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Archive for November, 2009

Advocate and Democrat article

Monday, November 30th, 2009

We were so excited to see this Advocate and Democrat article about me being featured in House Beautiful’s “Next Wave of Top 20 Designers” by Tommy Millsaps.

Local designer featured in national magazine

Author: Tommy Millsaps

Published: 8:40 AM, 11/27/200 Last updated: 8:50 AM, 11/27/2009

When you think of hotbeds for great interior designers, glamorous places like Beverly Hills or New York City probably come to mind.

But you can now add Sweetwater to that list.

Sweetwater native Todd Richesin was recently selected as one of House Beautiful magazine’s “Next Wave of Top 20 Designers.”
The magazine’s December/January edition with Richesin hit the newsstands Tuesday.
The article features up and coming interior designers who are on their way to making a big name for themselves while setting design trends.

Richesin’s business, Todd Richesin Interiors, is based in Knoxville. But Richesin grew up in Sweetwater and is a 1988 Sweetwater High graduate. He and Bobby Brown run Bobby Todd Antiques in downtown Sweetwater though Richesin said he mainly concentrates on his interior design business 40 miles up the road.

“This is very exciting for me,” Richesin said of his appearance in the magazine.
Richesin said he had sent some samples of his design work to House Beautiful, but was in no way expecting such a prestigious honor.
“That’s pretty good,” the small town boy acknowledged.
But Richesin also said he is very humbled to have an objective party judge his work so highly. Richesin said he is proud of what he has done and his clients are pleased, however it is sure nice to hear accolades from someone else.

Doretta Sperduto, decorating director of House Beautiful, said Richesin’s work speaks for itself. “He is obviously talented and deserves to be featured in this article,” Sperduto said.
Though Richesin has decorated many upscale homes all over the United States, his motto is quite simple. “Everybody deserves a pretty place to live,” he said.
His blog: “On the Fringe,” hosts a variety of posts that can be found at http://toddrichesininteriors.com/blog/. ;

Richesin’s fan page on Facebook is also growing at www.facebook.com/ToddRichesinInteriors.
Todd Richesin Interiors, LLC (www.toddrichesininteriors.com), is a full-service interior design studio that utilizes custom furniture, antiques and luxury fabrics to express each client’s individual style, Richesin said.

The firm’s services include floor plan design; pre-construction analysis of floor plans and furniture layouts, flooring, plumbing, tile and lighting selection, selection of all interior finishes, cabinetry consultation and design, custom furniture, draperies, rugs and accessories, artwork selection and antiques.

Richesin’s parents are Bobby and Patricia. He has an older brother, Michael, who lives in Sweetwater.
Richesin graduated from Tennessee Wesleyan College and got his start at an upper-end design and furniture store in Maryville before striking out on his own.

You can see the article at www.housebeautiful.com/decorating/next-wave-designers?click= main_sr.

tommy.millsaps@advocateanddemocrat.com | 337-7101

Tags: Advocate and Democrat, Bobby Todd Antiques, December/January edition, Doretta Sperduto, Facebook, great interior designers, House Beautiful, Knoxville, Next Wave of Top 20 Designers, On the Fringe, Sweetwater, Todd Richesin Interiors, Tommy Millsaps
Posted in Design News, General, In the News, My Projects | No Comments »

The Start of the Ultimate Before and After

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

One of my big credos on design work is never to pre-judge anything. When someone calls me to do work, I never think before hand about the type of job it will be. You simply cannot do that. If you do, you will build something wonderful up in your head only to be disappointed; or the opposite will happen when you expect and prepare yourself for the worst, and it becomes a fantastic project. Today, I broke my rule.

Last week, a client called to ask if I would assist her remodel a “cabin” on her property. I have known her for years. She has a lovely home in a picturesque setting by a creek in the middle of 1000’s of acres of farmland. So romantic it is to drive through and enjoy the views from the road approaching her house. When she said it was in desperate need of repair, I totally did not believe her. “There is no way she would own something that was so bad”, I said to myself. Yesterday, there was a fax in my office with the following inscription, “Wear boots. It is muddy.” So I thought, rainy season in East Tennessee, no big deal. A few puddles never hurt anyone, but prepared I came none the less.

Today, when I rolled up on the “cabin” I was in shock. It was totally derelect. Unoccupied for 25 years. There is now a hole in the kitchen floor where I fell through while taking measurements. When my car was safely parked….across the road and in another driveway, I met the client. You needed a tractor to navigate the yard, not a BMW. She was laughing at my awe that she really was telling me the truth about the condition of the place. Hysterical with laughter described me. Attached below are some photographs of the place. One shows the outside, another the kitchen, including the hole created by moi.

