And saving a few marriages along the way…
We’ve all been there. When taking on a home decorating project, or maybe even a new home construction or remodel, there tends to be “disagreement” between spouses about, well, everything. When it comes to finishing and furnishing, the options are too vast for most do-it-yourself couples, making it nearly impossible for them to agree on anything. That’s why interior designers exist. They swoop in and interpret your dream and turn your vision into a beautifully designed space that the whole family can enjoy.
Aberdeen has several avenues from which to select interior design needs. Many stores that sell products for your home also have consultants that will work with you to help mediate conflict, or to just help design a beautiful kitchen or other living space. It may sound simple to run out to Menards and pick out some tile, but it’s important to remember that their inventory represents only about 1% of all available tile on the market. An experienced interior designer knows where to shop for maximum coolness, budget restrictions and timely availability.
There are not, however, a lot of interior designers in Aberdeen who are professionally trained in the craft of interior design. Kelsie Ehresmann, from Finishing Touch Design Studio, is one of Aberdeen’s select few experts in the industry, who makes home décor look easy we asked her to give us a tour of a project she recently completed for a home situated on the banks of Elm Lake.
While Kelsie wasn’t tasked with designing all the living spaces for the lakeside home, she was responsible for the grand undertaking of providing custom window treatments for the entire structure, while also designing the master bathroom’s décor and working out a tile solution for the kitchen backsplash.
We asked her how it all came about, and she walked us through her meticulous process, step-by-step. Here’s how she does it.
Once you’ve decided that you want to finish or refinish aspects of your home, it’s best that the first step you take is to meet with an interior designer who can help determine your mutual likes and dislikes. That’s where Kelsie comes in – she will be there from the start to help you isolate your goals for each room. She prefers a quiet space to meet so everyone involved can really concentrate on the project.
As a professional interior designer, Kelsie will then offer you solutions to perceived problem-areas in your home, and she will help visualize ideas that you may be considering. It’s common for homeowners to have several ideas about what they’d like to see, so Kelsie goes to great lengths to actually visualize those ideas of yours to turn them into reality. And she is more than happy to assist and get her hands dirty in the process.
Once you’ve all conceptualized the interior changes you’d like to see, Kelsie takes actual pencil to paper and sketches out to scale her design solutions, coloring them by hand. Next, she meets with you again to review the sketches and look at samples, swatches, paint colors, etc. Once you approve, she orders the selected products and schedules installation.
“Lots of my clients watch the home improvement shows on TV,” Kelsie states, “but I have to remind them that it’s television, and interior design is a process that takes time to do right. And that’s why people should hire designers – we’ll manage the project from start to finish, so you don’t have to worry about the details or fight about it. We even concern ourselves with specific details about thinset, subfloor, and grout composition.”
Which brings us back to the newly redesigned home on Elm Lake. Joel and Cay Durheim told Kelsie that they loved the look of natural stone and would like it incorporated. That was very helpful to the designer in narrowing down and directing her design decisions. The neutral tones in natural stone works well with so many other colors and textures found around the home, which Kelsie was able to accentuate to create beautiful spaces for the couple.
We asked Joel and Cay if they’d take Aberdeen Magazine on a tour of their impressive, newly designed areas, and they graciously said yes.
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