Childhood Passion Drives Successful Interior Design Career (Ep #5)

00:04

Tom: Hello, pros, hello builders and designers and decorators and hello architects and painters and plumbers and how are you doing remodelers and every building professional in between. Because this is the profile's podcast, we are presented by LL Flooring, and we are very happy to have you with us today. Hi, I'm Tom Kraeutler, and after spending more than two decades in the building, remodeling and home inspection trades. I hung up my tool belt and I picked up the microphone to talk about the building and remodeling industry that I love.

As a construction and remodeling pro, we rarely have the chance to share our knowledge of the industry and to talk about what works and what doesn't, and how we can improve our companies to the benefit of ourselves, our employees and our customers. And this podcast seeks to accomplish exactly that, bringing together successful professionals to share their wisdom so that we can all learn from each other, and we welcome your participation. If you have a comment question, maybe a topic you'd like us to cover, please reach out. Let us know. You can email us at Profiles@LLFlooring.com. That's Profiles@LLFlooring.com and you can also follow our episodes on the LL Flooring Pro portal at LLFlooring.com/Pro. And now let's get to work! My guest today is Patrice Davis, who says she started designing homes when she was just six years old, but like many childhood dreams, life took her in another direction, leading to a very successful career in the oil and gas industry. But when the pandemic struck, she saw an opportunity to reconnect with her roots and reinvigorate her passion by focusing full time on design, where she works with builders, architects and directly with clients to help them find what she calls their happy place. And Patrice, we are very happy to have you on the show. Welcome to the profile's podcast. So how you doing today?

Meet Patrice Davis

01:56

Patrice: I am good. Thank you so very much for having me.

01:59

Tom: So, I saw your bio. It says you've been designing rooms since you were like six years old. So, you've been at this for a while, huh?

02:06

Patrice: Yes, sir. I've literally with any type of materials that I could get my hands on, I would cut and just hand sew, I learned how to use a sewing machine, probably before I learned how to ride a bike. I've just been a very creative space, and I finally fell in love with the interior designs of a room.

02:23

Tom: And that's what you're doing now. Interior designer and remodeling services for both commercial and residential properties. Was that like your direct career path or did you work in other industries kind of on the way to doing this full time?

Pandemic Creates Opportunity for Big Career Shift to Design Entrepreneur

02:36

Patrice: Actually, my father said that you're not going to make money doing interior design or decorating. So, I went to school for MIS: management information systems and business. I did the corporate career, worked in oil and gas, went up the ranks. I was up to a director’s level of a large oil and gas company, but my heart has always been in design. So, since I can remember, I'm almost on the side as a hobby initially, I was working and doing interior designs for my friends or any engineers. We were swapping and trading services. They would do me as bill drawings. I would design their homes and then it just became a business of sorts. So, I eventually decided, "Hey, I'm really good at this. I can do this full time." But I had children. They were younger and so I did interior design on the side while I built it up enough. So, when the COVID layoff situation happened in oil and gas, that was my opportunity to dive into this full time.

03:34

Tom: So, the pandemic actually provided an opportunity for you to of course, you were working from home, and you could do your design work from home. So, this was the transformation from a side gig into a full-time job.

03:46

Patrice: Yes. Well, actually, I did it part time for four years now, since about 2008. I've been doing it part time. But when I was laid off after the COVID incident, I was able to pursue this full time and I've just been having steady work like more than I could have ever imagined. I had a fear at first of letting my comfort of knowing that you had a more established paycheck coming in and just the fear. And then that opportunity when I when I was forced to swim, I guess you could say put in the ocean and I have to swim. I was able to, you know, so far, I've been achieving the results that I need to achieve. So, I don't have to go back into corporate. If my company continues and the route that it's going, I should never have to go back to corporate.

