Home Decor: Five Questions with Top Designers

Spotlight on Designer: 
Suzanne Lasky, S Interior Design

1) What is your personal design style at home? (I read your article ‘What is your Design Style’ and I really want to share with our readers your personal preferences, especially as it relates to your affinity for our four legged friends)

My personal design style is what I call warm contemporary.  Clean lines, with modern organic materials such as cork flooring, recycled woods, linens, woven shades, bright whimsical art and accessories.  My four legged family members are always kept in mind when selection of materials and finishes are made.  The cork flooring hides scratch marks and masks noise from little nails clip clopping about.  The cat’s scratching area in the great room is a modern design that almost looks like an accessory item.  The sheepskin ‘throws’ on the leather dining chairs provide comfort for the people and a great nesting option for the cat.  So the pets can look out one of the windows in the great room, the woven shade is raised 30”.  This way they can look out without potentially destroying the shade.  There is a small wool rug placed in front of the window too.

2) What parts of the home are most challenging for you and why?

The open area that often is above the top of the kitchen cabinets is the most challenging.  When I first began my design career people were fond of filling them with lots of faux foliage (what I call dust collectors) and other objects. Most of the time the scale and proportion of the items were too small. When tasked with accessorizing  this area , I choose well scaled accessory items that are carefully grouped and not over done.

3) How do you overcome those challenges for a clients’ successful experience?
For this challenge the best way to address it is by selecting and placing the accessories so they can see in real time, in the actual spaces.

4) What inspires you?
The world around us is inspiration!  Nature is a great teacher of how different colors and textures work together.  I am an avid reader of trade magazines, blogs, and  design related web sites.

5) Can you give us a quick design tip that we can implement right away?
Change out your accent pillows or add some .  This can be done in common living spaces such as the great room, as well as in the bedrooms.   New sizes, shapes, fabrics and colors on the accent pillows can give a space an entirely new look and feel for a minimal investment.

Contact Suzanne Lasky (480) 220-4659 or via S Interior Design. You can view more of her work on Houzz or her Interior Design Gallery

Visit our website at Shop.StatewideLighting.com or LookatMyFire.com

Home Decor: Five Questions with Top Designers

Spotlight on local Designer Tanya Shively, ASID and LEED AP
Sesshu Design Associates

"Live in an eco-friendly home without sacrificing style, comfort or convenience. You can have the beautiful and luxurious eco-friendly interior you deserve."

Based in Scottsdale, AZ, Sesshu Design Associates, are 'passionate about bringing beauty into the world by creating a sense of place through quiet, elegant details' and 'inspired by the natural beauty of each site, actively seeking ways to protect our environment by incorporating sustainable and green interior design' into their projects. Offering both Interior Design and Green Design options, Sesshu Design is making a long term impact with their compelling ideas and innovative designs.

We asked Five Questions of Tanya Shively, Principle Interior and Owner of Sesshu Design Associates:

1) What is your personal design style at home?
My personal home is contemporary but not cold- warm colors, comfortable seating and a bit of eclectic sentimental pieces mixed in as well.

2) I notice you liked Composite Countertops. What’s another recent Green innovation that is exciting to you?
LED lighting is probably the most exciting thing to come along- with new technology in bulbs that can go into any fixture, we now can make any style more efficient.

3) Is there anything that you steer clients away from in Green Technologies in relationship to design?
I think the direction clients need to focus on depends on their personal priorities.  For instance, if health is critical, then we focus on clean air, daylight, access to nature, etc.  OR if energy efficiency is a priority, then we focus on technology, climate control through window coverings, home automation and lighting control systems, etc.

4) What inspires you?
I am inspired by great design in all forms- artwork, beautiful cars (especially the new electric and fuel cell models coming out), architecture, and the work of other amazing designers.

5) Can you give us a quick design tip that we can implement right away?
My favorite design tip is to not be afraid of color.  So many people shy away from using color in their home and stick with "safe" neutrals to the extent that their home becomes boring and lacks personality. So choose color(s) that you love, and find a way to incorporate it into you rooms- in a pillow, in paint, in accessories, etc.

Contact Tanya Shively at Sesshu Design Associates, (480) 275-2968 and visit our website at Shop.StatewideLighting.com or LookatMyFire.com

Home Decor: Five Questions with Top Designers

Welcome Back to the Statewide Lighting Blog!  In this series, we'll be asking five questions of top designers and remodelers locally, nationally and from all over the world to bring you the best insights for creating an interior/exterior design that you will love.  Each Designer will also provide a simple design tip that you can use right away.

