One thing I hold near and dear to my heart is the friendship that develops with clients over time, as they transform their spaces. They grant me access into their innermost wishes about how they want to live, or where they want to live. My job is to listen to them intently, observe what needs to be repaired and how to improve their function for the future (and it has to be beautiful to them too).
This trust in friendship and a project shone this weekend over one small detail – a light fixture, installed in a small transition space between a bedroom and a newly created, well-functioning closet. My client looked at me with those questioning looks, even up to the time we selected the fixture in a showroom, and used these very words ‘I will never use this light’. We packed the box into her car and drove it home for the contractor to lovingly install.
On Sunday, as I came to inspect the final – final touches on this renovation in a Charlottesville subdivision, I marveled at the future function for the client, a shower that won’t endanger her safety, more storage, the things that started our ball rolling. As I switched on the fixture in the small hallway to inspect, the words flew off the tounge ‘this is my most favorite part – I love this light!’ That is when you know you have done your best, sold your soul to your hunches and made them follow you. The fixture that was certain by the client to go in ‘forgotten’, is now just like the caboose in the children’s story – the little light saved the design.