Work From Home Life Offers Opportunities Personal and Professional

04:29

Tom: You know, that's an important transformation to talk about because I think a lot of folks don't realize that it's funny, you know what, my friends that know that I host the national radio show and do this podcast that you know, they think it's all a piece of cake. "Hey, you're hang it from home. It's easy." You know, it's tough being self-employed. It takes a lot of discipline and it's not an easy transformation, as you say, because you're used to that steady paycheck. The benefits the structure does give you some comfort and some confidence in the future and your economic security. But then when you step into the big, wide world of self-employment, it's a little scary at first. But I think as it sounds to me like you've sort of come to realize after a while you figure out that working for yourself is sort of the toughest boss, but also the best boss you can possibly have.

05:17

Patrice: You know, you hit the nail on the head. There were so many events that I missed work and incorporate so many birthdays, so many, you know, memories that I can't remake with my children. And while working from home is extremely hard work, it's much more difficult than anything I've ever accomplished it's also fulfilling because I'm able to make the events or work my schedule around my family commitments. But it is very rewarding because you know that 100 percent of what you would you put out there is what you're going to get back. So, I'm constantly challenging myself to give really good work, to create really good designs. And I believe that my philosophy or Christian background is you plant a seed and then you get a harvest, but you can't expect something without planting some good seed and fertilizing it. So, I've been working really hard, doing really dramatic and amazing designs with clients that are willing to stretch the imagination. And now I'm starting to reap that benefit where before I finish one project already have two or three lined up. So, it's been a really rewarding time for me as well a growth period as well to.

06:19

Tom: You know timing over the last eighteen months or so has been also a while tragic for the world, it's been helpful for those of us that are in the interior business, the spaces business, the remodeling business, the building business because never before, at least in recent memory, maybe since the end of World War Two, have so many Americans focused on upgrading their homes and upgrading these spaces. And of course, your work fits well within that. Were you hearing that sort of thing as you started to move into doing more and more design and remodeling?

06:49

Patrice: It's actually true what you just said. Yes, I've been hearing that, but it's for multiple reasons. First, the freeze that happened here in the southern part of Texas really impacted a lot of homeowners. But when you have to work from home and you have work life balance, you have children and, husbands and wives with dual careers and multiple generations living in a home. You have to give them the space to do that. And with everything going on in the mental health arena as well, the home can be a place of refuge. Your home can either give you delight, or it may not depend on the situation. And so, what I try to do is give people that yin or give them that, that peace and give them wow factors. But at the same time, it's practical, it's functional, it fits the lifestyles and the needs of each individual family that is working from home. So, I've seen it where people realized, "Hey, I spent all my time like I used to 60 80 hours a week away from home in my house was neglected, myself was neglected, I was neglected. Everything was taking care of me or the spiritual wholeness of a person." And when I can bring them a design that can give them peace or make them happy or take them to a place of refuge, that's been really big for me. I lean more on that part where I have like a holistic creation. I try to give them their past, present, future together in the design where they can really, really find their happy place.

Design is Like a Sunday Sermon

08:16

Tom: You say that you see interior design as kind of like a praise and worship for Sunday sermon dwelling on your religious background. How do you bring that into the design that you're working with in the homeowners that you're working with?

08:28

Patrice: Well, you know, I start off, depending on the spaces. Lately, I've been able to renovate pretty much the whole house. So, it's kind of like a Sunday sermon when you come into a foyer, or maybe it's the kitchen or you enter into a space, you want it to dial up into a place where you can receive what you need for the day. So if you need some, some peace or refuge or happiness or joy, whatever it is, the homeowner needs to seek after they work so hard, I kind of bring the volume up so the design will go a little bit more subtle and then it gets a little bit louder and louder, and then it kind of peaks and then it kind of goes back down to give you where it sets the tone. So, when you walk into the front door, the space, it cooperates, or I guess it's attractive where it's different pieces or different spaces, different materials, but they all flow. So, for instance, if you had a home that you wanted a beach theme, I'm not going to put sand in your home or am I going to put picture frames on the beach everywhere? But maybe I'll pick a floor that has a little bit of sand tones into it. I'll pick wood that are warmer or cooler, depending on and the different colors in the whites and the shades of white. And so, it builds up into that tone. And that's basically how I use the praise and worship metaphor that it builds into the drama of whatever it is. The homeowner says they want all the drama to be a space.

