Design Quotient

Los Angeles Interior Designer: Tips on Organizing Your Home

interiordesigner — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:16:47 +0000

Los Angeles Interior Designer: Tips on Organizing Your Home

Here are a few tips to help keep your home organized and orderly. Enjoy!

1. Labels. Whether it goes in a box (unless you are a mind-reader you will never know what’s inside), plastic storage bin or even on the shelves in you pantry, using a label-maker can help you help those around you keep things in their place. My theory is “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

2. Cedar Blocks. If you are storing anything made of wool or cashmere, do yourself a favor and drop in a cedar block. The moths will hate you, but your garments will love you.

3. Sachets. When you...

Los Angeles Interior Designer: Prepping for House Cleaning

interiordesigner — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:50:50 +0000

Los Angeles Interior Designer: Prepping for House Cleaning

Spring seems to have a personality this year. From my perch in Los Angeles, it feels sassy and bold, as if it's carrying a very “in-your-face” mentality. We hit 80 degrees before February ended and this first week of March has not been far behind. I know that my friends in other parts of the country are not enjoying the same experience, but it has set me thinking that some type of spring cleaning is lurking just around the corner. Much like when you seen the car in your rear view mirror flying toward your bumper at speeds that will only be stopped by your resting automobile and you...

Interior Designers in the OC: The Safe Home of the 21st Century

interiordesigner — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:04:57 +0000

Interior Designers in the OC: The Safe Home of the 21st Century

Because Americans spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors, it is crucial to make the home environment as safe as possible. Indoor pollutants have proliferated in recent years, often because modern construction techniques and furnishing manufacturers utilize hazardous materials or because consumers do not know enough about the products they buy to make informed choices. But safe nontoxic alternatives exist for nearly every real need around the home, and the search for them may help consumers distinguish between what they really do need, and what may be "luxuries" that could compromise their families' health. Even the furnishings of the typical American home can be harmful. Fabrics that are...

Los Angeles Interior Designer: Environmentally Safe Cleaning

interiordesigner — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:19:15 +0000

Los Angeles Interior Designer: Environmentally Safe Cleaning

Here’s a fresh list of environmentally friendly cleaning products that get the job done while impacting our environment as little as possible. All Purpose Cleaner. Solay Simple (www.solaywellness.com) is made completely from ingredients found in coconut trees and cornfields. Nothing artificial at all. Laundry Detergent. Shaklee (www.shaklee.com) This remarkable product uses enzymes, not phosphates or harsh solvents, to get garments clean, and the formula is so concentrated that it replaces three bottles of lesser products. Glass Cleaner. Biokleen (www.biokleenhome.com) The strong arm of vinegar replaces scary ammonia in this fast working product. Furniture Polish. Timothy Corrigan Home (www.timothy-corrigan.com) Using...

Interior Designers Beverly Hills: Cleaning Tips

interiordesigner — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:55:58 +0000

Interior Designers Beverly Hills: Cleaning Tips

Systems fascinate me. Institutional systems, political systems, mechanical systems each bring to mind cogs and wheels, cause and effect, power and movement, and ultimately results. Systems offer basic framework to a group or cause which allows for common objectives to be reached. If we are interested in systems that support our desire for a clean home here are 4 suggestions to move that objective along:

1. Consistency. Set aside the same time each week for specific cleaning tasks. Systematizing this helps set up internal support for this external effort. Soon it becomes a habit.

2. Ritual. Important to establishing a habit is the repetition associated with the task itself. ...

Top Interior Designer’s Tips for Keeping it Clean

interiordesigner — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:46:31 +0000

Top Interior Designer’s Tips for Keeping it Clean

I ran into someone tonight who I have not seen in over two years. I felt a hand on my shoulder at a business function and turned around to see a familiar face. There was something radiant about her face; something glowing. As we spoke she told me of the adventure the past two years have delivered to her life. Interesting to me was her story of a visit to a meditation retreat in India and how it changed her life. Planned as a one month visit her time there stretched to over 10 months. She spoke of her clarity, her knowledge that this was the right...

Interior Designers Beverly Hills: Cleaning Tips

interiordesigner — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:41:27 +0000

Interior Designers Beverly Hills: Cleaning Tips

If you are living anywhere near a radio, television, computer or newspaper these days you may find yourself inundated with information. Whether it is political, economical, and social or education-based, there is information flying past us at an ever-increasing rate. Some days I feel buried by it almost as if I were drowning. When this happens I try to revolt. I cancel a subscription or turn something off, usually with a big huff as if this will resolve my overwhelmed feelings. Like a child tossing a tantrum I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Then the sun comes up and I log-on or tune-in or pick-up, and suddenly, I’m where I...

Good Advice from one of the Top Interior Design Firms Los Angeles

interiordesigner — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:33:22 +0000

Good Advice from one of the Top Interior Design Firms Los Angeles

Two-way streets are a wonder. From a vantage point above street level, observing the choreography that unfolds as multiple lanes of motorized masses sail past each other. It is amazing; sometimes heart stopping, but always a dance of human and technological daring. Somewhere in this waltz of wonder is a lesson having to do with the yin and yang of life. It is true that what goes up must come down. It is also true that energy expended must be restored in anticipation of the need for future expansion. So when we think about the effort and energy expended when we entertain we must, from...

Interior Designer Rooms: Good for Your Health

interiordesigner — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:34:38 +0000

Interior Designer Rooms: Good for Your Health

Have you ever been gripped by the desire to climb to the top of the nearest tallest building and scream at the top of your lungs “I TOLD YOU SO”! If your answer is yes, then you will understand my emotions on January 1, 2008 when I held in my hands the New York Times and read the words “Excessive clutter and disorganization are often symptoms of a bigger health problem.” In an article titled A Clutter To Deep for Bins and Shelves, Tara Parker-Pope explores the realities related to the mess (extreme) which an estimated 1.5 million or more Americans live in daily. Please understand that Ms. Parker-Pope and...

A Top Los Angeles Interior Designer’s Favorite Cleaning Tips

interiordesigner — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:52:29 +0000

A Top Los Angeles Interior Designer’s Favorite Cleaning Tips

There is no turning back. Before you know it the New Year will spring fully formed from champagne corks left scattered on the island in your kitchen. Once again, we will be slaves to January waiting listlessly for the holiday joys of 2008 to come calling. But before it’s all said and done, I recommend you observe a few final cleaning rituals for 2007. This time, rather than blasting through the closets and cupboards with organizational charts ablaze or scrubbing the stone and tile off the walls with environmentally conscious cleaning products, we should clean out our minds and pamper our bodies. Is there a more perfect way...