This article by Kristin was posted on Decorati’s site today. Kristin is an interior designer who designed her very own furniture line, which launched last spring at High Point Market, with Minutes Matter Studio. Her style of furniture is unusual, comfortable and beautiful. Way to go Kristin!
Here’s the post:
Keep reading to learn how Kristin Drohan designs invigorating environments filled with color and texture balanced with functionality and eco-awareness.
How would you describe your design style?
My design style is relevant classic traditional. I provide my clients with timeless style that functions for today. My spaces are edited neutral backdrops where accessories provide color, texture and personality. Having lived all over the US (7 cities in 17 years of marriage), I’ve been influenced by various geographic regions, so I have a lot of “likes”.
What do you do, or where do you go, for inspiration?
Designers will tell you, travel provides inspiration. I agree, but I also get lots of inspiration from High Point and Maison Objet (Design Trade Shows). Traveling with my design peers and attending industry market shows, is so stimulating. You get completely invigorated by the creativity at these forums. I love that energy and try to attend several each year.
What is your favorite furniture piece of all time ? How were you able to use it in a particular project?
I love the Allie bed from my Kristin Drohan Collection. I have it in my own bedroom. It is one of my top selling pieces. A Chippendale wing back chair I inherited from my Grandmother provided the inspiration for the design. I upholstered it in a high performing eco vinyl for durability, but it still maintains a luxurious look. (See above)
In your opinion, what makes a great room?
In order to have a great room, I think you need an efficient space plan, an interesting focal point, accurate proportion and scale, a mix of old and new, and items with various price points.
What is your favorite Benjamin Moore paint color to use for walls, ceiling, and trim?
My favorite Benjamin Moore walls colors are HC 28 Shelburne Buff, HC 29 Dunmore Cream, HC 34 Wilmington Tan, and HC 144 Palladian Blue. I use Decorator or Atrium White for Trim and do 10 to 25 percent of the wall color for the ceiling. Most of my clients have kids and dogs so I use an eggshell finish. Eggshell goes on smooth, cleans up easily, and doesn’t look chalky.
Is it lifestyle that has generated the design changes, or is design the driving force that affects how we live?
Lifestyle defines product design. Considering how someone lives is crucial to designing a space that fits their needs. If a space is gorgeous but your client doesn’t use it, is a big design failure. All of my furniture designs in the Kristin Drohan Collection were based on a functional client need I could not find in the market place.
Do you see part of your role as designer being that of educator, expanding your clients’ awareness of green products? How informed do you feel you are on the subject?
Designers are the ultimate educators in green products. Being one of the first 100 Interior Designers in the US to be a Green Accredited Professional, I’m passionate about the subject but also realistic. I think a related goal is providing décor choices that are safe and made in America. Avoiding products that are manufactured with high levels of VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) and supporting our US economy is a responsible choice designers should make.
What is the ultimate goal of all your projects?
The ultimate goal of all my projects is to improve or enhance my clients’ lives. If I can provide them with an environment that improves their lifestyle and provides comfort, I have done my job.
I subscribe to Google’s blog so it comes right to my inbox. You know me, I like to be “in the know.“ I quickly skim over the blog posts gleaning any pertinent information that might be useful to us. I thought it was interesting that Hunter Douglas (read the article) was listed as a company that was moving to the clouds.
Below is an excerpt from Google’s blog two days ago. Looks like lots of businesses are packing their bags and moving to clouds.
“Who’s gone Google?
Recently we’ve seen a surge in new public sector customers—including the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the City of Rochester Hills. These organizations are not only saving taxpayer dollars with Google Apps, but also boosting the productivity of their ranks.
More than 50,000 businesses have also started using Google Apps in the last three weeks. Pithy Little Wine Co., DeyFischer Consulting, Manna on Main Street and Hunter Douglas are just a few of the businesses we’ve profiled recently who are are going 100% web.“
In the last six months Google has added some major enhancements to their Calendar, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets and Google presentations. I especially like how they made it easier to share all Google files. You can choose to share a Google file with one person, a group of people, make the document public or keep it totally private. Below is an example of an email that is sent to the person you are sharing the document with. In this example, I am sharing a presentation with just one design client, all the client needs to do is click on the hyperlink to view the presentation.
