Something Spectacular This Way Comes

Liz Harris

Designer

Liz Harris has 24 years of experience in a very interesting profession. And at Designers West, Liz gets plenty of opportunity to use her level of experience. The homes in our area have special needs, with waterfront and other Florida considerations, and over the years Liz has grown a wonderfully diverse client base. One of her "clients" is Design Studio Ferrazzano™. Liz, like Toni Mays, worked with the professionals at the studio to create the wonderful vignettes and special looks that so impress the other professionals who go to Design Studio Ferrazzano™ for materials and consultation.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me a little bit about the job we decided to speak about here.

LH: Well, it is a fun job, and it brings in a lot of different elements. It was a second project that I worked on for these clients. They're local. I had the good fortune to do a waterfront custom home for them previously. They acquired another piece of property beside their existing residence and turned it into a guest house,it was a remodel, but it also was a project to take it to a Key West image, something more lighthearted, whimsical and very colorful, and so it was a neat project to work on.

INTERVIEWER: And did the client view it as an investment to them, one that increases the value of that home?

LH: Oh, definitely. I would have to give all my customers credit on "investment buying," and right now real estate is really good for that. When you're dealing with wall tiled areas, you are primarily dealing with kitchens and baths, which are a very big seller of homes, and obviously hard surfaced floors do really well.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, going into the project, what were the key things that you had to think about?

LH: The key things were to come up with whimsical and colorful themes that would be creative. 

For instance, in going into one of the bathrooms, we had raised paneled passage doors, and we put three different colors of paint on the doors, and those lead into a bathroom, one of the paint colors is then picked up on the wall.  We did use wood bead board wainscoting inside the bathroom and we topped the wainscoting off with a wood chair rail. We matched the wood chair rail profile to a ceramic tile chair rail effect, same profile, they've got it together, and became a continual look from dry walled wall into tiled wall of shower.  In the shower, as well as out, we also continued a very unusual decorative glass border that went from inside the shower to outside on the bead board as additional eye appeal.

INTERVIEWER: And that's probably one of the main reasons to use a designer, to have continuity throughout an entire area.

LH: Yes, I'll try to paint you the picture of the room because I like to use multiple pieces of tiles put them together. This particular bathroom outside the shower area has light painted bead board wainscote.  Then it has layers of tile that sandwich between wood bead board and the wood chair rail. One of them is a cracked green crackle border of glass, and underneath it between liner bars are silver metal tiles that alternate in a shell motif. We worked it out between the trim person and the tile setter to get these to match up not only in the shower but outside of it.  I'd like to think it is a unique look. Those are the details my customers are asking for.  You have to not be scared of how you design it out, and you also have to have a good craftsmen that can deal with your design.

Design Studio Ferrazzano knows that when I'm going to come in there, I'm going to put all these different things together.  I'm going to do a drawing, and we mutually know the tile setters that are going to deal with those drawings, and it is very doable, but you're not going to get it at your base labor price either.

INTERVIEWER: Did you run into something that couldn’t be changed in the situation that you had wanted to change?

LH: No, I would say that we ended up changing more than we thought. Definitely we went a little bit further…it was a great all around project… this particular bathroom I’m talking about they made handicap accessible …which is a needed concept to understand in our marketplace as baby boomers age and parents start living in.  There's also a concept of universal design that say at some point in our adult lives we're going to be temporarily handicapped and need provisions in our homes.

We did a cabinet with a high recessed toe kick area to allow for a wheel chair, we also pulled out a tub to do only a shower concept and we tried to make its curbing as minimal as possible for step ins. We probably did not measure out specific wheelchair radius but we certainly wanted to get it accommodating. We did use higher height toilets in the house which I have a lot of people going to for comfort.

Let me just tell you some of the other criteria that a lot of my customers have.  This one is also into long term maintenance...this one wants clean-ability...and while we don't always butt joint our tiles we certainly do go to integrity of materials for better long term maintenance. I think the grouts are better these days...and when we get to wall tiles we do try to fit them tighter together for lack of mildew...just things like that...that most of my people do ask for.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned the design was larger than you had originally anticipated and you had to speak to the client about that. How do you approach a client when you know that something is going to change?

LH: As it evolved and the project moved forward it created itself.   When you pull out things in a home and you set them off to the side in a major remodeling project like this one you look at those and you look at how new everything else is becoming, you question whether you should put in a 12 year old toilet …how long is it really going to last…at that point that’s a pretty inexpensive thing to change…

INTERVIEWER: So, you find clients are pretty open?

LH: You do have to figure out—and I sometimes have to ask—what a customer is emotionally attached to…because I can’t read their mind on those things…and then they have to explain that…and that’s typically more with furnishings….and you have to ask, what is really important that we keep in a project?

I tell my customers they have complete veto power over me…but I think they are paying me to tell them some things...so, sometimes I just have to say I know you might not like to hear this but what if we consider changing this...and again they can say no and we are fine...I'm not living in that project in the end...and I truly have to remember that.

INTERVIEWER: What advice do you have for someone trying to do a similar project?

LH: You know, I will tell you especially with regard to Design Studio Ferrazzano...it is an incredible environment. It's a complete home marketing situation and many people go in there and get overwhelmed. By hiring a designer I can take them in there and put blinders on them...and say no don't look at that just focus on this...and then if I can go in there and make selections and remove them from all the over stimulus I can get them to focus in on a look that's more desirable to them or meets more of their goal.

INTERVIEWER: Do the folks at Ferrazzano try to help you out by working with your clients and you at the same time?

LH: Yes, they've been really good to me. They certainly send people my way that may need the guidance of a designer.  They'll certainly put my name and number out as a choice. I appreciate that.

INTERVIEWER: What are a few quick tips you would give someone trying to overcome this design challenge or something similar?

LH: I have to say that this particular one that I'm thinking about, as far as design projects go, I had very agreeable customers [in this situation].  I don't think there's too many things in this home that I would change. It fits the goals that we set out in the beginning. It is clearly a fun house that has lots of flexibility using for entertaining family and friends. It really fits the criteria.

INTERVIEWER: How much of the ease of getting it done was working with Ferrazzano?

LH: Oh, a lot, if I could show you the details that come out in their tile work...and this home was not heavily tiled, but the areas that were tiled showed the [Ferrazzano] design elements of border work.  For instance, in the kitchen, they have a border that is made up of handmade beach glass.  It's all rounded edges and it's what we call a random ashler pattern...and their colors of blues, greens and corals...and we did this not only on the kitchen back splash but we also integrated it into the wood hood over the island and had it applied right to the valance of the hood. And those are the things that when you go into a home like this and you see those details…you can appreciate the customer taking the time to want those.

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