Designing for Six Sides of the Room

09:53

Tom: I like that you. You also say that you specialize in using all six sides of a room. I think a lot of folks don't see it that way. You know, they forget about the floors and the ceilings, those really important elements of the design. It's not just all about the walls in the windows.

10:08

Patrice: Absolutely. I don't want to put so much into a home where the homeowner spends so much money where they won't get their appraisal value back. But I have increased the value of my home, so I focus on whatever they told me I have as my budget, I work on six elements. If they allow me to do a floor and if they don't have one or if it needs to be redone, of course I do, the flooring, I do the walls were I'll at some type of architectural element, maybe color, sometimes maybe wallpaper, a dramatic type of molding and definitely the ceiling, the ceiling I really enjoy, like in Europe, how the ceilings were so artistically and intentionally decorated. And I bring that height up and it makes the room larger or taller. And so, I focus on bringing that height and I add a lot of designs to the ceiling.

Builder Grade to Home Made: New Home Design Drives Better Appraised Value

10:58

Tom: So, you've been in business really since 2008 and initially working with custom builders, now builders, when they construct homes, especially track builders, they start with a really blank slate. And I saw an interesting, cute little video on your Facebook page that was a "Builder Grade to Home Made". I thought that was a great title because I know exactly what you mean, having worked in the new construction industry myself, that when you go into these homes that are just sort of basic track homes that builders construct, there's a lot to work with there. There are a lot of surfaces and a lot of plainness to be spruced up. They really do start with the basics. Do you enjoy those transformations?

11:38

Patrice: Oh, absolutely. Those are my favorite. It's a challenge because, you know, the budget is a factor when you deal with a track home, they don't have $100,000 to do architectural design. And so, what I do is if the builder will allow without a huge redraw fee, I'll add features and a lot of the builders that track builders have added my features as options to their homes. So, if I go in and I noticed that their ceiling height is set at 10 feet, and they have a drop in the in the in the attic. If the builder will allow them to go up to 12 feet, then we try to get like if we have upgrades in our money instead of people using it on things that are not going to add value to the appraisal of the home. I try to put that money in places that will add value and square footage in usage into a home and or make it feel larger, so it appraises better. And so, I'll work with the builders to increase the height of the ceilings or the pitches, add coffer ceilings if I can. I do as much as I can to take advantage of the vertical space, since it's already there without having to build out when I deal with track builders, what I'm able to do with custom builders, I work with the architect, and we draw or create different elements of the home as we go through. And again, I really focus a lot on the ceiling. So, if I'm able to transform a space, maybe we can do a like a hidden room or a vaulted two-story closet, something dramatic. And so, I really enjoy working with if it's a plane home, like you said, where I can go from a builder grade to a design home, I'll do that. Or if the budget will limit me to just doing wallpaper and changing the feel and the texture and the depth of a room, I do that as well.

13:19

Tom: Sounds to me like you are covering a lot of ground in terms of the spaces that you're working on. I know that as a small businessperson, many times we are following our next job lead in sort of defining us. But are there particular areas of the home that you prefer to work on more than others, particular transformations that you enjoy doing more than others?

13:39

Patrice: I actually was just recently told by another designer that that she sees me is like a kitchen and bath specialist. If I can redo the kitchen because that's the heart of the home where people spend so much of their time in their kitchen and their family room, their dining rooms. I take a lot of dining rooms that are only used three times a year, and I turn them into a flex space or multipurpose space where it's still a dining room. But it has more than that, where it becomes like the main sitting area of a house. I enjoy designing the spaces where you're going to have social interaction. So anywhere that social, I really enjoy that. And then again, for the homeowner to have peace and to have a place of refuge. I love the master bathrooms or the primary bathrooms, the primary bedroom. I designed that to because I want them to be at peace, get their eight hours of rest they need during the day so they could wake up fully recharged and do whatever they need to do to accomplish their goals.

