Hello!
I am an aspiring Interior Designer, currently studying at Modesto Junior College. In my Kitchen and Bath Design course, we have an assignment to research a designer.
If you have the time and would like to have your quote in a students essay:
What do you consider the most important aspect of kitchen designing?
Thank you for your time, and I love your work!
Lauren
Thank you for your question Lauren.
The most important aspect of kitchen design, after learning the basics of the craft, is to learn to LISTEN to your clients or potential clients.
Listening is a skill that most people only develop over time, with trial and error. But missed cues are very problematic in the designer client relationship.
Clients often do not know how to articulate what they want. But they always know when a designer is not listening to them, and going off on wild tangents that have no relationship to their desires.
Novice designers often do most of the talking when interacting with potential clients. They have absorbed all that knowledge and they want to show it off! Then they wonder why the clients don't come back. It's because they have found somebody else who listens.
A designer who listens and asks questions to understand fully the client's true desires does not develop plans that are wrong for, and a disappointment to, the client.
Best of luck to you in your career Lauren.
Peggy
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Happy Onam 2009
Wishing you all a very Happy ONAM 2009.
I am back home after a short vacation. Thanks to my maid who stocked up my fridge with the necessary veggies, I could prepare Onam Sadhya. In the morning, I thought rain will play the spoil sport, but it stopped by 9 A.M so that everyone could make pookalm without fearing of it getting washed away. I managed to make a small one with the flowers from my garden. Since we reached only yesterday late evening, could not buy flowers. And I prefer making pookalam with my garden flowers. Just finished our heavy lunch and I thought I will wish you all and say that I am back. For the time being, its just photos and no recipes.
Image of Bhagavathy drawn using flowers in our nearby temple
Pookalam at my home
Onasadhya - 2009
ഓണാശംസകള്
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Re: Save the Light Bulb!
Came across this article in the WSJ, by a noted lighting designer, who rants on compact fluorescent lighting being foisted on the unsuspecting public by the big, bad, government. I simply MUST respond.
* The Wall Street Journal
* OPINION
* AUGUST 30, 2009, 7:19 P.M. ET
Save the Light Bulb!
Compact fluorescents don't produce good quality light.
By HOWARD M. BRANDSTON
"The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2012-2014 in favor of compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. Other countries around the world have passed similar legislation to ban most incandescents.
Will some energy be saved? Probably. The problem is this benefit will be more than offset by rampant dissatisfaction with lighting..."
I'm afraid Mr. Brandston is living in the past. A past where Edison lights cast a warm glow and the man of the house spent his evenings banking the coal furnace for a long winter's night.
One would think that a lighting designer who relit the Statue of Liberty would embrace new technology, especially when the world as we knew it is fast disappearing in a swirl of forest fires and hurricanes.
If everyone in the nation had been nudged into energy efficiency the way Californians have since the advent of Title 24 (California's energy code that has kept our energy usage at 1990 levels for decades), we would be well on our way to solving our energy conundrum, and less far down the road of global warming.
Fluorescent, and newly, LED lighting are revolutionizing the way residential spaces are lit. Designers who have embraced the technology and found creative new ways of lighting our homes and lives should not be intimidated by those who would take us back to the horse and buggy. Nor should those who still need to learn how to design with fluorescent lighting. We have blazed a path for you and the learning curve is not steep, nor the goal trivial.
Homeowners, don't fall for such drivel. You are the ones who are driving the expansion of demand for truly green homes with energy efficient lighting along with energy efficient appliances, solar, windows, HVAC, insulation, sealing, etc. Do not waver. The planet cannot wait any longer.
Peggy
* The Wall Street Journal
* OPINION
* AUGUST 30, 2009, 7:19 P.M. ET
Save the Light Bulb!
Compact fluorescents don't produce good quality light.
By HOWARD M. BRANDSTON
"The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2012-2014 in favor of compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. Other countries around the world have passed similar legislation to ban most incandescents.
Will some energy be saved? Probably. The problem is this benefit will be more than offset by rampant dissatisfaction with lighting..."
I'm afraid Mr. Brandston is living in the past. A past where Edison lights cast a warm glow and the man of the house spent his evenings banking the coal furnace for a long winter's night.
One would think that a lighting designer who relit the Statue of Liberty would embrace new technology, especially when the world as we knew it is fast disappearing in a swirl of forest fires and hurricanes.
If everyone in the nation had been nudged into energy efficiency the way Californians have since the advent of Title 24 (California's energy code that has kept our energy usage at 1990 levels for decades), we would be well on our way to solving our energy conundrum, and less far down the road of global warming.
Fluorescent, and newly, LED lighting are revolutionizing the way residential spaces are lit. Designers who have embraced the technology and found creative new ways of lighting our homes and lives should not be intimidated by those who would take us back to the horse and buggy. Nor should those who still need to learn how to design with fluorescent lighting. We have blazed a path for you and the learning curve is not steep, nor the goal trivial.
Homeowners, don't fall for such drivel. You are the ones who are driving the expansion of demand for truly green homes with energy efficient lighting along with energy efficient appliances, solar, windows, HVAC, insulation, sealing, etc. Do not waver. The planet cannot wait any longer.
Peggy
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