A chance encounter and a real-life tip

Recently I was at PHF looking at commercial carpeting for our new showroom, and I ran into Dennis and Florence Long, a really nice couple who were there to shop for some upholstery fabric. It turned out Florence had attended one of our workshops!

Florence told me how much she learned and was inspired. She showed me how they came prepared with photos of their space to help in their selection, just as I had taught. In looking at her photos and the direction they were going in, of course I couldn’t help but add my two cents! :)

Here’s a tip I want to share with all of you. The situation that we have here is the Longs are reupholstering their beautiful but slightly weathered sofa. They know they want to tie in the new fabric with the area rug beneath the sofa, which is two shades of blue. The fabric they were looking at was another blue that would tie in nicely with the area rug.

This is something I see all the time: My suggestion to the Longs was to remember our 60-30-10 rule. They were tying in with the dominant color in their space: blue area rug, blue accents in art throughout the room. If blue is already the dominant color, I told the Longs, a very large furniture piece like the sofa should tie in to a secondary color.

I noticed a subtle gold line running through the area rug and suggested that instead of a blue sofa on the blue area rug, which would have made the middle of the living room look like a giant swimming pool, why not instead pick up on the gold and make that the secondary color, and accent with some blue and brown pillows?

Here’s the fabric I recommended. It’s a color they won’t get bored with over time, it’s neutral, and it won’t leave visitors to the Longs’ house thinking, wow, they really do love blue.

I also recommended that they reupholster the side barrel chairs in a coordinating fabric that has some gold but also blues and browns in it, and they can also use the same fabric as accent pillows on the sofa.

This coordinating fabric has a subtle abstract feeling. You can almost see light waves, which will tie in with the eclectic island style the Longs want to go in.

They were thrilled to death and I was thrilled to help them. Design dilemma solved, and I’m off again to get back to sorting out the design dilemmas of our showroom!

90mph again!

In my work as a design diva who teaches people how to bring style to their spaces, no production is bigger than a workshop. Not only do we put on these all-day affairs for hundreds of attendees, we also combine them with tradeshows featuring dozens of businesses and booths. And you know me, no event is a success unless everybody has fun, so we always jazz up our workshops with high-energy games and fantastic prizes!

This is exactly what I’m in the midst of preparing for. And this time I’m adding a twist: I'll be turning into a magician (of sorts), because I’m going to create beautiful spaces right up onstage before everyone’s eyes! I got the idea from an event we did at Macy’s, where I did this and people came up afterward and said how great it was to see design concepts come to life.

The workshop’s coming up fast—it’ll be on April 10 at the Hawaii Convention Center! Aaaahhhh! Lissa, Kara and I are already going 90mph getting ready. It’s going to be fun, fast and furious. Look for our half-page ad in the Island Life section of this Sunday’s Honolulu Advertiser.

Meanwhile, it's almost the end of the workday and I've still got places to go, things to do, people to see! Aaaahhh!!!

Have you missed me?

I know I've been MIA from my blog lately, but it's not because I haven't been working. In fact, Lissa, Kara, Melissa and I have been working waaay too much! All that hard work paid off this past Saturday at our Invitation to Design workshop at the Dole Cannery Ballrooms. I am sooo tired and so glad it's over. It could not have gone any better!

To my amazement, there were 75 people standing in line before the doors opened at 8:15. We set up for 320 attendees, and we even had to bring in another table. In today’s economy, we were thrilled that so many people decided to spend most of their Saturday and their hard-earned money to attend.

I always start my workshops by sharing a little about my background. For the first time, I shared a few photos from my childhood in Pearl City. I wanted everyone to see the not-so-stylish home that I grew up in. From the boar head hanging in the living room to the Korean lacquer furniture to the water buffalo carving from the Philippines, yes, it was a very eclectic home...but not in a good way. (Sorry Mom and Dad!)

The energy from the audience was amazing—everyone really seemed focused and ready to learn. Early on I talked about putting textures and patterns together, then gave people a chance to work with their tables to try their hand at it. It was great to see how excited and involved everyone was. But that involvement is always heightened when there’s a prize on the line.

I am a total believer in games. I think that learning should always be fun, and adults love to play too! They key is to create a game that can be a fun learning experience. The first table to successfully put together their dream space with the materials at their fingertips—color fan decks, books of fabrics, samples of granite, carpet and wood flooring—plus complete a mock ‘mortgage application’ would win. The winning table was loaded with guys from American Carpet One! Each received a $100 gift certificate from Honolulu Lights.

Just before lunch, I introduced our presenting sponsors, Amy Kunz from The Honolulu Advertiser and Nelson Oyadomari from Primary Residential Mortgage. They were both so great to work with. Not to mention, they are both a lot of fun! Amy left her husband home to babysit so she could come with her mom. Nelson, who is such a clown, came up on stage dressed all in black except for a red napkin hanging out of his pocket—he said it was his pop of accent color!

The final part of the day was a segment on staging a home. We had a lot of Realtors and their clients there. As I was asking the audience questions, most everyone was responding...and with the right answers. I always love this part. I call it the part when the light bulb goes off—it's the moment when people realize that they are learning, and it does make sense, and they are really getting it, and maybe they can learn to decorate after all!

When the workshop was over, there was a line of people waiting to talk with me and give me a hug. That was when I really felt that all the hard work was worth it. Everyone was so sweet and their thanks so sincere. I was really touched. It made me feel special. It almost made me want to do another workshop...NOT!

Next: Moments that will make you say ‘Awww…’: the human side of the day.

What a day!

Things are still not fixed with the blog, so be patient with us. The Advertiser is working on it, and hopefully I’ll be able to hear from you soon. But argh! I wish that were the worst of it.

Our big RSVPstyle Invitation to Design workshop is coming up in a month. This is a huge production for a small company—we teach hundreds of people how to use color and texture and style to decorate, with activities for everybody and sophisticated PowerPoint presentations thrown up on jumbo screens around the room. And as anyone knows who’s ever done an event like this or built or remodeled a home, the devil is in the details! After doing it a number of times, it should get easier, right? But IT DOESN’T! There’s always a new set of challenges.

Here’s what I’m dealing with. We’ll be at a new venue, Dole Cannery ballrooms. The people are absolutely great. However, we didn’t realize when we booked the ballroom that the built-in stage and large columns would pose such a problem. We thought we could work around them.

Recently we took our team on an onsite visit to plan the logistics and surprise, surprise! While this ballroom can ordinarily accommodate well over 400 people, with our need for three jumbo screens that can be clearly and comfortably seen from every seat and a stage capable of rear projection—which we initially understood was going to be possible—it now looks like we’re not going to be able to get as many tables in there as we’d hoped.

Bottom line: we’ve got to rent our own stage, reconfigure the three jumbo screens and redo the table layout. We always try to put on a great show and make sure everyone has a great seat. We do not want to sacrifice the quality level that people are accustomed to.

Just as any good contractor or professional would, you’ve got to roll with the punches. No expletive here, life happens. Or as Tim Gunn would say on Project Runway, make it work. So that’s what we’re going to do. But before we do that, let me vent this one time: AAARGGHHH!!!!!