Designing with No Rules

14:34

Tom: Well, your designs are gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful work, Patrice. I love this quote from Thomas Edison on your website, "Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something." I guess you see things the same in design. No rules, does that free you up to head in in new directions?

14:51

Patrice: Absolutely. There are no rules. And I guess in design, the rule is you just have to design within the budget. That's my rule. Whatever you can do within the budget, and I think that stretches me. Some of my projects where I did my best design work had lower budgets because I had to be really, really creative with the space in order to give the drama that I was looking for. But yeah, there are no rules when it comes to design. I love mixing materials. As you could tell, I put flooring on the ceiling up a wallpaper on the ceiling. I'll use starch. I don't know if you remember like an old school stay-flow starch. I'll use starch in material for my renters that are tenants are living in a property and you can't use a permanent paste. We use starch and fabric for their designs, and it looks so amazing. And so, I don't think there's any rules except just to create the space that you want as much as you can. That's what I try to give my clients.

15:43

Tom: There's been a lot of challenges over the past year as we've gone through the pandemic with supply and demand. Have you found it difficult to engage remodeling help when you need it? I know you work with some outside contractors on the supply side. Have you had to change your approach to allow more time to order products that you needed that were critical to completion of design that you were working on? How did you adjust to that?

16:08

Patrice: Yes, sir. That is a good point. The cost of material and wood or gunite for pools has just quadrupled. I don't know what it is in your parts of the United States, but in Texas it's almost four times the amount that it was a year ago. And so, I do have to repurpose a lot, I've been going, but again, it gives me a unique opportunity. But to answer your question, yes, there has been a challenge in the supply chain where the pricing of materials has risen. The pricing of services has risen because it's its a seller's market right now. So, the seller is dictating the price right now and the buyers are having to pay for it. And so, I have lost some contractors that I would normally work with because they lost their subcontractors to other folks. But overall, my lead time has been impacted by about a four-week cycle, so a job that would take me six weeks could possibly take eight to 10 weeks to complete because of the supply chain, the lapse in wood, it's allowed me to find better thrift stores. I've been sourcing materials from all over a four-hour radius from my home, and it's just given me an opportunity to see the cities and the different materials. And I've been making a lot of my elements now for the kitchen, the pantries from repurposed and upcycling materials versus having a custom-built pantry like I would have done in the past using different types of wood. Now I'm starting off with the shell of an existing piece of furniture, basically. And then I embellish it and I add on to it and that's how I've been able to make up my timeline. But at the same time, it gives like a natural patina, or it feels like it's supposed to be there as it looks, architectural looks gorgeous. And so, my closet like, "Wow, this is so beautiful." And they never would have known that. I was like, "Oh, I have to be creative in this to create this space." They think it was always the plan to use that, but it was actually an opportunity.

18:02

Tom: Now a lot of folks that are creative have difficulty on the analytical side. I always say that "Guys that are in business swinging hammers have trouble running businesses, swinging hammers." You know, just because you can do the job doesn't necessarily mean you can be in business doing the job. It's a whole different skill set. Is that something that came naturally to you? I mean, you had a business and information systems background. You worked in oil and gas that make it easier for you to sort of pay attention to the dollar signs when it comes to setting yourself up for success in this business.

Corporate Project Management Skills Immensely Helpful to Bottom Line

18:33

Patrice: Absolutely. And it is a different skill set. Totally. I think my career in oil and gas being that I did contract full time procurement and subcontracts and management terms and conditions. Watching the expenses to make sure the margins were high for the projects. I worked in the world of project management since I graduated in 2001, and so I had nothing but 20 years almost drilling me of working to bottom line out the cost. What is the cost? Was the real fixed cost with the variable costs. And so that is what allowed me to be successful. Had I not had that, I don't think I would be where I am today, where I'm able to do this after the pandemic, after losing that type of income from oil and gas, to have that replaced by using creative ways without my business background. It is a different it is totally different skill and discipline.

