 30 U.S. states to take advantage of July Las Vegas Market at World Market Center and celebrating the franchise’s tenth anniversary, July 30 to Aug. 2, 2008.

Karen Powell, Decor&You CEO, noted, “The market is the ultimate symbol of accessible style, a prestigious venue for reflecting on the exceptional design work of Decor&You decorators and a source of inspiration as we begin our second decade in business.”

World Market president and CEO Robert Maricich noted, “Decor&You will be a valuable presence at World Market Week, for bringing 100 buyers and for Mary Gilliatt who will contribute a timely international dimension to our speaking program.”

• Decor&You tours World Market on Thurs., July 31st, which features a presentation on global design trends by internationally-acclaimed author and designer, Mary Gilliatt. The event is open to the public and press, and takes place at 11 a.m. (PDT) in Building B, 16th floor.
• Gilliatt will also announce the winners of the Decor&You National Design Competition.
• The conference comprises 30 hours of continuing education targeted to help small design businesses grow and become more profitable.
• The franchise will award its first class of DecorColor certificates through a program led by one of the nation’s top experts in interior color, Joann Lenart-Weary.
• Market tenants Global Views, Feizy, Padma’s Plantation, and Napa Home and Garden will host the group for private receptions.

Decor&You® furnishes and refines America’s residential and commercial interiors via a nationwide network of professional interior decorators, who make it easy to achieve comfort, style, and enhanced value in people’s homes and businesses through full-service decorating, custom design plans, and abundant choice among hundreds of collections in the Decor&You global product portfolio.

Decor&You® is concatenated and spelled without the customary accent on the letter ‘e.’ Design award entries are available to the media on DVD. Biographical data on Mary Gilliatt, design award-winners, and franchise representatives is available upon request. Please contact Michele Zommer for these resources or to schedule interviews at (203) 206-4384 or mzommer@decorandyou.com.

New faux candles light things up

by Mary Carol Garrity

Scripps Howard News Service

Interior decorating is not a field rife with major technological breakthroughs. But in recent years, science has rocked my design world with one single, revolutionizing advancement: the fake candle.

If I could, I would write an ode to today’s lifelike battery-operated candles; I love them that much. While early faux flames had their foibles, today’s fakes look so real that you’re afraid to get too close for fear of getting burned. They come in a host of colors and sizes, with realistic detailing like wicks that look like they’ve been burned, and you can find them at most home-accent stores.

I used to turn up my nose at fake candles. But through the years, I’ve heard so many horror stories from customers whose homes were destroyed by fires caused by unattended candles that I’ve changed my tune. After a few near misses of my own, like the forgotten votive that burned in my little-used powder room for two days, I’ve concluded I’m not responsible enough to play with fire.

Once my romance with battery-operated candles began, I fell hard for these little cheaters. I call on them when I want to add just a tiny touch of warm light to an interior display or to do big jobs, like illuminate my home’s exterior when we hosted our daughter Kelly’s garden-wedding reception.

For the wedding, I wanted to give our guests a warm welcome, so I lighted up our front walkway with two grand candelabras fitted with battery-operated pillar candles. To add sparkle to the trees, we hung wreaths horizontally from the low boughs, then covered the wreaths with faux votives. Finally, we pooled clusters of votives on the stairs leading up to our home.

To light up our courtyard and the event tent where guests dined, I placed an epergne holding battery-operated votives at the center of each table. The garden paths were brightened by hundreds of hanging votives suspended from the branches of trees and shrubs. The effect was absolutely breathtaking.

I could never have pulled off this lighting feat with real candles. We were able to “light” the fakes hours before the event instead of doing it at the last minute, as you must do with real candles. We didn’t have to worry about them being extinguished by the wind and rain that plagued us right up to the hour before guests arrived. And the fake candles burned through the night instead of burning out in a matter of hours like the real ones do. After Kelly’s wedding, I was more appreciative of battery-operated candles than ever.

This summer, why not make your home look magical with faux candlelight? Outside, group votives on your front steps, next to your door or on the window sash. Tuck votives into potted plants for a little surprise twinkle of light. It’s also fun to float tea lights in a birdbath or on your backyard pond.

Suspend groups of hanging votives from the ceiling of your screened porch, arbor or gazebo. Dot them along your fence or brick wall. Hang them from bushes and tree limbs so they look like fireflies in the summer night.

You also can use pretend pillar candles in lanterns to illuminate outdoor events. Line up a group of different-sized lanterns on your front porch, or hang a mirror-backed lantern from your front door. I have a large, weathered lantern that I keep on the stoop of my courtyard. This summer I’ve filled it with three pillar faux candles nestled in a bed of moss.

Inside your home, use faux candles anywhere you would use the real thing, plus a few places you wouldn’t. I like to tuck fake candles into displays in bookcases or among the bottles on the bar set up on my hutch. You can even use them as nightlights in children’s rooms, guestrooms and guest baths.

Wherever you use battery-operated candles, I guarantee they’ll work so well that they’ll light a flame in your heart, too.

•Mary Carol Garrity is the proprietor of three successful home-furnishings stores and the author of several best-selling books on home decorating. Write her at nellhills@mail.lvnworth.com.

Home Remodeling Project Visualization

Creating a good mental picture as well as having a physical picture of what you hope to accomplish when you start remodeling your home will not only save you considerable time and money, but it will also bring you and your family much more enjoyment in the long run. If you have found something that you really like in a certain room design layout, perhaps in a magazine or other place – then keep it. Make sure that you keep track of those pictures and keep them so that you can show your contractor what you hope to accomplish.

Get Accurate Bids

Another advantage to keeping a very good visual log of what you hope to accomplish with your next home remodeling project is the fact that you can show each contractor that is bidding on the job exactly what you want. This will allow them to give you a much more accurate bid and you know exactly what each person is bidding on.

Be Clear on What Makes the Room

One of the keys with any home remodeling project is to think beyond just the structure of the room but also think about the decor, such as the furniture. The wall hangings are also very important and other things that you might be adding to the room to complete the look can make a huge difference. This is where finding a visual display may be a bit deceptive. The furniture or the decor in the room may actually be making that room look more attractive to you.