Designed To Love Living
Interior spaces are meant to create welcoming havens of joy, positive energy, and comfort. Discordant color schemes, generic styles, uncomfortable, out-of-scale furniture, or awkward traffic flow — there are numerous details that can cause friction between a person and their living space. There is one surefire way to avoid these costly, wasteful traps: hire a qualified interior designer.
Design Resources
Carol Schaper Interiors
Changes Construction
Hammerton Lighting
“A well-designed room is felt both emotionally and physically,” says owner of Carol Schaper Interiors, Carol Schaper. “You want to be there.” Interior designers create functional spaces through the lens of a client’s personality, lifestyle, and needs. Because they tend to stay current with technologies and materials, they can reduce the cost of lost opportunity; the event of a person making decisions with limited knowledge of options. In other words, that appealing vignette you saw at the mass retailer store may look great, but that doesn’t make it great for you. They also save people endless amounts of time and hassle.
Schaper’s recent project for a widowed client was originally designed by professionals years ago. The deep red, masculine room was largely influenced by the homeowner’s husband. The space held sentimental value, but the homeowner felt ready for something lighter and more feminine.
Like many of her projects, Schaper started with the area rugs. Rugs represent an investment, and she uses them to set the tone. She advises clients to select something they love to see, touch, and feel underfoot. Assessing a sense of scale for the furniture came next. Scale, in Schaper’s opinion, is often misjudged when people go it alone. With furniture, Schaper prioritizes quality, attractiveness, and durability. She explains that interior designers can obtain high-end furniture for their clients at the prices they would pay at mass retailers for lesser quality. In fact, designers have access to many things not available to the public, including network connections, resources, and general merchandise.
Schaper says, “Everything looks fabulous at the stores and online, but cheap furniture gets uncomfortable and falls apart. It’s less expensive to get top quality and reupholster it in 5 to 10 years for a totally new look rather than purchase poor quality and toss it into a landfill in a couple years.”
Schaper’s remodel features a soothing blend of creams and blues balanced with soft curves and touches of shimmering, moonlight-inspired metallics. The entry features a dramatic Hammerton chandelier in smoky, silvery tones. Schaper and Changes Construction spent an entire day to achieve the perfect balance and artistry in its installation. Gray chairs, a refinished table in silver tones, and pewter-colored banisters share the subtle, gleaming accents. A new mantle and gas insert update the fireplace. The kitchen was originally designed by Changes Construction and Schaper simply updated the paint colors and added three statement lights, like those in the foyer, for continuity.
Schaper says, “The moment you enter the door you can see elements across the living, dining, and kitchen rooms. It all pulls together. The homeowner says she gravitates to her living room and enjoys a glass of wine curled up in her chair. It’s like a new house to her.”