Interior Design

Shoppers may buy used model furniture from interior design firms that furnish model homes at annual spring cleaning sales, held by many to get rid of outdated, faded or scratched pieces.Several interior designers suggested that buying used model furniture might not be as big a bargain as it seems because the furniture is purchased by designers more for appearance than durability."Wooden pieces are glued together, not screwed together," said Georganne Derick, president of Merchandising East in Laurel.

It is a match made in heaven, or at least in that part of heaven where the hip and young creatives types hang out. For its 2012 DreamHome, the Washington Design Center asked a handful of young interior designers to take inspiration for residential spaces from works of craft. Not just from any crafters, but a group of artists whose works are set to be showcased this summer in a Smithsonian exhibition, "40 Under 40: Craft Futures. " What the room decors and the craft creations have in common is that their authors all began their careers after 9/11, and they brought with them a new, more earnest sensibility.

Marjorie F. Katzen, a Baltimore interior designer and longtime Pikesville resident, died of a heart attack caused by an infection Nov. 25 at Sinai Hospital. She was 53. Ms. Katzen was born in Baltimore and raised in Northwest Baltimore and Pikesville. She was a 1973 graduate of Pikesville High School and earned a bachelor's degree in interior design from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1977. Ms. Katzen began her career working as an interior designer at Grand Rapids Furniture.

As Salvatore Romano, the closeted art director at the turbulent Sterling Cooper ad agency in the TV series "Mad Men," Bryan Batt struck out — his character, cruelly compromised by a client, was fired partway through the third season of the much-admired cable show in 2009. But as an interior designer and author, Batt has enjoyed steady success, and that brings him this week to Baltimore, hometown of the fictional Sal. Batt will be the featured speaker at a reception Tuesday for the 36th annual American Craft Council Show that opens the next day. He'll talk about his recent book, "Big, Easy Style: Creating Rooms You Love to Live In. " "I haven't been to Baltimore in ages," Batt said, "and I have never been to the Craft Council Show, so I'm really looking forward to this.

This fall, as leaves begin to change their hues, another metamorphosis will be happening in Harford County.On the crest of a hill in the heart of Bel Air, the Homestead, a stately three-story house of granite and slate that has been home to some of the county's most prominent families, is being transformed by a volunteer team of professional interior designers.The designers are preparing the Homestead to be the 1994 Decorator Show House in a home tour to benefit the Harford County chapter of the AMC Cancer Research Center.

Carol Ann Denick, an interior designer and longtime Reisterstown resident, died of cancer Monday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. She was 47. She was born in Baltimore and raised in Lutherville. She was a 1975 graduate of St. Timothy's School and earned a bachelor's degree in interior design from Ohio University in 1979. After spending a year in Israel volunteering and studying, she returned to Baltimore in the early 1980s and established Paper Hang Up, a wallpaper and interior design store.

Lately, for Maryl Harshey good things have been coming in bunches.Not only is her interior design studio, Maryl Interiors in Westminster, the first in Carroll County to become licensed under a new state law, but the owner has been inducted as a professional into the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID)."I've been waiting for this for so long," Ms. Harshey said.For several years, ASID pushed Maryland's legislators to license designers and hold them to a professional standard, as is done with hair stylists, Ms. Harshey said.

Donald Craig Arenth, 57, a highly regarded interior designer who created spaces as diverse as the Center Club when it was at 1 Charles Center, the Kuwaiti Sheraton Hotel and the Foreign Affairs Building of Brunei, in Southeast Asia, died yesterday after a long illness.Mr. Arenth, of Bolton Hill, died at the Kingsville home of a friend, Frederick C. Petrich, a voice teacher with whom he had studied. He had been a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital from Oct. 22 until Monday.A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Feb. 10 at Memorial Episcopal Church, Bolton Hill.

There's an interior design firm that has developed a near-infallibleresearch technique for finding out what people really like.Admittedly, the procedure is an ancient one, a low-tech way of doing business generally overlooked by most people in this computer-driven information age of ours, but it can be surprisingly effective.The technique, known as talking to people, is one that the proprietors of the Annapolis-based Bishopsgate R & R, Richard Garis and RicAltemus, an interior design and antique retail firm, say works very well for them.

Question: If the '70s was the decade of minimalism in interior design and the '80s the decade of decorating indulgence, how )) are the '90s shaping up?Answer: In a word, eclectic.Interior design in the '90s means more mix and less match."There's a trend away from ensembles and matched sets," says Bill McGee, an interior designer with Alexander Baer Associates in Baltimore. "Eclecticism is a popular aspect of all decorating -- architectural, fabrics, furnishings, floor coverings, the whole thing."