I absolutely love the ability to have all these documents online and in a central location. I don’t use Excel or Word anymore, I have given all that up and moved to Google Apps. We’ve been in the clouds for over a year now and loving every minute of it. I can access all of our information from my Mac desktop, my Dell Laptop, my iPhone or my iPad.
Could life get any easier or better?
Now, that’s is a mound of snow! This winter has certainly had record amounts of snowfall. In a previous post you seen an amazing 10′ snowman, but this photograph caught my eye because our software, Minutes Matter Studio, was used to measure the mound of snow. Lynn of Wakefield, MA posted this photograph on the CHF forum to show other forum users the height, to the inch, of the snow mound in her driveway. I can’t imagine how long it will take to melt.
Using our unique Set Scale tool and our Dimension tool quickly allows users to scale a photograph. Lynn reminds us all the uses for Studio are only limited by your imagination.
Thanks for sharing Lynn!
Did you know that Minutes Matter offers private sessions with Studio and QuickBooks trainers? If you have been meaning to learn more about either of these software programs but don’t have the time to take one of our Coaching Programs or can’t carve out an hour or so in the middle of the day to attend a webinar, this is the solution!
Missing files? Project that needs tweaking? We can provide assistance with your computer as it relates to our software and help with your interior design renderings and floor plans or QuickBooks codes and financial reports.
Yesterday I worked with a designer who had limited Studio experience. Within one hour we had imported a photo of the client’s room, rescaled it to match the actual dimensions, downloaded and cropped a fabric from a vendor’s website, added a wall of sheer draperies and an inverted pleat top treatment in that cropped fabric with contrast insert, photo clipped the sofa, and learned a few techniques along the way such as duplicating, aligning, filling with pattern, and measuring with the dimension line tool.
And the designer did all the work while I guided her. This is a fantastic way to learn hands-on; you don’t forget it if you actually do it, rather than watching someone else demonstrate. Best of all, we recorded the session so that she will be able to play it back and review what we had covered.
I’m sure the Countess of QuickBooks, Vickie Ayres, and Anna Davis, our Success Coach, can recount similar experiences with their consultations.
Schedule an hour or more by calling the office at 800.343.0616 or click on this link to our shopping cart:
https://minutes.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=1&i=71&navisubcat=71&navicat=11
If you are guilty of spending too much time on a project, whether it’s one you love or hate, or if you are feeling that you are losing productivity, you may want to start timing yourself and taking forced breaks to keep fresh and focused while avoiding brain freeze, eye strain, and neck cramps. If the first happens, you may not even be aware of the other two! What about those phone calls that are supposed to be quick and efficient and end up eating an hour of your time?
I tease my Coaching students about my twelve-step program for Studio addicts. They all think I’m kidding until they get to the third week of the six week session. Then I hear reports of having so much fun they can’t stop thinking of new ways to tweak their renderings, or spouses asking why they’re still up at 2:30 in the morning.
I’ve discovered a good solution to these addictions, obsessions, time wasting spirals we find ourselves in….
Check out this cool app for your computer. It’s based on the Pomodoro Technique of working for twenty-five minutes, then taking a five minute break. After four work periods, you take a fifteen to thirty minute break.
http://www.focusboosterapp.com/download It’s free, easy to understand, and looks good – what more could you want?! All you see on your screen is the narrow black bar; click on the little i to change the settings. It can also be minimized and you’ll see the icon in your system tray near your clock.
www.lifehacker.com viewers recently voted it their favorite among the top five contenders for timing devices. Also recommended by Kim Komando, Computer Goddess; www.addictivetips.com for those who get distracted easily or want to value their time more fully; and www.ilovefreesoftware.com
I look on this as a way to reboot my own internal computer, to refresh my resources. Let us know if it works for you!
