Why you should care about design

So you’ve moved into your new home with the builder-beige walls, utilitarian flooring and standard everything. After setting up your furniture, you might be tempted to stop right there. After all, everything functions, so what is the point of decorating?

Ask any interior designer and they’ll tell you it’s the idea of turning a house into a home. It’s a chance to express who we are and what we want our life to be.

Ever since she was a young girl growing up in Douglas, Mary Ann Gutierrez knew she wanted to help people create that dream in their own homes. She attended interior design school in San Diego and the native Arizonan returned to Chandler to work for Decorating Den.

“I am a big believer that after the busy-ness of your day you want to come home to a sanctuary where you feel comfortable, where the colors make you feel good and your furniture is comfortable to sit on.”

But sometimes, clients don’t have as clear a vision of what a designer can do. “I have to paint the picture for them of what the ultimate look will be like. I use a lot of magazine pictures and lots of sketches.”

When she works with couples, Gutierrez says it’s often the wife who can see the value of design while the husband has to be coaxed into it. “There are so many home décor shows on TV and great magazines, so usually she’s already seen what the potential is.”

And that potential includes making your home reflect who you are, even if that means making a prized blue marlin the centerpiece of a room, as she did in one recent remodel. “Even if it’s just using their favorite color or pattern or texture, there needs to be something in the home that reflects the homeowner.

“My goal is to get them to start seeing their home as their sanctuary.”