This week has been a week of kickin' ass & getting shizz done. Take no prisoners.

I've arrived home each day in a sort of dazed haze unable to say my name let alone spell it correctly. I was unable to put a blogpost together yesterday, opting to curl up in a fetal position after arriving home in time for the wee boy to be put to bed. I think I mumbled something about putting Sons of Anarchy on to the hubs, poured myself a glass of wine before giving in and going to bed.

My Thursday consisted of meeting with the teacher who oversees our latest Co-Op student. Yes, we take on High School students each term. I'm a big believer in the whole "Become a Slave to learn the business..." ideal. If you can handle the grunt work, you can develop a thick enough skin to work in the luxury service industry. You need it. I've said it often enough, what appears to be a glamorous business is rarely that. I've recently added that to be extremely successful as a designer, you have to acquire and cultivate a very specific bedside manner. What amazes me about my own personal growth in this business in the last 3-4 years is how calm I've become. I mean I know that I SEEM to be rather volatile in my passionate decrees and such but I'm actually exceptionally calm and centred with my approach to our work and with our clients. More so when I'm faced with potential conflict whether it be time lines, installations gone astray, curve balls, yada yada yada. This week alone I got a text telling me that an install booked for the end of March was to happen this week. I laughed. It so could not happen until the end of the month and I was confident that we'd resolve it. Today, I got some VERY bad news about a project that I simply couldn't let happen so I calmly responded with a polite, let's have a chat... and by the end of the day, all was the way it needed to be. To that end, I will send out some very special #FollowFridays on twitter because we are working with companies that are rising to the challenge and meeting the special requests that we are asking of them. In some cases, they are exceeding our expecatations in the most mind blowing of ways and we are so very very grateful to have them as partners on behalf of our clients.

All of this AND I'm a redhead. It's not an easy feat I often have to deny my own nature but I'm doing it and the results only encourage more of this. It really does help when you love what you do and are working with clients who you love and adore and moreover you are working with products and companies that you are wildly passionate about. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you'll recall that I started this week out with the status: "It's a Great Day at Meredith Heron Design." That's been this week though I'd add my own personal... "It's a great day BEING Meredith Heron." I am very much #blessed.

Looking forward to relaxing this weekend with very good friends and plotting a new little project that will be #Published later this year. But I have to admit, I'm also VERY excited about getting back to work next week because there are so many wonderful things that I am plotting and I can't wait to share them all with you. Thank you for being so supportive on this little journey I am equally as blessed/lucky/fortunate to have you to share it with.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it much before on the blog but we get a lot of new client work or referrals directly from Social Media. We've been hired straight from Twitter more than any other form of SM in the last two/three years it's quite remarkable in fact. A few of my instagram shares of our #Spruce project brought us together with our new clients on our #Hurndale project within minutes of my sharing them to twitter and facebook. So for those of you out there who wonder if it is worth the effort, it very much is.

I'm excited about this project because they want us to pull the entire house together and make it feel finished. This excites me to no end. I should warn you though, there is wood trim in this house and well we all know that I'm staunchly on "Team Paint the Wood" but one of the client's hasn't quite come around to that way of thinking. YET. The concern, which is always valid, is will it detract from or ruin the character of the house? It's a good question to ask and as a designer, you have to actually invest a bit of time in understanding how natural wood conveys character to one person. What I usually pose is the following: If I were to paint it out, but say restore a fireplace or choose wood flooring that will enhance the original character and play that up through additional moulding or architectural features, would you care if the wood was painted or not? I've never had a client regret painting out the wood. Ever. You do however, have to ensure that other architectural details are played up. In truth, painting out wood actually highlights the details of it better than leaving it natural. So this is clearly a task that is set out for me to tackle. I'm up to the challenge.

I've put together a few fabric stories to test the waters with them on... 

The April issue of Style at Home contains a little surprise... Luke's Nursery!!! You can read the story about my planning for it or my lack thereof in the issue.  I'm going to expand on my lack of planning and why I think that makes for a better nursery design here so let's dig in.

I didn't find out the sex while I was pregnant. I waited for the magic words "It's a Boy!" and I'm still sort of in shock about the whole thing almost 4 years later. I swore I was having a girl. I'd planned a loose concept for the nursery while I was pregnant because my mom wanted to make a quilt for the baby. I committed to Indigo & blues as my base and I committed to a white Jenny Lind crib but that was about all I had the energy for prior to the birth. I had all day morning sickness for 7 months. Then I had two months of massive swelling. Then I had a surprise on July 4th of epic proportion when my water broke 3.5 weeks early. Then I had an emergency C-section, a week to recover and I was back to the office as I had a 16,000 sq ft house to design along with another 4000 sq ft house so umm I was a bit busy. I should also add that my sweet darling boy woke every 3 hrs to feed from the moment he was born and continued to do so for TWENTY ONE MONTHS. So ya, nursery LOW on the priority.

I surprised myself and became a rather crunchy granola mom. Co-sleeping felt right and we did until he was about 6 months so other than the change table in his room (which was a pad ontop of a dresser) we didn't use his room. This actually bought me time to get to know him, understand his little personality and design a room that would ultimately suit him. Our habits were established so I knew what pieces I needed for the space (I hate rocking or gliding of any kind so that was never going to happen) or should I say, what I didn't need for the space.