I typically would not share this much information on the front end of a project, but there is enough completed work in the portfolio section of my website to illustrate my capabilities. So, here it goes. You can follow this project through to the completion when her two sons move in for the summer. The plan is just now in the formative stages, but it will involve a new roof, new logs to replace any rotten ones, a new bathroom addition, enclosing a porch for a sunroom, complete renovation of the kitchen, complete gutting of the interior, and I am sure the list will grow as we proceed. Work is to start on December 7, so stay tuned. And, if you are wondering, “why save this dump?” It has sentimental attachment. Her husband grew up there. Her sister in law loves it. There are recipes used by her mother-in-law hand written on the inside of the kitchen cabinet doors. I am honored to be part of a love affair with a house that will cause someone to be so moved to restore something they love so much; and thankful for their faith in my guidance.

Front view. Can anyone say Green Acres?

That fabulous kitchen! Note the large hole on the left side of the cabinets

Those charming recipe doors. My heart melted.

Tags: before and after, kitchen remodel, log cabin
Posted in Renovations | No Comments »

Bobby Todd Antiques at Christmas Time

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

I had some appointments today in Sweetwater, and there were a few minutes left for me to visit the store. Bobby does such an amazing job with the shop. It was so festive today, and everything was in the perfect spot, clean, and beautiful. If Bobby Todd at Christmas doesn’t get you in the holiday spirit, nothing else will. We shot these few photos to give you a little peek inside the world of Bobby Todd at Christmas.

Vintage Christmas cottages and bottle brush trees

Giant snowman and Votivo candles

Ho Ho Ho pillows and antique settee

Santas and ornaments

Tags: Bobby Todd Antiques, Christmas Decorations, Christmas spirit, ornaments, santa, snowmen, Sweetwater, Tennessee
Posted in Antiques, Inspiration, Seasonal | No Comments »

Garden Antiques at Casa Real

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

We recently purchased a monumental 19th century English terra cotta urn on a stone base for our garden. We had a spot on the croquet lawn that needed a focal point. Included are a before photo, and an after. The style of the urn was perfect for our home. It complemented the garden, and its scale (about 66″ tall) was large enough to be seen from a distance. The addition of this piece created a “vista”, an important element in any garden design. Our garden has been an ongoing project since we bought this house six years ago. We are to the point with it now where we are really starting to get credit for everything we add. Working in the garden is a lot like working in a house. Just like you have to have tables before you can put lamps on them, you have to have a back drop before you can create a focal point with a piece like this.

The space for the urn was sloping. This created the need to build a platform for it to rest on. The platform was made from the same stone as the retaining walls around the croquet lawn. The urn was placed in the center of the platform, and to soften it some, we planted mondo grass around the base of the urn. The patina of the urn, coupled with the facts that the backdrop for it was mature, and the mondo grass was planted very full make this piece feel as if it has always been there. To me, that is the mark of a successful garden addition.

Arborvitae screen before addition of urn

Completed installation of pedestal and urn with mondo grass

Tags: antique garden elements, Casa Real, English garden sculpture, Garden design, mondo grass
Posted in Antiques, Garden, My Projects | No Comments »

How to Decorate Sconces for Christmas

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Library sconces decorated

To decorate for Christmas, I prefer to not put the everyday decorations of a house away. I often see people take a beautiful picture down over their fireplace for Christmas so they can put up a wreath. Typically the wreath is not as pretty as the picture was, and all of a sudden, the focal point in the room becomes less spectacular instead of more interesting. To avoid this problem, I often decorate the wall sconces over a fireplace. If you don’t have sconces, you could use a garland over the mantle.

The photo above, and the ones following show three different rooms in the same home. The home is a Colonial Williamsburg style home in which the owner wanted to maintain the original house trim colors of red, blue, and green. We colored the decorations to compliment these tones.

The first photo is in the library. There is an early print of Times Square over the fireplace, and two authentic Williamsburg sconces. For Christmas, we added a branch of greenery to each sconce to act as our base. We simply cut about a 24″ section of garland to use as this piece and wrapped it around the arms of the sconce. The greenery will hold everything you use to decorate it with in place. We then tucked in gold icy twigs and red glittery berries. Voila! A beautiful Christmas mantle.

The next four photos show wall sconces in the kitchen. Again, these are associated with a fireplace, but this same type of application would work on bathroom sconces, a bedroom, or hallway.

The first photo shows a sconce with greenery only on it. We used garland to create the greenery base. This is a piece about 48″ long that we wrapped around the arm of the sconce. Make sure you fluff out the garland. You can not get this look and not fluff the garland. You have to pull each branch and straighten it out to make it really full. This rule applies to any artificial greenery you use. The next photo shows the sconce after we applied the ribbons. This is a kitchen, with colors inspired by the antique French poster. We used a red velvet ribbon with a fuzzy white edge, a red grosgrain ribbon with white polka dots, a red and green plaid, and a red and white stripe ribbon. Don’t be afraid to put multiple ribbons together. Play with it and have fun with the colors. It will look festive. I only did one loop per side on this bow, but when it is fluffed out, it appears to have four loops per side because of using multiple ribbons, so it is really full. I used tails that were about 24″ long each, and worked them into the falls of the greenery. The next photo shows the sconce after we put on the ornaments. We used all sorts of kitchen inspired ornaments such as gingerbread men, cupcakes, and candy. These look like you could eat them, so they are perfect for this setting. The final photo in this group shows the pair of sconces with the antique poster that inspired the colors. What fun!

