Too Late for Design School? Nope!

In the year since I stopped writing my weekly column, since I stepped off the hamster wheel whose revolution went like this — come up with an idea, talk to an expert, find a high-rez image, write something ideally interesting, add helpful tips, then do it again, for twenty plus years — I haven’t just frittered away my time doing word puzzles and working on my yoga poses, you’ll be happy to know, though there’s been some of that.

Nope, over the past year, I went back to school and became a certified interior designer. I know! Most people get educated in a field then write about it. I wrote about a field then became educated.

So, in my backwards way, I did something I’ve always wanted to do. Ever since I was a teenager and traded out my blue butterfly bedspread and coordinating custom window coverings for a tapestry (courtesy Pier 1 Imports) bedspread and matching drapes I made myself (not a great design decision), the power of transforming a space through self-expression has fascinated me. (God bless my mom for putting up with this, even after, during this same hippie phase, I left cone incense burning on the laminate counter in my bathroom, where it left a permanent mark.)

Because earning a living was something my practical parents wanted me to eventually do, and because I thought studying design was a luxury for kids who had trust funds, I studied journalism. And yet, over the past forty years, in between writing articles about health, real estate, parenting and even crime, wherever I could, I finagled a way to write about home design.

Hence my home column, which actually was a bit like going to design school. Every week I talked to experts to harvest the cream of their hard-won experience for your benefit and mine. But even after writing 1,086 columns, I had gaps in my interior design knowledge wide as the Sargasso Sea.

“What do you want to go to design school now for?” my husband legitimately asked.

“Because I don’t know what I don’t know,” I said.

No one can argue with that.

Free of my weekly deadline, I had this expanse of gasp free time, white space I hadn’t had since grade school summers. I knew just what to do with it. I enrolled in a nine-month, mostly online, residential interior design program through my local university. I spent much of last year reading design books, doing homework, attending online classes, creating design boards, and taking tests. I learned about design principles, the history of furniture from prehistoric times, floor plans, color theory, fabrics and finishes, lighting in all its layers, accessories, accessible and sustainable design, and then incorporated all that into a final residential design project. As I’d hoped, the program acted like a quilt stitching together and organizing the patches of my disparate design knowledge.

In November, the university declared me an officially certified interior designer, but I wasn’t done. At the program director’s prompting, I decided to take a national certification exam.

When my lawyer husband again asked why, I explained: “Passing the university program is like passing law school. Passing the national exam is like passing the bar.” Besides, I could hear my dad saying what he always told my brother and me: “Finish the job.”

So, highlighter in hand, I stuck my nose in a thick study manual. I could hear the rusty gears in my 60-something brain turning in a way I hadn’t asked them to since I was in college, back when Cleopatra was dating Mark Antony. Last month, I sat for the proctored exam. The next day the letter came anointing me as a Designer Society of America Certified Professional Designer, putting an end to my imposter syndrome.

Last week I was in a home décor store browsing. A woman was considering a silk flower arrangement in a tall narrow vase to put in a rainbow-shaped niche over her mantel. Since I was standing there, she showed me a picture of the niche and asked my opinion. She probably expected some form of confirmation, but I told her the vase was the wrong shape, too vertical. She needed something lower and wider, preferably oval.

She looked surprised by my directness and asked, “Are you a designer?”

“Well,” I said, pausing a microsecond, “Yes. Yes I am.”

Though design is an infinite subject that I will never wholly master, here are some gems of knowledge I discovered this past year that have enriched my understanding of a world I love:

I discovered that …

·      … the difference between classic and classical is that classic means timeless, and classical means it harkens back to ancient Greece or Rome. Thus, classic solitaire engagement ring, and classical architecture.

·      … if you ever want to break up a party, just launch into a discussion of the difference between Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical furniture (the leading designs during the reigns of French kings Louis the XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, respectively).

·      … the arts and crafts movement, which started in the 1860s, was a reaction to the industrial revolution and mass production. It marked a return to hand-crafted furnishings.

·      … there are more electric symbols that could go onto a building plan than parts to a car.

·      … a Chippendale is not just a male dancer, but also a legendary style of chair designed by English furniture maker Thomas Chippendale.

·      … dupioni silk comes from the threads of cocoons that belong to twin moths.

·      … nothing is very important; that is, negative space, or the space between objects, is as important as the objects they separate.

·      … good home design is for everyone whether small or large, ambulatory or in a wheelchair, young or old, so every occupant can live in a home safely and comfortably.

·      … it’s never too late to learn.

CAPTION: A sum greater than its parts — Interior design school teaches you that while each design decision is important — from floor plan to finishes, fixtures, fabrics and flooring — even more important is how all the pieces work together. Photo: Ronstik/Dreamstime