Spotlight on VITA BURDI, Certified Kitchen and Bath Designer Remodeler, DJ's Home Improvements

1) What is your design style? Whatever style helps my clients to fall in love with their homes again... 2) How do you access/interpret a Clients interior style? Reviewing their home, "LISTENING" to their hopes and dreams for the rooms they want to create. 3) What are the most important factors in creating a compelling design? Color plays a huge part in any design it is the touch and sensation that wooes you and beckons you to enter... 4) What inspires you? Life itself is a palette of excitement, I love to play with lighting, to give a pop of color where none was expected, to introduce a prism to reflect light....awe inspiring lighting is the crowning touch for most rooms 5) Can you provide a simple design tip that someone can implement right away? Yes, only fill your room with items that sparkle and give you great pleasure to look at. A vintage find at a garage sale can be as charming as an original masterpiece, so have fun with the design.

Contact Ms. Burdi at (516) 775-8696

Visit our website at Shop.Statewidelighting.com or Lookatmyfire.com

Photos by Matthew Burdi

LED - Now or Later?

LED lamps are the new wave in lamps. Lasting 10 times longer than incandescent, no mercury like CFL's, the color is almost as good, lumen output is close to the same and some are dimmable. So why aren't we buying them? Mostly the answer I hear is because they are expensive. LED, the saying "You get what you pay for" really rings true. Good LED diodes are in good lamps, cheap LED diodes are in cheap lamps.

Lets take that argument and look at it. As a rule in technology everything usually gets cheaper every year, BUT it only drops approximately 5 -10 percent per year. The energy savings for one LED lamp is approximately 80 percent over conventional incandescent. If you are one of those that would like to wait for the cheap price you will be missing out on 5 to 6 years of 80% savings. The amount of money saved over the next 6 years well outweighs the cost if purchased now and you will still have 10 to 15 years life left on the bulb. You will never recoup the loss. These lamps are ideal for homes with the lower 8' or 9' ceilings because the heat from LED lamps is far less, saving money with airconditioning cost. Homes with ceilings over 12' benefits are you don't have to change the bulbs.

Another way you may want to use LED lamps is for your landscape lighting. Here the saving has to be worked on a little differently. Looking at a traditional landscape job, if you use 150 watt transformer to light up trees for example, you would normally only be able to use 6 - 20w spots. With LED you can use up to 15 heads on the same transformer, making a layout of some jobs easier and more dramatic in it's effect. Your savings would be 150 watts over using traditional heads or if 5 to 6 heads are all you need drop the size of the transformer down to a 60w saving you 90 watts. Note; beware when purchasing 12v LED lamps, you need to make sure of the type transformers you have either electronic or magnetic and buy the correct lamp.

On the web we are at: http://statewidelighting.com/shop/ or http://statewidelighting.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=15&sort=20a&page=2

Ceiling Fans / Energy

All manufacturers have ceiling fans with 3, 4, 5 or even 6 blades. Why? The number one reasons is marketing and style, not efficiency. In my opinion the more blades a fan has, the more efficient it will be (to a point). A fan with five or six blades has blades that are in tune with the size of the motor turning the blades. In "tune" means the manufacturers have spent the R&D matching the pitch and length of the blade with the size of the motor.

Think about a Nascar race, often 3 or 4 cars can break away from the pack and get a good size lead on them but if the rest of the pack gets in line they can catch up and sometimes overtake the leaders and use less energy (fuel) doing so, the reason is vacuum. The movement of the air is more consistent over and through a 5 or 6 blade fan. Fans with more blades also are quieter because they can produce air movement with less energy, which cuts down on the chopping “helicopter” sound some fans make.

New DOE regulation (went into effect Jan. 09) require ceiling fan manufacturers to print in their catalog's and on the cartons some key information for the consumers. In addition to motor size, pitch and length of blades, Cubic feet per minute (CFM), electric used (watts) and air flow efficiency (CFM/Watt) have been added. Example: 6417 cfm, 70 watts, 91.6 cfm/watt. My opinion the "key" number is cfm/watt. Fans with integrated light kits is another subject for another time.

Another topic is whether or not you should operate the fan 24hrs or just when you are in the room. Think of it this way, a good fan recirculates the air in a room about every 5 to 10 minutes. All rooms have hot air next to the ceiling and cooler air next to the floor. Most thermostats are on the wall about 5 foot off the floor and your air conditioner cools the air on the floor up to the thermostats height, and does nothing for the air above that height. A ceiling fan running equalizes the temperature in the entire room top to bottom making your air conditioner run less time to keep your house cool, and when your air conditioner shuts down it can stay shut down longer because the fan continues to move cooler air off the floor past the thermostat.

My best advice is to buy your ceiling fans from a distributor that displays a variety of motor types and sizes so you can listen for any motor noise. Statewide Lighting's locations have a large selection to listen to and educated staff members to assist you make your decision (most box store do not). On the web we are at: http://statewidelighting.com or http://statewidelighting.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1