The First Of Many

I have worked from home in retail interior design for almost 9 years now, never of which were in a real dedicated office.  I started out in the spare bedroom, then moved out to the living room, then a different spare bedroom, a kitchen counter, and then finally a dining room table before settling into my new cozy office.  Its all a result our family's habitual moving, which in turn has been made possible by the fact that I can work from home.  So I cant complain, but today I rejoice!  Look at my new office....oh wait, its a big white boring box...how can I possibly be expected to think creatively in a space like this?  The only thing awesome about this space are those nice vacuum lines!!!





So my first challenge, this is the very first room of the house, so that means it kind of has to look good, you know that whole first impression thing?!?! 

In our last house we had these awesome built in bookcases, I knew this would be a great place to add something like that, plus I needed all the storage I could get for files, craft supplies and all the other stuff that needs somewhere to be stored!  They would be simple. functional and create the focal point that this room oh so needed!

The Plan View

As I mentioned before, I like to do a lot of things myself.  There is a lot of satisfaction that comes with coming up with a design and making it happen.  I was lucky that my husband David has this same passion and we have come up with a pretty good system.  I design it, he builds it, and I finish it.  As much as I would love to help with it all, someone has got to take care of these two crazies!  So if that means taking them to the pool on a beautiful sunny day while he slaves away in peace and quiet, so be it, sometimes you have to take one for the team!!  I will get my pay back, for sure....

Let me start out by saying, neither one of us has ever done anything like built in cabinets, but I must say David did an amazing job and they are pretty spot on the drawings too!  Let me also take a minute to point out that I had no expectation of crown molding all the way around the room.  I had once witnessed my mom trying to install crown molding as a kid.  The amount of cussing and yelling involved probably scarred me for life, so I would never wish that frustration on anyone else, but I think he nailed it (insert drum sound effect!)



Now its my turn for some fun! Time for the finishing touches....

Through trial and error I had recalled that it was best to tint the primer.  Save yourself some time and always tint the primer of you are using dark colors!!!!  You can also see the freshly stained countertops

The finishing color - Sherwin Williams Night Owl against the stained counter top (mixture of Minwax Special Walnut and Classic Gray) with a matte Lacquer finish.  Side note, I know I wrote "poly" on  my honey go get me list (short for polyurethane, of course) but lacquer is what he brought me.  "Its the same right?"he says....no not really.  I was a little hesitant as its synonymous for those high gloss oriental type pieces, not really the look I was going for here.  After testing a spot out I decided to go for it, and as a plus, it didn't need to be sanded in between coats, score!  I have to say it didn't turn out too bad.

And the finished overall product!



The Rewind

For as far back as I can remember I have had a LOVE for houses and what all goes into making them beautiful.  It's fun to think back to where is all started!

Barbie's, yes, my love for designing and planning goes back to my Barbie years!  My friends and I would play for hours, rocking out to Billy Ocean and Paula Abdul in the background (I love the 80's).  Each day we would start out by picking out our furniture and taking over a corner in some room and creating that days house, weekend after weekend.  Talk about space planning at an early age!

I was recently coerced into cleaning out my mom's attic, look what I found! 

Then there was the time that, as I was riding my bike to the pool, I passed an "open house" sign in a yard.  I had to have been around 10 and had no concept of what that meant, other than the house was open from 2-4 for us to come back and see it.  I wonder what that realtor was thinking when they let a pack of 10 year old girls into a house showing, dripping wet from the pool.  Great tour though!

And finally...before there was ever such a thing called HGTV, there was Bob Villa and Hometime!  When I wasn't playing Barbie's or at the pool, I was watching how to's on how to install tile and refinish wood floors, while sketching up the floor plans of my dream house.

So when it came to college and picking a major I was fortunate to firmly know what I wanted to major in, Interior Design!  I love looking back at some of these old perspectives from my school days:



Residential Design - Beach House Project Option 1 (Bald Head Island, NC)

Residential Design - Beach House Project Option 1 (Bald Head Island, NC)

Residential Design Beach House Project Option 2 (Phuket, Thailand)

Residential Design Beach House Option 2 (Phuket, Thailand)

Commercial Design - Northwest Fresh Grocery Store

Commercial Design - Northwest Fresh Grocery Store

Institutional Design - College Of Design

Institutional Design - College of Design

Hello!

Hey there!  My name is Cassidy Hardesty and I am a certified Interior Designer and a repetitive mover.  The second one I am pretty exhausted from so I am putting my foot down and this is it for me, right?!  I like to at least hope so!  My husband David has even encouraged me to get rid of boxes, but I just cant part with all of them, I mean they are part of the family at this point!


When I added up the number of apartments, townhouses, condos, and houses my husband and I have lived in together it was quite alarming, 10!  We have moved 10 times in 14 years and 4 of those times included moves to different states, all for my husbands job.  And, 2 of those included newborns, a nice way to get out of some of the heavy lifting I must say!

While it seams mentally and physically exhausting, I prefer to look at it like getting clean design slate every few years.  In my professional life I focus solely on commercial design, so it has been really a nice outlet to let my residential side run free, well, as free as my budget would allow for!


Most of the places we have lived in were rentals, so besides paint there wasn't much else that could be done. I do look back and realize I had a lot more free time on the weekends in the apartment/condo years, which was lovely.  But, I really enjoy a good project and seeing the visions in my head come to life and our current local has and will continue to allow for me to flourish as a designer!