Martyn Lawrence-Bullard left his home in England for Los Angeles 20 years ago, determined to be a movie star. The acting thing didn't exactly work out. But in one of those delightful turnabouts in life, he is now the interior designer to the stars. Ed Norton, the Osbournes, Cher and Kid Rock top an eclectic list of clients. Lawrence-Bullard has made the Architectural Digest and Elle Decor lists of top designers. He is a principal on Bravo TV's "Million Dollar Decorators. " He has a new book, "Live, Love & Decorate," with a foreword by client Elton John.

Well, it's not exactly Pottery Barn or Ethan Allen, but I guess aircraft interior design is a whole different ball of Minwax. Southwest Airlines today announced it is redesigning the interior of its fleet to "enhance customer comfort, improve fleet efficiency, and give back to the environment. " The whole comfort part is difficult to fathom since the new interior will actually allow for additional seats - capacity on the airline's 737-700s will increase from 137 seats to 143 seats.

We all have that one room at home that we close the door on when friends come to visit. Whatever space that is, you're probably right to keep it hidden. But we also have that one room that we shower with special attention and think of as the centerpiece of our own home and garden show. It could be because we spent days agonizing over the perfect wall color or maybe the furniture holds special meaning or we saved up enough money to really splurge on the accessories. We all have a favorite space.

When two people share a work space, one thing's for sure: You get to know each other. That's how interior designers Ann McDaniels and Jane O'Donoghue met, and that's why they opened Urban Threads, offering ready-made designer curtains and bedding, and their complementary accessories. “We knew there was a void in the marketplace in this product we'll be carrying. There's not much out there,” says O'Donoghue, who also owns JOD Interior Design. She shares a workroom in a nearby building with McDaniels' firm, Christen-Daniels Interiors.

Tamara Jensen had a dilemma. When she and her husband, Mike, and two daughters, Kate and Veronica, moved to Ellicott City three years ago, they slowly began to make over their 24-year-old home in Valley Mede. But when it came to the formal living room, Jensen got stuck. She had a big green wall and nothing to put on it. In fact the whole space intimidated her. She procrastinated so much that her husband went to a local big-box store and hung two “ugly” pictures on the wall as motivation.

Anne Arundel Community College student Susan Wasilewski crafted a design for a chair that a New York furniture company turned into a finished product. Someday, Wasilewski hopes to design more pieces for an entire set of furniture that might show up in showrooms worldwide. Wasilewski, a resident of St. Michaels, saw the design claim the top prize this year at the Made: In America Washington, D.C., Furniture Design Competition. Her concept was called the PHI chair, named for an architectural-geometric term denoting balance.

Daniele J. Fleischer, owner of a Harford County interior design firm, died Monday of a stroke at her Bel Air home. She was 66. Daniele Jeanne Lemarie was born in St. Maur, France, and raised in Paris. She studied art and design in France. In 1958, she married Pete Thrasher. The marriage ended in divorce. She came to Baltimore in 1963, returned to France for several years, then returned to the city in 1966. She was a designer for Shaivitz Furniture from 1975 to 1985 and then was design director for DGI, a design firm, for a year.

J.H.L. Chambers II, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the H. Chambers Co., one of Maryland's largest interior design companies, died Wednesday at his home in the Bahamas after a three-year battle with cancer.Affectionately referred to by friends as the last "great English gentleman," the 66-year-old Baltimore native was a man of impeccable appearance and manners and a member of the national Lacrosse Hall of Fame."He was the consummate gentleman," said H. Mebane Turner, president of the University of Baltimore, who met Mr. Chambers while playing squash about 25 years ago."

A waterfront lot is as hard to come by in downtown Annapolis as a parking space during tourist season. But patience can pay off. Interior designer Gay Henriksen has plenty of patience. For a decade, she and her husband and two youngest daughters lived in the Murray Hill section of downtown, right behind a decaying house that sat on three lots, cheek by jowl to Spa Creek. Henriksen, owner of GH Interiors, kept an eye on the property, envisioning the opportunity for a design project of a lifetime.

Kimberly Majerowicz is an artist, by temperament and by talent, but her canvases are the walls and ceilings of the rooms she is asked by her clients to fill with furniture and fabric. The interior designer and owner of K'Bella Studios will arrive with the requisite swatches, color chips, furnishing suggestions and window treatments, but then she will pull some magic out of her bag. She can turn ceilings into leather or giraffe hide. Backsplashes into tile mosaics. Cabinet doors into bronze.