Hello and Welcome to DOCENT - your guide to design intelligence, creative solutions and earthly beauty.
Today’s DOCENT Briefing walks you through the specific way I deliver invaluable Interior Design Services to savvy, thoughtful homeowners who are not getting bucked off the bronc in their first rodeo.
FACT: All things Interior Design require focused time and significant investment. I don’t care how clever you get, and believe me, I can get DOWN AND DIRTY CLEVER - nobody’s doing it “on a dime”. We all LOVE to peruse the finished product of other people’s home design process on glossy pages and on chic insta feeds, but when it’s your home - reaching your exact desired destination safely and smoothly is what counts.
Here are 3 ways I work magic for you…*
Magical lighting fixtures I captured at Catellani & Smith in Bergamo, Italy
PUT IT THERE
My genius and the skill of placement
Recently, I met with a potential new client to see if she needed my services. I reviewed her extensive collection of beautiful artworks and artifacts that had never been framed or were not hung because they were living in old frames that looked dated and worn. I surveyed her library shelves that needing styling and while I was there - although she didn’t mention it- I was intuiting all the slight (and not so slight) shifts to the existing furniture placement that would revolutionize the look and feel of her soon-to-be extraordinarily lovely home. After she walked me through and gave me a long list of desired outcomes and to-dos, she looked at me and questioned, “So I guess you just have a knack for this?” I swallowed an almost rogue belly laugh, and answered simply with a Santa Claus worthy eye twinkle, “Why, yes. Yes, I do.” It is a thrill to make magic for people, especially using their existing belongings that they already love and cherish.
Placing furnishings, arranging artifacts, framing and hanging art, creating thoughtful compositions with these elements - for me is like singing. It’s immediate and innate. I FEEL space. I SEE and HEAR composition. I know how to work the angles and I vibe the rhythm. I didn’t learn it in grad school and I can’t explain it.
DWID Service offering No.1: CREATIVE CURATION. Utilizes existing furnishings, art and artifacts.
From Left to Right: Color and materials mix playfully in this Venice loft I decorated for a young gallerist | In this Studio City new construction home, I flanked the dining room entry with a custom wood lined hutch on each side. Decorative books displayed facing forward act as small works of art | I grouped this musician’s monochromatic lithographs by Picasso and Dali in his dreamy boudoir | My team and I custom colored, upholstered and built this contemporary billiard room with a minimal DWID designed cue rack
DECORATING DEVOTION
The whole kit-n-kaboodle
Start with the above referenced case study, now add to it the SELECTION and PROCUREMENT of the furnishings, art and artifacts. Knowing by heart the canon of interior design styles and trends and knowing the current market, make it possible for me to conjure your signature style and guide you through the process to manifest it. And that pixie dust swirls from stylistic choices, to fabric selection, to fabrication, installation AND EVERYTHING in between. Each piece, each finish, each seat height, each decorative choice - to tuft or not to tuft!? - makes its way to the final creation.
DWID Service offering No.2: FULL SERVICE DECORATION. Utilizes new furnishings, art and artifacts.
From Left to Right: I selected tailored, rounded seating in earthy tones and olive greens to compliment the hillside views in this A. Quincy Jones renovation I recently completed with architect Corey Buckner in Crestwood Hills | Brightly patterned Ikat was our choice for this girl’s bedroom in this Brentwood home | I played with layering rattan and caned pieces in this Beverly Hills Renovation | I worked closely with my aesthetically savvy client to create an eclectic mix for the living room at my award-winning Hagy Belzberg masterpiece in Brentwood (see the home in the Interior Design Magazine feature)
REDUX REEDOO
Shall we begin again?
Start with the above referenced case studies, now add to it the fact that you need the dining room to be where the kitchen is. Or, you CAN’T STAND the way the living room is separated from the garden but you don’t know what to do about it. “This entire wall keeps getting in my way!”… Let me lead the way to a NEW way. Transforming your layout is my guilty pleasure. Working with top architects, structural engineers, contractors and a roster of reliable vendors, I’ll make your not-so-perfect-house the home of your dreams.
DWID Service offering No.3: RENOVATION + DECORATION. Incorporates construction and project management to reimagine an existing home and achieve the optimum desired look and feel.
It was a thrill to re-worked this family home in Beverly Hills. The formerly Miami-Vice-esque lair was dysfunctional and disjointed before I transformed it into to a flowing contemporary haven.
*Bonus DWID Service offering No.4: NEW CONSTRUCTION. There’s no joy greater than a blank canvas ready for that first, bold swath of expression. If that’s where you are starting from then by all means, LET’S GO!
In 2020, DOCENT will continue to explore with intelligence, creativity and beauty the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of creating the homes where we love to live.
Meanwhile….give me a call at 310 828 6417 and let’s schedule your project review! It will be my pleasure to roll up my sleeves, wave my magic wand - and delight YOU with what’s possible.
