Articles about Interior Design

What is the Role of the Interior Designer?
I am considering building a new home or remodeling. What do I do next?


What is the Role of the Interior Designer?


In explaining our services to new clients, a question is often asked: What is the role of the interior designer? Is there a difference between interior planning, design and decorating?

  • Interior space planning, simply put, is the arranging interior spaces to fit the lifestyle of the client. These personal choices are made with an interior designer who clarifies the clients needs and desires. The designer can advise the client with practical design expertise.
  • The essence of interior design is choosing a concept. This includes choices of building materials and components (such as appliances, hardware and fixtures), colors, surface finishes, and components throughout the building.
  • Decorating is choosing of materials, colors, finishes, furniture, and accessories.

Interior design is a phrase that includes a range of services including programming (formulating the clients needs and desires), planning, construction details, and finally decorating. Some clients prefer to work with an interior designer through all of these phases; while others may feel confident enough, and have the extra time it demands, to make many of these important decisions themselves.

Someone asked us how an architect and interior designer could work together. The expectation was that the two would be at odds with one another. In the worst case, the interior designer comes in after construction is complete and complains how decisions were made and then tries to work around the problems to arrive at the best solution. In the best case, they are both working together with the client from the ground floor up through all the design and construction phases.

At Jana Caron Interior Design, the interior designer is a team player in the design of any building requiring aesthetic considerations. Jana Caron's degree is in interior architecture, encompassing a broad scope of interests and talents. Her first objective is to meet with the clients and get to know them and their lifestyle. The space planning puzzle becomes a personalized plan which naturally unfolds. With meetings and visits to the building site, the clients and the designer develop design components, solidify a concept and implement the interior finishes, colors, and construction details to accomplish the client's dream. Jana's passion and goal have always been to go beyond what the client has expected or envisioned, and to produce an environment that is truly the client's own.

Jana Caron often works together with architects to develop the preliminary plans for a new or renovated building. The architecture is better when interior details are considered and interiors are more exciting if architectural space and structure are designed together. The team efforts overlap in solving the design puzzle that each client brings to us. It is an exciting adventure to which we always look forward.


© 2000 Jana Caron

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I am considering building a new home or remodeling. What do I do next?


When thinking about constructing a new building or renovating your facility, where do you begin? Start with your city's Planning Department, sometimes called the Department of Community Development (if you are located in town) or the county's Planning Department (if your property is located in an unincorporated area). They will let you know of any restrictions such as property setbacks, easements, water allocation or construction moratoriums. Entire towns, or designated areas within towns, may have design guidelines or review boards that may limit size, height, architectural style, exterior materials and colors. Monterey County has additional regulations governing ridgeline development (do not build on top of a hill silhouetted against the sky as viewed from a nearby road) and scenic easements (do not even think about building on a slope more than 30%).

If your property falls within the coastal zone, the commission will add their requirements (landscape and erosion control plans), fees and time extensions. Call Monterey County Planning to see how your plans may be affected. The coastal zone on the Central Coast averages five miles in width, but the most restrictive area is between the shoreline and the first public highway. The zone narrows to a few hundred feet near the Monterey Peninsula Country Club along 17 Mile Drive and widens to several miles approaching Highway 101 in Prunedale because of the inland marshes of the Elkhorn Slough.

When prepared by a licensed professional, the design and construction drawings will have been evaluated for compliance with the newly revised Uniform Building Code, plus national electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and fire codes, with state amendments to each. Prior to receiving a building permit, the Building Inspection Department in your city or county will check the plans and list those items requiring clarification on the drawings. Various agencies will list their concerns such as Public Works (roads and driveways), Health (septic system), Fire (sprinklers and fire truck access), and Planning again (site grading and landscaping). Some areas have special agencies or fees, such as water hookup (MPWMD) and traffic mitigation (Carmel Valley Road Fee Ordinance).

Because of my experience with local agencies in the cities and unicoporated areas of Monterey County, I can make the government processing quite tolerable. Rather than letting the restrictions stop your project, I will view these problems as a challenge to develop an optimal solution that will incorporate the regulations. Businesses and property owners will save themselves time and aggravation by using an architect to wend their way through the bureaucratic maze.

Published in The Home Edition, Carmel Publishing Co.

© 2000 Thomas J. Carleton
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