19:24

Tom: We're talking to Patrice Davis, a very successful designer with Morié Design out of the Houston, Texas, area. Patrice, so many folks over the last decade have started to pay close attention to their outdoor spaces. I know that you've done some work with outdoor pool designers and pool contractors and architects in the Houston area. But whether you have a pool or not., what advice do you have for folks that want to sort of take that interior feeling and bring it outside?

Taking the Inside Out

19:51

Patrice: I would definitely say that one thing that you can do is add on to the back of your porch. So, when you first walk out of your door, you can have that indoor outdoor feeling. And a lot of people right now are buying homes that have sliders or doors that their patio can go inside and out. So, if you have the option, if you have money where the builder has given you money to spend like an upgrade, I will spend that on doing an indoor outdoor like sliding area or a cover patio in your backyard, because that's going to increase the value of your home. Any time you can add more roofing and square footage, they capture that. So, I like to do indoor outdoor living depending on where we work from. I start on the patio. You can always use different materials like flagstones. You can use sand or crushed granite rock and make more patio. Add a living room couch or I say living room, but I create an outdoor living room using indoor outdoor material or material that is made for the outdoors. You can add a dining room area, and there are so many big-box stores now that have very good quality materials like umbrellas that you could use. If you don't have a covered patio, you can do pergola lights. There are so many different ways to transfer your space. But I do believe it's really healthy and good to have an outdoor living area, and you can again get your vitamin D from the sun using sunscreen, of course. But vitamin D is good, and just being outdoors, I think, is good.

Cigar Lounge for Country Singer Creates a Popular Space

21:19

Tom: Now I know every. Project that you do is your favorite project. It's kind of like trying to ask you to name your favorite kid. But I see that you did some work for Curtis Bradley, the country singer, and you created a cigar lounge design that sounds a little bit like a man cave, was it?

21:34

Patrice: Yes, it was so much fun. Well, I was thinking, you know, a mixed Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington is what I told him, and he is a country singer, and he loves Blue, of course, but he loves rustic areas. And so, his dining room, I really went drama with his dining room. They allowed me to pick this wild wood flooring that I was able to put on their ceiling and multiple colors very rustic. We created a handmade barn door and we made sure we had layers and layers of different types of stain to give it a really authentic poutine at age look like it came from a barn or something. I wanted it to feel authentic. Not that it was brand new. And he allowed me to have a living edge table, all while it's still looked very masculine, very manly or like a man cave, but it was a dining room. And now he tells me, like when everyone comes to his house, the first place they go is that room. Like, they just sit there. They're just like, "Wow, this is so pretty" or "This is so comfortable." And most of you know, he wanted it to be in his family room, but he told me the dining room is where 70 percent of the time the social life is happening in there. And I also created him like a he wanted like a Starbucks lounge type area in his breakfast room, in his kitchen. So instead of a regular table, it's a couch set up and it's very comfortable. You feel like you're in a lounge. They spend a lot of time interacting in their breakfast room or at the bar. And in that front dining room.

Advice for Young Designers

23:02

Tom: So, if you're a young designer and are listening to this podcast and thinking, "Gee, I'd like to be able to do this kind of work", what advice would you have for folks that are in those positions right now to sort of prepare and brace themselves and be ready for the challenges of the future?

23:20

Patrice: I would say some advice that I would tell them is to plan it out, meaning that the part of design is great to do. It is really good to write out a plan. And what I mean by that is design. Draw it out. On paper, I don't care if it's a scratch piece of paper. Find a way to create your design on paper or put your ideas out on a piece of paper. And in that way, you can say, what do you really need to accomplish in that design? What are you trying to do, and then pick your materials from there? I noticed, like if I try to start off with the material, it limits my design. But if I start off with just an imagination, a blank slate. I write everything down and then I can focus in depending on the budget on materials I'm going to use in the design. So, I would say the creative process is very important, the brainstorming. It's a blank slate and the only limit that we have is ourselves. So, I would use all of our imagination. But because of cost, and that's a real factor for designer, it's difficult to start off today and then tomorrow to earn a six-figure income. So, I would say draw it out, plan it out on paper and then pull from there what elements that you'll pick in your design.

