 | “When we decided to downsize, we knew that Natalie and her team were the perfect design professionals to assist us in our quest to preserve some of our treasured family possessions while adding new items to update and complete our home. We have not been disappointed. Our new residence is open and spacious and is a wonderful place to begin the next phase of our lives.” |
Click on read more to view our editorial on this job published in HOUSE Magazine.
| When you’ve been a designer for as long as I, a wonderful thing happens. You get to work with past clients as they transition into another phase of their lives. Sometimes it’s renovating an existing home to accommodate grown children and grandchildren. Sometime it’s relocating and downsizing or up-sizing. In this case, one of our staff’s favorite couples reached out to us to help them find a condo community in Nassau County that would meet their needs. I turned to my friend, Fern Karhu, broker/owner of Realty Connect USA, for assistance, and she sent out her “A” team, her sister Shari DeLouya and her partner Marci Imber to find the perfect location. This they did with great skill and efficiency, providing choices in the ideal area for this working couple that afforded them maximum living space for their needs with less maintenance. Savvy enough to look beyond what was existing, they saw the possibilities as we presented them, and bid us “do our magic”. The “magic” required removal of walls, a total redo of kitchen and bathrooms, new flooring, carpeting, painting, lighting, window treatments – basically everything! Because it was summer and our “A” team had sold their old house so quickly, they decided to move out to their Hamptons home while renovation was taking place. Then the fun began. While Annie, our amazing construction manager was up to her pretty ankles in rubble, Lisa, my lead designer and I were enjoying the company of our dear clients, shopping and designing for what new furnishings were going to reside beside old favorites coming from their original home. The “good bones” of the house soon shone through as the newly renovated areas were readied for move-in. That’s always so much fun for us – seeing the clients’ reaction when a project is nearing completion. Even the most confident of our clients are happily surprised at the end result. So now what – the client/designer relationship of twenty years surely can’t be over. No – it’s back to the Hamptons for a lower level renovation to accommodate a growing family’s needs. Who knows what’s next – perhaps they’ll buy a home in Tahiti or Dubai or . . . . . .  |     |