The last photo in this post is of sconces in a living room. We did a similar treatment to the first photo you saw of the library, but used less greenery, and instead of making the greenery be horizontal, we applied it in a more vertical fashion. The small piece of greenery is attached to the arms of the sconces. This holds all the other decorative pieces in place. We added red hydrangea blossoms with glittery stems, and gold icy twigs. It is very simple, but really adds a festive touch to the room. We completed this mantle grouping by adding colorful ornaments to an antique bowl on the mantle. The bowl was first filled with greenery to act as a base, and then the ornaments laid on top. Be sure not to overfill the bowl. A little less will look just as good. You don’t want the ornaments to fall out if the bowl is moved. The final details in this photo show that we added some sprigs of greenery, berries, and ribbon to the bookshelves. It doesn’t take much of this to create a great look. Just tuck a sprig of greenery behind some books or a figure or vase on the shelf, and do that two or three times in each shelving unit. It creates the look of Christmas decorations without removing anything from the shelves.

Remember to have fun while doing your Christmas decorations. We always play Christmas music to get us in the spirit. Have fun with your family and friends, and create something beautiful in the process.

: Kitchen Sconce with Greenery

Kitchen sconce with ribbon

Kitchen sconce fully decorated

Pair of Decorated Kitchen Sconces

Living room sconces decorated

Tags: Christmas Decorations, Colonial Williamsburg, Greenery, kitchen decorations, library decorations, living room decorations, ornaments, Ribbon, Wall lights, Wall Sconces
Posted in Seasonal | No Comments »

How to Decorate a Mantle for Christmas

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

This post will show you one way to decorate a mantle for Christmas. To help you understand the spirit of the design, I want to tell you a little about the house. This is a Colonial Williamsburg style home that is less than 10 years old. My client purchased it about five years ago, and we completely renovated and expanded it. They loved the original character of the home, including the painted moldings, and wanted to maintain all of those features. Blue would not be my first choice for dining room trim, but it is historically accurate here, and honestly, I think the room would not be nearly as exciting without it. My client loves color. The more and brighter the better. You will see in another post a different room where more color is apparent. The dining room became the most sedate room in the house.

The Christmas decorations I do for clients are typically reflective of both them and the home where they live. I like to do things that at least hint at the color palette of the home, but at the same time add enough traditional Christmas colors that it reads “holiday.” This post shows a series of five photos progressing through the process. Photos are at the bottom of the post.

The first photo shows the mantle before decoration. I have removed the two porcelain figures and the antique porcelain that usually reside on the mantle for safekeeping during the decorating process.

The next photo shows the mantle after garland and ribbons have been applied. The first step is to determine how you want the garland to look. I prefer a luxurious look with the garland, which usually means it should have a nice swag to the center section and the tails should meet the floor and be just a tad bit longer than necessary. This gives a lush, full look. This garland is a nice quality artificial garland that is very believable. We decorate this house before Thanksgiving, so there is no way a fresh garland would survive until Christmas. You could do this same design with fresh if you prefer…just wait until about two weeks before Christmas to put it up. The garland is a mixture of several different types of greenery and has large pine cones mixed in it which really add to the natural look. You could easily take this garland to a rustic setting, but the natural feeling of it performs beautifully in this formal setting. The garland is hung with two small nails with large heads at the back corners of the mantle shelf, near the wall. Always put the nails in the top side of the mantle so the nail holes won’t show after Christmas.

Ribbon is the next step. I used five different ribbons here. There is a sheer yellow to tie in the yellow from the room, a blue and yellow silk check, a solid soft pinky red, gold metallic, and a rosy red that has a velvet damask pattern on it. Don’t be afraid to mix different ribbons together. It is a great way to get the colors of your home into the decorations. I would recommend always using at least three different ribbons, and have used up to seven at a time. My bow is made of only two loops per side. When you have all the different ribbons, two loops per side equals 10 loops per side when it is fluffed out. I use only ribbon that is French wired which means that the wire edge is actually woven into the ribbon. These hold up so much better than ribbon that is not wired. They can be packed away flat, and easily fluffed up the following year. We have used these ribbons for three years, and they still look new. You will want to include a tail on the bow that goes down the garland toward the floor. I use the “branches” of the garland to bend around the ribbon to hold it in those bishop sleeve type loops that go down toward the floor. The other tail can follow along side that one, but in this case, I used the same technique of folding a branch over the ribbon to drape it toward the center of the garland. This gives an even distribution of color all around the fireplace.