24:30

Tom: We're talking to Patrice Davis with Morié Designs. Patrice, I don't think I've ever interviewed a designer that focused on tenants, on renters. I think folks that are in rental situations feel like there's very little they can do to change their space outside of a trip to the local IKEA, I guess. But I mean, you were actually doing design work with a lot of folks that don't own the properties that they're living in. Is that a challenge?

Design for Renters: Affordable Options to Keep Landlords Happy

24:55

Patrice: Oh, I have so much fun with those people because that was me. When I was in college with two kids, I had nothing but imagination, a lot of dreams and hope, but I wanted a very good creative space to keep my momentum going. And so, Vinyl stick tile right now is a thing where you can have tile that sticks. You can get wallpaper that sticks if you have material, and you can test on your walls. But normally I use a heavy, heavy starch, a liquid starch. And I will literally use a material as wallpaper on a tenant's wall so we could take it off without it tearing up the wall without it, you know, peeling off the sheet rock. I also use, like I said, peel and stick. I love the new vinyl wallpapers that are available. You can create all kind of amazing backdrops to a space using that material. And it doesn't damage the wall. Many times, I go to dollar stores, and I'll even use boards from the dollar store as my background or my backdrop, I guess you could say in a kitchen. So, I'll get foam board basically, and I cut the foam board and I put it against the existing backsplash in a renter's kitchen. And then on top of that, I put in another layer of like a pill and stick tile or wallpaper. So now their kitchen looks like a $20,000 upgrade, where I've given them a new backsplash in the kitchen. And then it's all user friendly, you could just tear it out or take it off when you move out of your space, when your leases up or you have to relocate. There's no harm to the existing structure. So again, the imagination, the creativity is so much fun when you have those type of limiting circumstances, but you don't have to limit your design.

Understanding the Value of a Designer

26:38

Tom: When you're speaking with homeowners about design services, do you think they have a hard time envisioning in some cases what a designer does? I think too many think it's something that anybody can do, and they devalue what they don't understand. Do you find those folks challenging or you just say to yourself, those are not your people?

26:57

Patrice: Well, you know, those are my people, too. "You have to love everybody" God says. But you know, they don't know the difference between a designer and a decorator. There's a significant difference between a designer and a decorator, and they think a designer is a decorator. When I initially have a conversation with them, they do not understand the value that a designer has. But normally I would say 80 percent of the time after I finish my consultation. Those clients understand the value and they may not understand 100 percent in the beginning of the process. They're just like, OK, we put faith in you, we put trust in you, you're just going to do it. But at the end of the transformation there, like, "There is no way I could have done this by myself with that budget, there’s no way I would have thought of this" and we stretched them. And then it's kind of like what Apple did before you even know you needed an iPhone. They told you needed it. And then now we can't live without one. And so that's what I like to do to design, like stretch them like, you don't need more space, you need more vertical space for instance. If you need more space, you have it. Let's go up and I stretch them that way and they appreciate it. But initially they don't. They have to be educated on what we do or what the service that I could provide. And then after I help them with that, they normally come around. The other side to that is when they tried to do it themselves or they don't hire a professional. They have a lot of reworks that's required. Maybe they did something out of code, or they did something that doesn't work. And then I come in and now I have to repair with someone else did cutting corners or because they didn't know. And so, I've seen that they eventually they do find value in as most of the time.

28:31

Tom: Well, it sounds like you do everything possible to bring out the best in your clients and the spaces that you work with. Patrice Davis from Morié Designs. Thank you so much for being a part of the Profile's podcast. If you'd like to get in touch with Patrice, you can head on over to her website, which is at moriedesigns.com.

28:50

It’s M-O-R-I-E-D-E-S-I-G-N.com Patrice, thank you so much and continued, good luck with all the amazing design work that you're doing across the Euston area. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your show. Thank you so much.