MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

One-day decorating: The quicker fixer-upper

Connie Nelson / Star Tribune

When your car is clicking and clacking, you take it in for a tune-up. But what do you do when your home isn't humming? When your living room feels frumpy or the dining room just doesn't work?

Before: This room lacks a focal point.

Of course, an interior designer, given time, could help work out the wrinkles. But here in America, where instant gratification is as much a part of our day as instant breakfast, there is a quicker fix: one-day decorating.

It goes by many names -- including interior-arranging, interior-rearranging, interior-refining or home makeovers -- but it has one unifying theme: an on-the-spot approach to interiors that makes use of the furnishings clients already have in their homes.

After: A collection of framed artwork creates a focal point. Rehanging artwork is one the services available from a one-day decorator.

An interior refiner may rearrange a room, make a wish list of recommended items that a client can purchase on her own or draw up a decorating plan for a single room or a whole house. And while one-day decorators may edit the accessories on the mantle, suggest a mohair throw for the sofa or borrow an occasional chair from the bedroom for use in the living room, they do not sell accessories, throws or furniture. In fact, most of them sell only their expertise.

"We're not selling anything," said Kit Thayer, an interior designer and a partner in Minneapolis-based Design Doctors. "We're trying to help [clients] use what they have -- using good design principles."

The Design Doctors doesn't base its business on furniture rearranging. Instead, it sells "professional design direction." For a fee of $295, one of the eight interior designers on staff makes a home visit (which the lab-coat-clad designer calls a "diagnosis") and writes up a prescription for a makeover of three or four rooms.

Interior designer Lauri Ward often banishes, borrows and recommends that clients buy a few simple pieces when she rearranges a room. In the "before" version of this room, pictured, she found some things to banish.

Thayer and her twin sister, Kay Schulz, have been working as interior designers for 27 years but say that their business has blossomed since they started offering one-day decorating services less than two years ago.

"The response we've had has been great," said Thayer. "It's definitely catching on."

Though it may be just catching on here in the Twin Cities, the concept of one-day decorating isn't new, according to Lauri Ward, the New York City interior designer who is considered one of the pioneers of the practice.

Ward founded Use-What-You-Have Interiors in 1981. Since then, she has been featured on "Oprah," the CBS "Evening News," "Lifetime" and CNBC, as well as in House Beautiful, Metropolitan Home and Ladies Home Journal magazines and the New York Times. She has written a book on use-what-you-have decorating and started a network, the Interior Redecorators Network that trains one-day decorators and refers graduates of her week-long training program to clients.

Ward said her move from traditional interior design was motivated by money: her clients'.

After: Ward has removed the bookcases, two end tables and a chair and borrowed a rug and a sofa table from another room.

"I didn't want to feel like a salesperson," she said. "I started to look at what people had [in their homes] and they had really nice things."

Ward considers her business a "money-saving service," but said she has been surprised by the clients that her "real decorating for real people" approach has attracted. Instead of only young apartment dwellers or first-time homeowners with little or no disposable income, one-day decorating also has appealed to established empty-nesters, newly blended families or those who have inherited furniture, been relocated or put their house on the market.

"These people have money," said Lisa Billings, a Dallas decorator and president of the four-year-old Interior Arrangement Design Association (IADA), a professional organization for one-day decorators. "They don't hire us to save money -- although they do. They hire us because they know their house can look better."

That's why Gloria Quinn called Twin Cities decorator Sandra Lee. Quinn and her husband, John, were planning to sell their Greenfield, Minn., house.

"I wanted the house to look the best it could, but I didn't want to invest a lot," said Quinn.

With the help of the Quinns, Lee reshuffled the living room, the master bedroom and the rec room, borrowing furnishings from other rooms to get the look she wanted, then suggested additional changes for the dining room and their daughter's bedroom. The house didn't sell, but the Quinns decided they were happy to stay put in their rearranged home.

"It gave us a boost," said Gloria, of the rearrangement. "Now I'm ready to do more."

Decorator Sandra Lee added green flowers to existing pots on the mantle of a client's home to add a spot of color. Sandra Lee is one of a new breed of decorators who practices one-day decorating. Instead of consulting with clients and buying all new furnishings, she goes into a home and rearranges the furnishings a client already owns. Star Tribune

Doing more doesn't require another visit from Lee, who charges $65 an hour. As part of her practice, Lee, like many one-day decorators, gives clients "homework," usually a list of tasks to tackle on their own. How much homework a client is assigned depends on the decorator. Many one-day decorators will move furniture, determine a color scheme or give clients direction about purchasing furniture. However, few actually do the shopping.

"We realize that there is this whole segment of the population that likes to shop, but doesn't know what to do with it when they get it home," explained Billings.

Just as the services provided by interior refiners differ from decorator to decorator, so does the training. Lee has no formal training. Design Doctors employs only experienced interior designers. Decorators who are graduates of either Ward's organization, the Interior Redecorators Network, or the IADA may or may not be interior designers.

That inconsistency is a cause of concern among interior designers, who must pass an examination and document their education and experience to be certified by the state. Some worry that clients may be poorly served by decorators with little or no training and fear one-day decorators may eat into their business.

"There's so much more that gets involved with interior design than futzing with people's stuff" said Susan Hoffman, owner of DESIGNS! and president of the Minnesota chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers. "They [clients] are missing out if they think they're going to get the best ideas in that slam-bam approach."

Hoffman doubts that done-in-a-day-decorating allows for the kind of in-depth relationship interior designers establish with their clients. But one-day decorators maintain that they are serving a different client and meeting a different need.

"We're not taking business away from professional designers," said Thayer. "This is a niche market that needs professional help, but for one reason or another has never called a designer and never will."

Because they work with what a client already has, one-day decorators rarely discuss "taste" or try to change a client's style. And that, they maintain, is their strong suit.

"They [clients] want to feel comfortable with their things. They want to be proud of their homes," said Billings. "What we do affirms their taste. We do not pass judgment."