The third photo is a detail of the ribbon and ornaments on the garland. We used bright yellow solid glass balls, gold metallic balls, rosy red solid balls, glitter stars with mirrored centers, and a collection of White glass egg ornaments with blue decoration hand painted on them. We used a lot of each ornament. My client requested a “full look”, so this is heavily laden. This could be effective with only a few ornaments scattered throught the garland. There are about 10 of the gold balls, 15 of the rosy red, 15 gold metallic, 25 glitter stars, and 20 white eggs.

The fourth photo shows the mantle finished in the room. You can see how the decoration blends beautifully with the room’s decor, and how the addition of the red makes it look holiday festive. Notice how I added ribbon to the top of the mirror. This is a great way to bring the decoration up and create an entire wall look without taking the actual greenery up and around the mirror. It just ties everything together as a unit.

The last photo shows a closeup of the antique porcelain figures my client uses on the mantle, as well as the antique bowl. We added ribbon to the figures to “animate” them. All of a sudden, they feel like they are the ones who have decorated the mantle. In the bowl, we tucked a few springs of greenery, and some of all the ornaments we used on the mantle. I am a fan of using your everyday items during Christmas, and this is a great way to do that. By adding ribbon to the figures, and putting ornaments in the bowl, you have “created” Christmas arrangements.

When you are decorating for the holidays, don’t be afraid to experiment. Remember, it is only up a short time, so if it doesn’t turn out exactly perfect, it is ok. Each time you try, you will get better at it, and before you know it, you will be the talk of the neighborhood. Keep it fun, and something that is manageable for you. It should also be something you like, and you should have fun doing it.

: Mantle before Christmas garland

Garland and ribbons

Detail of garland

Completed mantle

Detail of bowl decoration

Tags: artificial garland, Christmas Decorations, Christmas ornaments, Colonial Williamsburg, French wired ribbon, garland, mantle, ornaments, ribbons
Posted in Seasonal | No Comments »

How to Tie a Christmas Bow

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

We used our new Flip camera for the first time this weekend. Sorry the video is sideways. Twist your head because the content is really great.

Tags: Bow tying, Christmas bow, Christmas Decorations, Christmas ribbons, ribbons
Posted in Seasonal | No Comments »

How to Decorate a Christmas Tree

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Tags: Christmas lights, Christmas ornaments, Christmas ribbon, Christmas Tree, Decorating, ornaments, Ribbon garland, Tree skirt
Posted in My Projects, Seasonal | No Comments »

What It Means To Be Recognized

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Tonight, I got my first copy of House Beautiful December/January 2010. I am featured on page 33, and following is a little story on how it happened and what it means to me.

A couple of months ago, a package appeared on my doorstop from Doretta Sperduto at House Beautiful. I wasn’t home to get it, but when Bobby saw it, he opened it and found a letter recognizing me as being selected to their list of the “Next Wave of Top 20 Designers.” He called me immediately to share the news. I was getting ready to have dinner with a client in Atlanta, and the dinner suddenly went from general business to celebratory.

For years, I have dreamed of doing work that was good enough to be recognized on a national level. What must be about 18 years ago now, I read an article in Southern Accents entitled “Four Under 40″ (Four newly discovered designers). In the article, the editor said if a designer was not “discovered” on a national level by the time they were 40, they would never be discovered. What a horrible comment for someone with the power of an editor to make. Dreams can be dashed from words like these.

For me, those words became a driving force in my life. From then on, I was on a mission to get “discovered” by the time I was 40. I knew my work was good. My clients love what I do for them. They refer me. For all practical purposes, I had been discovered for years. It is different though to have someone who knows nothing about you… someone who sees thousands of design projects each year… someone who has nothing to gain from recognizing you… notice your work and believe it to be good enough to receive national attention and share with their readers.

I never told anyone that story. Bobby found it out only recently. When my “discovery” actually happened and the letter came, my reaction was not what I had expected. I was excited about it enough, but there was a flood of other emotions. Can I deliver the product these people expect of me? How did they decide on me from what must have been hundreds of candidates? Will this affect my life? Do I want it to? It was a humbling experience, and I think I grew up more on that day than any day in my life. Tonight, after driving to the bookstore to get a copy of the issue, it was nice to open the magazine with Bobby, share the experience, and then move on to the rest of our evening. Life really didn’t change.

Another thing the experience made me realize is that this one was not enough. The drive that got me here has only grown stronger. I want to continue to grow, to do even better work, to make a lasting impression on the design community, and to help people live in more beautiful spaces. I hope you enjoy reading about what I do, seeing my work, and learning about what life inside the world of interior design is like.