Luke was in awe of light fixtures pretty much from birth so we knew that an interesting one would be right up his alley. I am not a fan of mobiles or hideous toys that attach to a crib so we needn't concern ourselves with such endeavors. The room was about sleep but I also wanted to establish a base on which I could build on as he got older. We all know I'm a huge fan of horizontal stripes, so these were a given. I had the plaid fabric so I chose to work with that because I couldn't justify a big expenditure on a nursery knowing that I love to change things... I was trying to give myself an out. We repeated the same fabric on the crib skirt and then used pieces I had at the studio left over from other rooms or projects. A red chinese chest from our old store, a turquoise lamp that I got for a steal and used in my office until I upgraded for prettier lights. We also had a teak mid century chair and a beautiful old chest of drawers that fit in the room, so we used them.

Last week, if you didn't notice I slipped in a little surprise and announced my big Secret that I've been taunting you with for like ever it may seem. It's been about a year thus far of designing and working on my new Rug Line. I wanted to thank each and every one of you who shared, congratulated, died over (Gen you know that goes out to you), championed and lent me your support. A few of you who were sworn to secrecy thank you for keeping my little secret we are thrilled with the response thus far. Over the weekend we were given a sneak peek of the coloured designs we submitted as a trial to test the colouration. I just about passed out when I saw what they were able to make in 10 days. I sent the pictures out to a few clients one of which has already given us an order. In fact, we've already installed one in our #Boston client's house and we've taken many more orders from other clients so we are thrilled that soon enough we can share with you the designs in situ!!

If you aren't on instagram then you may not have seen some of the designs that I shared late last week. These are in the natural colours so we have cream, light grey, dark grey, brown and black....

We are hop hop hopping people. Last week was a week of concerts. This week is a week of impossibly exciting meetings that are launching projects into the stratosphere. I am jumping up and down excited about all of them. I can barely contain myself in the excitement of when the reveals will be. Perhaps I should cut down on the coffee but I need to take a moment to convey to you what actually goes into making these things happen.

Sure it looks all glam and amazing when you see the fabric stories I amass and the sketches, the technical drawings that I sneak a peek at but after all the glory that is the concept someone has to translate this symphony into hard core numbers. Sometimes we get the numbers and they sadden us as we know that the beautiful symphony is missing a key note - ie: a small fortune in order to afford the one dream pillow or the artwork or the expensive light fixture. You see one indulence or splurge may be fine, but when each room contains one these start stockpiling and sabotage the overall budget. So we have to painfully vote our items off the island or we change them to something great just not as fabulous as our first choice. It's the sad reality of our business. I continually am challenged to design my own look for less. So you see why I get a little snarly when people infer that we're high brow design snobs. Honey, you just don't know the half of it.... often goes through my head along with a few other Jennifer Lawrence approved swear words.

Occasionally there are success stories - we managed to find an alternative to a stunning purple wool fabric the other day that was $140/yard CHEAPER. Yes, you read that right. Thank you SO MUCH to the team at JF Fabrics who answered the rally cry I sent out on Twitter asking for alternatives to a fabric that was discontinued by one of my fave suppliers Maxwell Fabrics. I'm gutted that they discontinued the Kismet fabric as we'd spec'd it for two projects. It was the perfect fabric, the perfect colours and the perfect price and BAM gone just like that. I tweeted some pictures of the fabrics and JF Fabrics and our Schumacher/Jab Reps both responded and provided us with alternatives that we are now going to use. HAPPY designer and even happier clients!

Quoting takes TIME. A full house project to quote honestly takes at least 1-2 months. We find discontinueds, out of stock, and then we often have to send our quotes to several different suppliers for bids. We have our go tos that we don't even bother getting a second bid on but with custom work, it's wise to send it out. Occasionally we'll get a wonky number from a trusted trade that needs vetting. All of this requires much back and forthing. Questions over questions to get done. But we're always under a time constraint. You show a client the fabulous and they want it installed IMMEDIATELY. Yes, they nod when I say 8-12 weeks but they aren't hearing me. Three days later they are wondering when when can they own the pretty. When does it all start??? WHEN??? I'm used to these questions so I have it covered but it never fails to be the first question asked. Heck, they ask that before they ask how much. I kid you not. You know you've done your job nailing the design when timing starts to be discussed at a frantic pace.

Ohhhmmmm I'm not a patient person so I don't even try to sing them that tune. I'm just as impatient to get it in and installed TRUST ME. I try and empathize but am very upfront about our timelines. I am also a big believer in installing it all at once WITHOUT the homeowners there. If you are just starting out in design, I can't stress the importance of this enough. Many things can appear to go awry when you are installing. You will lose your cool. You will doubt yourself. It's better to have all that happen without the eagle eye of the client. You need to be able to problem solve privately. They don't need that stress. Own up to any mistakes you've made don't try and pull wool over anyone's eyes but it's better to have a plan of action ready and formulated before the client sees it. Better yet, if you've made a mistake and something doesn't work, remove it before the client sees it. Explain the issue and assure them that you are dealing with it (at no additional cost to them) but better an incomplete view than an incorrect one. VALUABLE INFORMATION SHARED HERE!!

Mistakes happen - we recently had an upholsterer switch directions on the matching stool that the fabric ran in. Who does that? Easily fixed but holy hannah some people that could be their undoing (like me but fortunately I was out of the country)...

Now on the upside of things...