Designing Woman
FOR CLOSE TO 20 years, interior designer Lauri Ward has been providing high-rent decorating solutions at comparatively low-rent prices through her company Use-What-You-Have Interiors. Now she’s gone high tech, taking her business online.
Ward, a New Yorker, is using the Web to reach customers not near the Big Apple or any of her affiliated designers around the country. The site (www.redecorate.com) invites visitors to send in a video of a room along with its measurements; in turn, the interior designer will send back a redecorating plan. (For a flat fee of $295 per room, Ward willredo a space, rearranging the furnishings and accessories, and telling the owners what to throw out more often than what to buy.)
While only a few people have used the video service, Ward hopes more will discover it as they either find the site or buy her new book, “Use What You Have Decorating.”
The site includes a link to Amazon.com to order the book online. Unlike some interior designers, Ward doesn’t believe technology is too vulgar for tasteful people to acknowledge or use.