This winter many of us have experienced electrical power fluctuations and outages due to ice, snow and wind bringing down electrical lines. Did you know that these outages and spikes caused by power coming back on can damage and decrease the life of your surge protectors? Even though the surge protector is designed to handle these fluctuations and protect our valuable electronic equipment from harm, they can wear out and need to be checked to ensure they are still working. Many have warning lights to indicate loss of function.
If there have been several outages or brownouts or even the flickering of lights in your area, you may want to consider replacing your surge protector, especially if it was an inexpensive model or more than five years old. The surge protectors with higher joules (how much energy the surge protector can absorb before it fails) ratings can handle more surges than the inexpensive ones with lower ratings.
Look for a device that has the UL certification plus equipment warranty and expect to pay between $30 and $100 for a good quality surge protector. The one picture above even has a remote to turn it on and off. After chatting with several supergeeks at a few computer stores, we purchased a 12 outlet 3940 Joules surge protector made by Belkin with a $300,000 equipment protection warranty for under $50.
Do you need a Will, Power of Attorney, register a Trademark, create Partnership Agreements, form an LLC or anything that has to do with a legal service or document? LegalZoom can be an easy and inexpensive solution for most of your legal needs.
Example of LegalZoom’s Deluxe Incorporation KitI have personally used LegalZoom a couple of times and my experience with their company totally exceeded my expectations. After doing some research on their website, I did expect the registering process to incorporate to be fast and easy. I also expected to receive the proper paperwork when the process was finalized, but didn’t consider how it would feel to receive a 2″ leather binder embossed with my new company name. When the package arrived, I was so surprised how great the presentation for my new corporation looked. I highly recommend LegalZoom for your personal or business legal needs.
Example of LegalZoom’s Last Will Package
The Minutes Matter Studio rendering for this master bedroom showcases how decorative hardware and fabrics accent existing blinds. {Window Fashion Vision: By Susan Kostelecky}
In response to many requests for a webinar demonstrating how to mix and match and customize the images in our Studio Design Library, and to have evening learning opportunities, we are presenting Get Creative – Mix and Match with Studio tonight at 8 PM Eastern.
We hope you can join us for an hour packed with inspiration, ideas, tips and techniques. Learn how to create your own unique treatments and furnishings and save them to the Custom Tab for future use. As always, we’ll have time for questions.
Can’t attend? Don’t worry, the webinar will be recorded and you’ll receive a link to watch the video as well as special files to make watching easier and locating images faster.
Click here to register: https://minutes.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=4&i=p315&navicat=11&navisubcat=57&naviprod=315
See you at
It’s been beautiful here in Alabama with our record amount of snow. First it snowed ON Christmas Day, then a few weeks later the storehouses of snow opened again. This time it measured 8.9 inches at the airport. In the past several years, we’ve had a light dusting but never enough to make snowballs or really even build a snowman. This year it’s a different story…
(playing in the snow) As I watched the early morning snow falling I came across this scripture:
Since this was such a wonderful sight, we took advantage of the time together as a family. We spent from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm just playing. Our day began with preparing for the epic snowball battle: complete with snow built barriers and a wheel barrel of snow balls. The competition was between us and our neighbors.
(preparing for battle)
(prepared!)
(epic showdown)
Then we created the biggest snowman ever! It measured 10’6″ tall & was built IN our street! When we were done, other neighbors walked dogs down or drove thier family over just to take a picture in front of the snowman. Of course, the kids helped for about 15 minutes and the remaining three hours Owen, Brad (our neighbor), and myself finished what we had started. A few neighbors even came over to help: carving the waist or hoisting the massive head to the top. The funny thing is this is the first snowman I’ve ever built!
(Starting the Snowman)
(The finished product) 
(His cute face)
(Our friends built a snow truck)
I think it was one of my most favorite days ever! I hope you enjoy the pictures.
~ Casey
PS: Morgan wasn’t a huge fan of the snow day. She spent most of her time looking like this… I think she’s more at home when on a beach. 🙂
(Morgan crying)
(oh look, here’s another picture of Mo)
