That's awesome! I wish I could find someone like that around here! For the price of a good dinner, you could have a "new" house! And if you hate it, you're not out much! That's great! I'd love to see pics!

Tapping foot expectantly. Um, where are the photos, oh gushing one?

What a gem!

After some trial and error, The Husband and I have found someone who specializes in staging homes for sale but also does design consultation on the side. We've had two meetings with her and we LOVE her ideas. We'd been battling two design challenges (how to paint and light a formal dining room with lots of original detail without making it look like a museum, and how to lay out a very long skinny living room) and she came, saw and conquered. I can totally understand your enthusiasm!

Isn't that great? You have a big transformation for so little money and I bet you had a good time, too.

I have several talented relatives, and when we get together we tend to do some rearranging. It's so much fun!

Last time I was at my cousin's we spent much of the day flipping a couple of rooms and placing accessories. It's almost meditative for me. I'll do it anywhere someone lets me! LOL!

Where are the photos??? :)

walkin, you must know that I'm not going to believe that he could make magic with avocado green pillar candles until we have the "ocular proof" :)

Had an odd thought...what if g'webbers local to each other went to each other's houses and did "redesign" in a particular room with whatever's already in the house? That would be interesting--no permanent architectural changes, just rearrangement as in the Decorating Cents segment...

flyleft: What a GREAT idea. YES!

(waving raised hand frantically) ooh! ooh! I want to--pick me!!!!

Wouldn't that be a fun little club. Instead of discussing books, we could meet once a month and either rearrange someone's things, or share ideas and favorite shops.

We had a professional stager go through our house before we sold a few years ago. It is amazing what a fresh set of eyes with some decorating talent can do!

She gave me a list of items to buy, such as purple hand towels for the powder room, with specific instructions on the shade of purple, and lo and behold, they were perfect for that room!

I always thought that a good interior designer could make a mint by doing just that -- either flat fee for 4 hours or hourly work. A lot of middle class homeowners want professional reassurance/help but know that ID's will want to spend $10K on new and high end stuff. HGTV has tapped into that want very well, IMO.

Walkin, he sounds like a gem. I'd like a few hours of his time.

Couldn't you try a deeper color in one room to see? Wall art looks so great on dark backrounds. I'm really kicking myself that we went too light in the new house but was afraid to go darker with the high ceilings. Missing my dark walls in the old house.

bluekit, that is exactly what I do as a decorator -- I work on an hourly basis and basically I'm like a consultant rather than a full-service designer. I don't shop for people unless they want me to (have really done this only once), sometimes shop WITH people at places like Home Goods, etc. (NOT the Design Center), I'll choose paint palettes or do floor plans or lighting plans or suggest specific items to buy. Not to advertise myself but just want you to know that there are some of us out there! And I'll do a 2-hour job or a 20-hour job.

On another note, some of you would have loved a class I took in decorating, before I actually went back to school for interior design. It was an adult ed. class in Boston, and the instructor taught in the classroom for the first few sessions, and then she chose 4-5 students' names out of a hat, and we went to each person's house and decorated (or redecorated) one room in each house. It was so great!

How wonderful for you~it's great when things work out the way they should in theory but seldom do in reality.
So who's in NJ and wants to chip in and have Tom work on our houses? (only partly joking:)

For $20.00 an hour.....what a steal!!!! I sure wish I lived where you do. Isn't it amazing what someone else can see that we just can not?
But I am waiting for before and after pictures???...hope you post them soon.

Wow, and what a price! Where do we sign up for this guy?

Please post before and after pics so we can gush with you. :)

Where would you even FIND someone to come do something like that??

I am dying to see before and after pics. I haven't heard anyone this excited in, well, never actually. lol

He sounds wonderful, and for only twenty bucks an hour. I would love to steal Tom for a few hours.

Sueb you are a decorator? You found your calling, huh?

I am so glad you found him Walkin. Remember to post those gorgeous pictures.

