I love creating fantasies! My daughter, who lives in Dallas, has picked up the same ability for it and she does it with beautiful parties for her children.
I believe a good decorator is someone who loves to fantasize and can then deliver that vision in the form of beauty in the home. Everyone benefits when a decorator and her client connect. Interior Fabrics always keeps up with the latest trends and always seems to be thinking of “fantasy places†because I am always able to make people’s ideas come together with the wide array of selections they offer.
I now live in Houston, TX, my new home since Katrina (another “lemonade storyâ€) and whereas the “ball gown drape†is not asked for as often here, I am still having fun creating ambiance in even the most challenging places.
I’ve been blessed with loads of energy and ideas and I love sharing them with my clients. I look forward to possibly writing on this blog again in case there’s any interest of my philosophies and fantasies. Perhaps then, I’ll be able to talk about my two precious sons, their wives, and my five grandchildren… Yes, decorators can be grandmothers and create beautiful fantasies (you should see what I can do with a nursery)!
It’s been two years since my precious and hysterically funny father passed away and as I sit writing this abbreviated autobiography, I slightly tear up at the thought of how proud he would be of me…the class clown giving advice! We were three sisters and my dad thought everything we did was awesome. My parents raised three southern bells that were taught when life deals you and lemon then bless your heart, you best make lemonade. And thus went life…
One of my best batches of “lemonade†was created in the early 80’s when the oil business tanked (sound familiar?) and everyone had become resourceful (we had three children in grade school at the time). All of my friends who were teachers went back to teaching and lawyers went back to the courtrooms. I, on the other hand, only had the innate ability to glue glitter on poster boards, decorate pretty dinner tables, and rearrange furniture none of which, were big revenue makers at that time.
HGTV didn’t exist, and since Oprah beat me to the punch as the next big daytime celebrity (ha ha), I figured I’d better start making some lemonade! And this is what reinvented me “Decorator on a Shoestring†was born. With tight budgets all around, the title seemed fitting to me. My service? Making old things look new for only twenty-five dollars. And it took off! I started taking apart old curtains, tying bed sheets with ribbons, and making cozy niches in everyone’s homes. One of my favorite things to do is to create a pretty master bedroom a pretty look you might conjure up in your dreams when reading Danielle Steel romance novel and I became pretty successful at it. I always laughed at the thought of how many marriages I might have saved by giving couples a beautiful bedroom.
When I started my business I was living in Lafayette, LA, and I was lucky enough to enjoy having my mother, the woman responsible for teaching me the love of beautiful things, work with me for the first 15 years. I also had the privilege of working with a lovely woman named Pearl, who is now deceased. Pearl was my drapery fabricator, and it was she who taught me how to measure and buy fabrics.
Within a few years, my husband and I moved to uptown New Orleans. The oil business was on the rise and silk drapes were all the rage. Uptown New Orleans homes, with all their old world charm, were blank canvases just waiting to be decorated. Two twenty yards of silk purchased from Interior Fabrics dressed up a window so well, they could just about serve as a ball gown for Mardi Gras (think Scarlett in Gone with the Wind). My creativity went wild! It was so easy to create beauty simply adding details like fringe and pleats gave you windows to die for.
My theory has always been pretty things and pretty places make people calmer and nicer. I love showing someone how beautiful any space can become. If the budget is small, a good place to begin the beautifying process is the dining room. This room tends to have fewer windows than other rooms in the home, which ends up requiring less fabric. It’s an incentive starter a pair of drapes and a couple of votive candles make any dining room look like a five star restaurant. It’ll be place in your home to retreat with that special someone, when the babysitter cancels on your date night!
