This Glorious City Rocks for Interior Design!

While I work nonstop and create beautiful interiors I am reminded every moment how easy it is to do business in Columbus Ohio. Designers are well respected. Resources consider us central and upscale. Designers have a chance to make a difference in the lives of everyday people that need help navigating the aspects of building a new home, renovating instead of moving, and making their living environment beautiful for thier family.

Our contract work is growing. Our residential work is off the charts!

I am grateful everyday for the chance to work with wonderful people, and change their lives.

The school year is almost upon us, and we are trying to finish up projects that will ease the back to school burden of less time with our kids.

Enjoy the waning days of summer, and make that project at home a reality. Call on Christy Collection Inc. to help you through the decisions that scare you. Use our expertise to create beauty where you work and live.

Summer Design Time, Summer creative time.

I have always loved the beginning of August. Kids are still knee deep in summer vacation, but the end is near. Conversations start about "back to school" and parents start to visualize having more schedules to keep with their kids. Practices start. Home becomes an active beehive again.

Christy Collection Inc. has been extremely busy for the last three months. I keep thinking things will slow down, but referrals are very strong. And the heat of summer gets people either socked in to air conditioned rooms where they realize that there is work to do. Or into pool complexes in back yards that remind them that outdoor living also needs to be beautiful!

Either way, we are staying busy with change and creativity at the family level. Either way, we are needed to direct and supply the creativity to implement change. Either way, design leads and we are there!

Interior Design With Christy Collection in Columbus

We are knee deep in some amazing design projects. We are sorting through notes, checking figures, finalizing custom quotes and generating proposals for amazing clients. This spring to summer season is more manic than most. We cannot help but believe that our lovely clients have woken from a short nap of worry and discontent. Now they see that indoor spaces and outdoor spaces must be joined. Now they are sharing the open windows, or hot day air conditioned rooms with children enjoying every inch of the house during summer.

We love almost summer in Columbus. We put tops down on our convertibles, pull out the patio umbrellas, and water our planters, every day. Our children watch dinner emerge from the grill and the refrigerator, trying not to turn on the oven. Our families gather around platters of corn on the cob and large bowls of potatoe salad. We all marvel at wet bathing suits hung over the backs of chairs, and children with more energy than we ever remember possessing. We soak up the last remnants of sun in a day, save time for weeding, and remember how truly short summer is. Ninety days of summer vacation goes by so quickly that before we know it 4th of July is over and and we are knee deep in August. We all long to stretch this out. We all long to just hang out with our babies, and bask in their summer spirit.

Design is all about living. Design supports our attitudes, our dreams and our play time.
Design is not about fussy and worrying about ruining fragile items. Design is about living in a space and not stopping to tell someone to take their shoes off, or stop drinking their lemonade in that area. Good design works with the space. It supports all the functions that take place and does not make us make adjustments.

There is nothing more luscious than entertaining with seamless ease. There is nothing more relaxing than just enjoying family and friends with laughter and a light heart. Design supports the best in life.

Design is a Vehicle for Change

Very few things in life are permanent. I know that large purchases seem like it, but in reality, we all have changes in our lives that necessitate making changes in our environment.

We all remember adding a first child (big changes!). Then multiple children, and more changes. Then other things happen. Parents get older and need help. Spouses get older and need help. The world revolves around us and helps us to see that change is good, and most importantly we can do it.

As a designer, I embrace the change of others. I adjust interiors to support life changes. I help with Universal design when physical abilities change. I make beautiful interiors that are kid friendly spaces that work for the whole population of your life. When we change and address it with form following function, everyone can live in peace.

It is when we do not embrace change that the tough stuff starts. Furniture that is too fragile. Finishes that do not hold up to abuse. Flooring that is not slip resistant enough, or washable enough. Textiles that do not hold up to wearability needs, waterproof needs, or wipeability needs. Being a problem solver in design is necessary and just a part of the job. There are no problems that problem solvers cannot tackle. There are so many beautiful choices that are not secondary at all, but can lead decisions.

And then there is the green movement. The biggest problem in our environment can be traced back to yards and yards of non recylceable carpeting that lays in landfills and will never go away. We are smarter now. We address issues and make it all a part of the process.

I applaud problem solving designers. Lets prove that good design makes sense and makes lives easier. Lets embrace solving problems from the specification phase, not the installation phase. It is the only design attitude that really works in a life full of change.

When Design is Not Enough

Good interior designers face a huge question every day. How do I tell a client that the existing furniture in their space is counter productive to their goals? How do I tell them Great Aunt Jean's Dining Table is just not going to work? How do I tell them that updating does not mean new throw pillows, but actual replacement of some expensive pieces?

We have all faced it. Not insulting our client, but telling them the truth. Not hurting their feelings, but not spending money to fix something that is not really fixable.

I believe that the "smoke and mirrors" that some designers play with all comes apart when honesty and integrity are part of your practice. No one deserves to be lied too. No one deserves to think that something will happen, that you know will not and cannot. YOU are the keeper of your code. YOU are the end of the line for design decisions, and you must tell the truth.

I have faced this more than once with clients getting ready to spend serious money to make an antique work. I have faced it continually when a client is attached to an out of scale, or out of sync wood piece, or upholstered piece. We have to be the gate keepers of our own integrity. Telling the truth and reacting with truth early on is easier than later.

Later is expensive. Later is a lie.

I approach every discussion with a client as a potential moment of truth. I approach every discussion as a potential learning experience for everyone, and would not want a client to miss the chance to grow. So lets embrace it, lets get to it, and lets do the right thing. Even if it means that the job is not ours. Telling the truth will always win in the end.

Connie Lane Christy Recieves Award for Chapter of ASID

Monday in Chicago, during Neocon, a Chapter Community Service Award was announced to the National Board of ASID. Columbus has never won a National Award before. This is big stuff.

Our faithful team of volunteers gave endless hours and dollars to do a transitional Housing Unit for New Horizons (of Southeast Inc.) on Mound Street in Columbus.

For ASID, excellence is expected and routinely what we do. For Columbus, we felt it was about time to bring one home for the city.

If you want to see the project, let us know. We are so very proud. This kind of design work changes lives. If we cannot do that, we have no business being in this industry.

Thanks for the recognition National Board of ASID. Chicago is a great place to give awards for work in a city that is ripe for the blessing.

Victorian Village Home Tour 2010

We are being honored once again with the selection of one of our interiors for a featured home on the Victorian Village Home Tour in September. We were informed that Columbus Monthly will be writing an article about this particular special home, and publishing it in July or August of 2010. We are humbled by the recognition.

The project is actually a new build by Richard Bruggeman as the developer.
Richard brought over 40 years of expertise, gregarious creation, and his own brand of Urban Chic to play in the three cluster condos on Brickel.

We were lucky as a design firm to get involved early enough to impact design details in the spaces, and extremely fortunate to be involved to the final details in one of them.

Our Art Deco meets Arts & Crafts condo that is being featured is lovingly owned by two gentlemen that absolutely get it. Design is a way of life for them. I had the distinct pleasure to work with them on all aspects of the environment. They are an ideal client. Educated, empowered to experience interior spaces with humor and play.

Hopefully you will all read the article as it comes out. Please visit us on the tour. I am trying to be in the house to answer questions.