Real Sisters Design

It’s taken us awhile to digest our somewhat recent 10-15 minutes of fame. Long story short, a Los Angeles producer saw a magazine story on our business and reached out to speak with us about appearing on a reality design show. Exciting, you say, right? He pitched his idea. He had already found sister realtors from the western suburbs and was specifically looking for Chicago-based sister designers to partner up for some good tv.

We chatted for several minutes over the phone. We shared a few clever stories about us and our lives; we bantered. It was really quite enjoyable. He said we sounded great, loved our wit and easy-going natures. 🙂 He shared some additional information on his idea for the show. THEN….he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?” We chuckled and told him we were in our 50s. The mood changed immediately. He tried to walk back his “horror” and said, “You sound so young” He proceeded to tell us that the absolute cut-off for any reality-type design show is 49, and that WE did not qualify. He did say, well if you look young it may work, send me a picture now. So we quickly glanced through our phones and sent him the best we could find on short notice. Guess what? NOT GOOD/YOUNG ENOUGH. He glanced at the photos for no more than a millisecond and said, “Oh sorry ladies, this won’t work”

We graciously said we understood and hung up. As we rehashed the conversation in our minds, so many issues rose to the surface. First and foremost, we felt so undervalued. Reading between the lines, we determined that basically in his eyes, and perhaps more broadly, we were washed-up. At one point in the conversation he said design skills were secondary as long as you were pleasing enough to get people to watch. Apparently being over 50 is not pleasing.

In addition, we realized the double standard of aging men vs aging women. The very next day we received a magazine with two 65-70 year old men on the cover. There they were staring at us, in all their grey-haired glory. Older men seem to bring wisdom and expertise to the table, women it seems, not so much.

Perhaps the biggest thing that we realized is People should not be judged or valued by the things for which they have no control! If you don’t enjoy our design taste then by all means you can find any number of designers to fill your needs. If you think we’d be wallflowers and unable to engage with your audience, we get it. But if you reach out because you love our story and come to find out our personalities fit the bill and then chose to end the talk beacause of age…well that’s just wrong.

Perhaps someday the world will wise up and realize that women of a certain age should be arguably the group most sought for advice. Life throws things at us that can’t be taught in school. It takes time to develop wisdom. Successfully, and sometimes not successfully, jockeying through life is what makes us qualified to offer guidance. We for two 🙂 always welcome the expertise and advice from someone who has lived!

Perhaps someday, someone will think a show with 2 gracious, laughable, well-lived females would make good TV, until then we can bring our schtick to your home anytime !

While we’ve been helping clients virtually since the beginning of this crisis, this week we had our first call to virtually help the virtual room.

Gone are the work-from-home days where you can roll out of bed and work independently. In the past, you just had to make sure you were put together for the days you had to go into the office.

Our client called because she was very much aware that executives from across the globe were getting a peek into her office and home life. She realized that her “zoom room” wasn’t showing as it should. On top of that Twitter’s Room Rater has close to 200k followers. They can be brutal, criticizing everything from the paint color to lighting. It’s a new working world and we need to put out best room forward 🙂

Here’s a look at some of the best and one of the worst zoom rooms we’ve recently seen.

This one’s good…our photo is a little blurry. Love the color and placement of the artwork! Love the groovy light and how the white of the light coordinates with the whimsical flying pig, Nice neutral paint color and of course there is some plant life.

This one is great too. Very traditional. The painting gives a nice backdrop and we love that he sat off center so we can see the arch, the rod iron detail, and the chandelier.

Oops…Okay this one may need a little work!

Stay tuned!! We will post a picture when we are finished with our client’s room! Let us know if we can get you Zoom ready!

We are just a few days from Easter. In normal times we would be taking the late winter wreath off our door and putting up the one with the spring blooms. The glass pastel eggs would be carefully placed in strategic locations throughout the house, and we’d be setting the table for our annual brunch. But these are not normal times. My door has no wreath, (I will get on that) there are no eggs around, and our annual brunch will be missing at least 12 people.

We miss life as we know it. Mostly we miss YOU. If we had to rank the favorite things about our job, we’d both agree, it’s the friendships we’ve cultivated. Of course, we love turning old spaces into fresh well-loved spaces. But… we REALLY love sitting on the floor, sharing life stories all while scouring through fabric samples. We miss hearing about the engagements, the baby showers, the weddings. We miss being able to lend an ear about aging parents, college dilemmas, and the general struggles of life.

Please reach out to us and share your stories. We hope soon we will be back sitting on your floor sharing a cup of coffee. Hopefully we’ll be able to share how this isolation has found a way to make us better. #sad ……I’m going to find my wreath.

There’s a new show on HGTV that has us up late at night. It’s called “Unsellable Houses” We love it because, well, it’s a HGTV show that miraculously transforms houses in 30 minutes or less 🙂 We also love it because the stars are two sisters. We can’t help but compare their banter to our own. The concept of the show is fresh. The featured homes have been on the market for longer than necessary and the owners are becoming frustrated. In come the sisters. Their concept is to show the owners other houses that are in tip top shape. Once the owners see what their own houses could look like, the sisters crunch the numbers and do big bang renovations to get the house to sell for top dollar. We realize it’s tv but in the episodes we’ve watched the sellers end up making at least an additional 30% on the sale of their home. A house that wasn’t selling sells quickly and for a much larger profit.

A home can make money and it should. Experts often say, you need to live in your house, it really isn’t an investment. We see it differently. A home takes up a good portion of our assets. So when we are ready to sell it why wouldn’t we try to make top dollar.