....Jane

Love to see your photos, even if you only have the "after" pictures :)

We used a professional designer and have never regretted a penny of the cost, which was considerable. You seem really pleased with your results, so you got a real bargain!

Walkin - I was grinning ear to ear reading your post. I hired a stager/redesigner back in March to work on a few rooms in my house. I've always kept my MBR shut because it's the one room I seem to neglect year after year. The stager on the other hand told me it's the first room she decorates in her home (she's relocated a number of times). It was great, she re-arranged the furniture, accessorized my built-ins and table tops using my things and a few she brought. I was blown away. I loved how my FR, MBR, DR and LR turned out. I'm having mixed feelings about my MBathroom and definitely not happy with my PR. With that being said I still think it was money well spent. My neighbor loved how my house turned out and ended up hiring her to help with her house.

I'm so happy for you.

If you do a search for interior re-arrangers, you will find lists of people who belong to various associations that do just this sort of thing.

There are a couple of places near here that offer week long training schools - I would love to do it and get started doing that for people. Unfortunately, can't afford the training right now - but who knows down the line?

There's a post on the "conversations" side that Walkin (the person who posted this message) has spent the evening in the ER with her 4-yr-old son, with some undetermined illness. She seems pretty stressed out, and could probably use some words of wisdom, comfort, etc.

Les - it doesn't seem to me you need much if any training! Just do a *Tom Thing* and see where that goes. :-)) Just y 2 cents.

as an arranger. I think you already have the talent/eye required for this type of business!
Diane

Les, Les, Les....... waving my arms madly here!!! I've already told you I'd hire you in a heartbeat!!! If you're ever serious about starting a business let me know. I'm not exactly in your 'hood but we're the same metro area.

Les, you could *teach* those classes. Anytime you make it out to the PNW, you have a job :)

Les, totally agreed: all you need are some testimonials from people here and a rockin' website, and you'd be off. And in the Chicago area, you could probably charge $50/hour instead of $20, and people'd still count themselves lucky to have you! And the other talented people here, too: I love the idea of redoing one person's room/house each month.

Thanks for these nice messages, everyone! Alas... DH has both our cameras and he's out of town, so I can't even take pics, let alone post them! I'll try to get a friend to take some, because I really do want to share them.

THe part I most like about it all is this. My LR/DR/kitchen is one big long rectangular box, basically. We'd laid it out so that all the furniture was on verticals and horizontals, echoing the room's geometry and making it feel even boxier. Decorator Tom broke that up. My DR table is now on a diagonal, and so is the too-big sofa, but no traffic patterns are blocked, and the rooms are still very usable. (although my sons complained that now they can't do capoeira in the living room...)

Also, he rearranged all the pictures, plates, etc so that wherever you stand in the three rooms, your eye falls on something pretty. I'm not quite sure how he managed that.

Parma, my house is so dim, and I crave light... we had one wall dark in my MBR and it drove me mad. In another house, in my friends' houses, I love color, and here in mine I love deeply colored pillows, art, textiles... but I need the ambient light reflected by pale walls or I go off the deep end.

Pam14, thanks for your sweet note. DS is OK now, thank goodness (I've posted to that thread).

One more comment: Tom travels a bit, so if anyone in Phoenix, Albuquerque, or Denver wants his info, I'll pass it on. (:

How exciting! It's fun just hearing about all the changes he made . . . although I'd love to see them, too ;^P
Sometimes even people who are talented decorators need a fresh eye to see new possibilities in their own homes. This guy sounds like a goldmine of information and his prices are very reasonable. Lucky you!
Lynn

I'm glad you're happy/satisfied with what he did~that's not always the case.

As for me, i'm way too anal and OCD to have someone do my decorating. I'm sure after a day with me, *I* would be the one to be fired! LOL I love 'doin' my thing' and have been told 'I have great taste'. Well. it's *my* taste, so that's always gonna be questionable by someone else.

After I read this post, I was doing a search for books about interior redesign so maybe I could figure out how to arrange some of my rooms and Barbara Jennings' name keeps popping up. Has anyone heard of her?