I have just celebrated my fifth year with Carpet Colour Centre and my 13th year as an interior designer and I have never been happier.
This career has allowed me to be creative every day and to meet so many wonderful people – it has also inspired and motivated me to make my own living space more beautiful. Along the years I have gathered some design favorites that I either still own or can look back on with fondness.
Who doesn’t remember their first ‘big girl’ bedroom?
The fluffy pillows, the pink bedspread. Back in the day we had bedspreads with ruffles instead of duvets and bedskirts. I had always dreamed of a canopy bed and my mom (who was also a designer) made my room a fantasy place proper for a little girl to grow up in.
We lived in a heritage home and my bedroom had a metal pipe running along one wall – no worries, my mom sewed stuffed animals in various swinging positions along the pipe and it looked like they were frolicking in the lattice and ivy wallpaper.
I have designed five bedrooms so far for my daughter, each one a more mature progression as she gets older. The super pink Minnie Mouse room has to be my favorite.
At five years old I brought her to my store and let her pick any carpet she wanted, she of course picked a deep magenta to which we added all manner of paint, wistful curtains and a custom towering loft bed complete with a private sitting area and desk underneath.
It was a magical room with an incredibly plush luxurious carpet and garish Disney inspired colours – it’s a good thing the next people to buy the house had children!
My kitchen table is a treasure, almost 75 years old it is a round pedestal table made of solid oak. My mom rescued this beauty from a chicken coop on her farm and painstakingly refinished it.
It has moved with me for 15 years and it is a beautiful piece of furniture. I grew up with this table and it is of great value to me, even when I accidentally broke it having a party my parents weren’t privy to! It was fixed and has stood the test of time, many memories and meals have been shared around this table.
I am not an art collector but I have an original piece that I am absolutely in love with. Evelyn Kleis is an artist living in Medicine Hat who frequently has gallery showings of her multimedia work.
She had an exhibition at a local coffee shop and there hung The Warrior; the painting stopped me in my tracks and stole my breath, I HAD to have it! It is strength, colour and passion all worked into one piece and I am thrilled to call it my own.
We all have pieces and memories of design and décor that make us smile or leave us feeling a bit nostalgic.
The collage of our lives is made up of the choices we make along the way, good or bad. Like the perm we regretted in Jr. high we may have some design moments we aren’t proud of (my home made curtains). Even these choices can be fond memories of our life tapestry.
