let me just say that my 2+ years of art and design classes have totally not prepared me for what it's really like to be a designer. let me also say that i don't work for a traditional design firm - the kind with dozens of designers sitting at cubicles staring at autocad for hours at a time from 8-5 every day. i work for a lady who meets clients as early as 7am and as late at 8pm, who loads and unloads and reloads and re-unloads boxes into cars and condos, and who isn't afraid to get dirty if necessary. and my education is really geared towards preparing us for the first kind of designing. while working 8-5 does sound very appealing, sitting in front of a computer all day definitely does not. so i think i'm in the right place!
on saturday, melissa (that's my boss) and i went to the new ikea in charlotte. holy cow! we spent about 6 hours there wandering the aisles looking for lighting, accessories, bedding...you name it, we were looking at it. in the end we filled four carts (including two of those flat-loading ones) with merchandise. then we had to load it into the expedition, which was like a life-sized game of tetris! i can't believe how much we crammed into that car. stupidly i'd decided to wear flip flops that day instead of tennis shoes, and by the time we left ikea i was dead tired and my back was killing me. but we pushed on and stopped at the tj maxx/homegoods superstore at concord mills. tj maxx AND homegoods in one store? it was too good to be true! so many fun things to look at...i managed to escape with a small frying pan for $9.99, but we also filled up three shopping carts with more accessories, art, bathroom items, lamps, and even a chair. somehow melissa packed ALL of that into the already packed car. we took pictures of it, but they don't even do it justice. it was a crazy long day, and i learned that i will definitely need to work on my shopping stamina!
now this is going to sound a little crazy, but my favorite part of the day happened right after we'd loaded the car with our ikea purchases. we headed back into the store to get some snacks at the snack bar there, and melissa convinced me to get a cinnamon bun. i love sugar, and i like cinnamon buns, but they've never been my favorite. i've reserved that prize for krispy kreme doughnuts. but let me tell you...those ikea cinnamon buns kick some krispy kreme butt! they were massive - like bigger than my hand! - straight from the oven, ooey gooey icing, and the perfect amount of cinnamon. i don't know if it was because i was crazy hungry after 6 hours of shopping, but it was just incredible. if you go to ikea, GET A CINNAMON BUN!
since then we've mainly been working on a condo in downtown raleigh. it's involved countless phone calls, scheduling and meeting contractors and vendors, picking up samples, returning samples, flipping through catalogs and scanning the internet. it's been great to interact with a real client and actually get feedback in person. and soon i'll get to see some of my creative handy-work come to life as decorative tiles get installed and furniture starts to arrive. i'll be so excited to see it all come together...and i'll be especially excited to see pictures of the completed spaces on the realm design studio website! stay tuned!
1 comment:
Sounds like a fun learning experience!
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