I recently met up with Sandra Mahoney, founder of Create Home in Excelsior. For years she has been sought out by clients and followers for her artful, eclectic design and keen ability to create home collections. As a real estate broker, interior designer, and home builder, Sandy loves helping people. For years, she has helped many find and design their homes. Now, along with her partner Jason Bliss, they have opened a new boutique and home store that does exactly that: Create Home.
Home styling is more than space planning and staging - the most important part of the discovery is you. It’s personal. It's about learning what brings you joy, sourcing and coordinating the things you love, and arranging them in a way that functions beautifully, looks stylish, and, most importantly, feels like home. When it comes to styling your home, Sandy encourages you to keep in mind these three simple things:
Favorites
“Some people don’t recognize their own favorites,” says Sandy. “We have a job to find what favorites work.” She understands that people know what they like generally but can struggle to pull those things into their home. Incorporating a client’s favorite aspects into a design, even small things like an antique clock, a gift from a family member, or a piece of art that they love, are what turns a space into a home.
Collaboration
More than knowledge of home decoration, architecture, and style, a big part of an interior designer is simply pushing people out of their comfort zones. "Stylists get people to think about something they haven’t thought about before,” Sandy explains. "Crafting ideas between the expertise of the designer and preferences of the client produce better ideas than any single party could come up with on their own."
Styling
Sandy laughs when pressed about styling. “I mean, we don’t cut our own hair,” she remarks. Her point here is that home stylists, like hair stylists, have a specific area of expertise. They enhance the function of space, solve challenges, and have a wealth of experience to draw from. They know how to build rooms around clients’ preferences while still creating an aesthetic space they know the client will love.
Welcome to Create Home
Create Home is a single source for home design and related home services. Located in downtown Excelsior in the historic Excelsior Mill building on Water Street, Create Home’s Design Concierge Service connects homeowners with just the right architect, design team, home builders, and remodelers. Create Home also has a full service design studio to help clients with all of their home selections and other interior design projects.
The Create Home Shoppe showcases an art gallery and a curated collection of furniture and home goods. “If I don’t want it in my own home, I don’t want it in the store,” Sandy explains. She is also expanding the showroom to showcase facades within a hallway of the Mill building. “I want to make a little village,” she adds. A benefit of the Create Home Shoppe is being able to work directly with walk-in customers. Sandy believes that people “open up” when they can get ideas from the showroom. The ensuing conversations are what shift designs from general to personal, and this is the part of the business that Sandy really loves.
Pro-tip: When using a neutral palette combine texture and contrast to create a softer look that feels like home.
Pro-tip: Weaving some of everyone’s favorite things into the design process creates a connection to the space and your home.
Home is About Family
An important aspect of designing a home for the whole family is getting input from everyone. “If each person is involved, even in a small way, it creates a different connection to your home,” says Sandy. She adds that there are a lot of ways to involve every member of the family, from letting them add to specific rooms to simply including some of their favorites around the house. “We’ve had kids come paint part of the walls in their room with their favorite color to let them feel like they’re part of the process.” However, Sandy ensures that everything comes together in the end. “Don’t worry, we always re-paint.”
