MY DESIGN CERTIFICATE CLASS ~THIS IS WHERE IT BEGAN

When I entered my interior design school, everyone had to go through the Design Certificate Program first. I was advised that upon completion of the program successfully and satisfactorily that my certificate credits would apply toward my associates/bachelors degree. I knew what the intent was behind the class. It was an over-brief of all the classes one would be exposed to in the degree programs, all condensed into 12 weeks. But it was designed for more. Its intent was three fold - to weed out those that really did not have an interest in design; to provide a quick training for those people who merely desired to do design as a personal hobby within their own home; and lastly, to provide the foundation for those with aspirations of being a working interior designer.

In the certificate class, we had 3-hour training sessions in the likes of color, design business principles, furniture history, terminology, textile construction, spaceplanning guidelines, elements of kitchen and bath design, and much more. There was also studio work involving drafting, presentation board layout design and construction, and an actual final project presentation.

When we began the studio, we were advised to create a client. I chose my client to be a widowed, 57 year old, marketing executive who was preparing to retire in three years. He had a small beachfront vacation home on the island Maui in Hawaii that he was looking to have converted into his personal home space after retirement set for three years down the road.

The next thing was that we drew paint chip colors out of a bag. These were to be our client's favorite color and not all would match a student's scenario, i.e. a student having created a male client who selected PINK as his client's favorite color. Well, I got nailed with a funky, grayed orange. I honestly hated it at the time. It was an orange color that was not envogue. I looked high and low and ultimately only found one piece of material that matched almost identically. The problem now was that I had to use at least 20 percent of that fabric on the furniture in the living/dining space. It was a material that was also a little more feminine based on the pattern in it. So I got real creative. I only used it on the front and back of the top portion of the dining chairs. I then and placed a contrasting welt on the exterior of the top cushion (a welt is the tubular piping that you often see at the end of cushions or pillows). The welting fabric was also used on the bottom cushion of the chairs. From there, I worked in warm neutral colors with a pop of blue for a few pillows. Quite a challenge, as I had to also put a book together for the client that was a photo and written synopsis of what furniture and accessories were selected along with color selections, etc. By the way, the design style that I chose for the house was Plantation Style. It generally is traditional but with a more casual island feel, where old and new furniture pieces were mixed.

In the end, after my final presentation was done, my instructor selected my boards for the school's Hall Of Fame ~ my first selection of many more to come. Thought I would give you a glimpse of those boards. Bear with my photo'ing of the boards please. The top board contains some of the fabric elements, flooring, window treatment, furniture, and accessories that I chose. The bottom board, its layout partially cutoff, contains the interior spaceplan, a photo of the locations sunset, and an inspiration piece. Enjoy.

P.S. I love ORANGE now!