If you were going on a job interview for a dream job, first you would do your research. You wouldn’t walk into a potentially life changing interview without doing your homework. Once that was done, you’d be sure to put your best foot forward. That means a new fresh suit, perhaps a new haircut, perfectly manicured nails. You get the gist. When a first impression makes a difference, you should be certain to do everything in your power to make it count.

We argue a home is no different. Why leave money on the table? Make your home look its best for sure! Do it for yourself…. but if it is time for you to move it only makes sense to put it’s best foot forward. No sense losing money! Watch the show and see!

New Years Day we played a little game. We went around the table and threw out predictions for the year. It was a fun exercise. Politics reared it’s ugly head as we talked about the Senate, the Democratic primary and the general election. We tried to lighten the mood so we also talked about break-ups and marriages. Would Harry and Megan survive the pressure and make it through the year? Would Brad and Jennifer get back together? Who would have babies? No one was certain of their guesses but we enjoyed throwing out our thoughts.

One topic was COMPLETELY off limits. There was no way we were going there!

Will grey remain?

It seems to be the question of the decade and no one seems to have the answer. The fabric companies are adding bold jewel tones to their repertoire and the trending websites are saying “ Color is making a comeback.”  Yet, in our daily conversations people still want the calming effect of a grey room.

We say, “it’s a fine line.” First and foremost, you need to be happy in your space. If grey is your favorite color, then go all in! The best thing about grey is it allows you to add splashes of any color you want. So if a year or so down the road you think, “ I’m over-greyed” just add in some interesting accessories. EASY.

What if grey isn’t your favorite color but you are trying to please the masses? We have been advising for the past few years to incorporate grey and tan. Keep both as your neutral base. That way  you’re not too far in when grey goes away. If color is your thing by all means be bold. Back to rule number 1, you need to be happy in your space!

Give us a call if your having difficulty navigating this grey landscape. We are here to help and we can share our Megxit and Bennifer predictions when we see you 🙂

I just found this post from a year ago. It seems it never got published. I just re-read it and I think it should be shared. So enjoy and stay positive!!

And as a side note, Halloween is over. That means Christmas is right around the corner. Take a look at your house. There’s still time to make those decorating updates before the relatives arrive!

It would be interesting to take a poll and find out just how many people are living the life they expected. Would anyone ace the test if the only question was,” What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?” I would probably get a “c”. You can plan all you want, and plan you must,  but life seems to have it’s own agenda.  Some twists and turns aren’t so bad. They may not be what you expected but maybe they turn out to be better than you hoped. Then there are some twists that no one saw coming and they make no sense at all.

Life is fragile. It’s up to us to choose how we live it. Easier said than done! Our resolutions have always revolved around leading a happier, fuller life. Some years are better than others. We can’t let the bad overshadow the good.

As a simple example, Mary had foot surgery just before Thanksgiving. There were a few days of wallowing and then she needed to get OUT! So we put on our matching outfits….(that was NOT planned) and figured out a way to get out and about. We thought we were going to get a lot of attention but honestly we were kind of ignored. We had a lot of laughs trying to maneuver around. We learned some valuable lessons. Number ONE, Try to stay out of a wheelchair! But we also learned that we can rely on each other when we need to and  we truly work better as a team.

Enjoy the day!

Big news day….not only has Facebook “identified an active political influence campaign using fake accounts” they have also apparently been busy with other–perhaps more important parts of their platform.

We can’t let Facebook down. Can we?

So please enjoy one of our favorite projects from this summer. Here’s the before. She hated these wood blinds and even hated them more after she painted her dining room a very shimmery shade of white.

She still needed privacy but she didn’t want just any old thing so we lined a beautiful embroidered sheer and made this fabulous shaped roman shade.

Still not enough for this glamorous house, so we added some bling on the rods.

We hunted for the perfect trim to add to the silk panels. The trend in trims is wide tapes with lots of flair. What do you think? We LOVE it.

Stay tuned for more posts from us. We rushed to get this posted, We can’t let Facebook down!

Merriam Webster definition:   “Networking: the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically : the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business. “

We recently helped Lisa Foster  put some finishing window treatment touches on her FABULOUS home in Park Ridge. We were blown away by her ability to accessorize. She has an unbelievable knack for finding the perfect things to fit in unique spaces. The items she finds, after going on a tireless hunt, all have a certain treasured feel.  She says she likes her things to tell a story….well we love the book 🙂 She has found unique pieces that are just the right size and feel for her space and she has found collections of things that come to life when she puts them together. So, with networking in mind, we are partnering up in a way….We know great work when we see it. So when you need that little finishing touch we’ve got the gal for you…..

Here is a little experiment we did with Mary’s shelves.  Lisa brought over a few things, found a few things hiding in the Mary’s house and rearranged the cabinet. It’s much better!

Here’s the before….kind of …..well, ho-hum…serves it’s purpose to house the goods.

Here’s the after…adds some color, some variety, some things that were already there, and some new….

It’s not easy finding the interesting things that look great together, are the right feel and  the right size.

Let us know if you want to meet Lisa. We can show you more of her work. You will be glad you did.

Updating a small bath doesn’t take much but makes all the difference in the world….The homeowners (some of our favorite clients) used to affectionately call this bath the “pink bath” mostly so they wouldn’t confuse it with the “green bath” We have fixed all that and now they just call it the beautiful bath!