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ASID Remodel Tour Showcases Dream Homes

ASID Remodel Tour Showcases Dream Homes

BY NATASHA LEE

Staff Writer

The San Diego chapter of American Society of Interior Designers will kick off its first-ever ASID Remodel Tour on June 22.

More than 1,000 attendees are expected to take the self-guided tour which will showcase five homes located in Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar, La Jolla and Mission Hills that have been thoroughly renovated by several local design firms.

“We wanted to feature designers and their skills in a more complex setting so the public could gain more awareness about what an interior designer can do,” said Robert Wright, chair of the event, and president and owner of Bast/Wright Interiors, a local design firm. Internationally recognized, ASID is a nonprofit professional society that represents the interests of the interior design community. The San Diego chapter has over 600 members and industry partners.

All five homes have gone through a combination of transformations ranging from restoration, ceiling and wall repairs, to changing doors and windows, and room additions to suit the needs of the owners.

Wright said one of the goals of the Tour is to dismiss the stereotype of an interior designer as just a decorator and educate the public on the responsibilities of a designer.

“We wanted to show designers working with architects and contractors , feature a whole team concept and show responsibilities that the public may not be aware of,” he said.

After calling for entries in the organization’s fall newsletter, a selection committee narrowed the 14 interested parties down to five.

“It’s so great for the public to be aware of what a designer does a designer can really transform a project and bring a lot of added value to the property,” said Susan Geier, owner of Geier Goodman Design Associates, Inc. in Encinitas and a Tour participant.

Geier and her design team worked to give the Helgegar house in Rancho Santa Fe a more modern and cohesive look.

“It was so challenging to bring the house alive without having to do a lot of structural changes,” she said.

Dagmar Helgager, owner of the Rancho Santa Fe home since 1988, had heard good things about Geier’s work from friends and decided to use the firm to re-do the 24-year-old home.

Unhappy with the primitive look of the house, the Helgagers considered various options before settling on remodeling.

“We started looking at other houses, but decided we liked the location, the lot and the privacy and rather than move, we decided to remodel,” she said.

After nine months of retexturing walls, repositioning a powder room and replacing windows and doors, the Helgagers are satisfied with the finished product

“We’re very happy with it,” she said of the home’s new, softer layout.

Helgager said she found working with Geier and the design team to be a very educational experience, far beyond her notion of just picking out fabrics and colors.

“The whole process is really a lot more complicated than I thought. The idea of scale, balance and texture it’s not just picking out a sofa cover,” she said.

Remodeling costs vary, Geier said, starting from $50,000 and rising into hundreds of thousands dollars, “but what you get back, makes a lot of difference,” she said. Home remodeling guarantees added property-value, an incentive for the house to sell at a quicker rate, Geier said.

With the costs of homes in San Diego skyrocketing, homeowners have turned to refinancing and redesigning as alternative means of making their living situations suitable to their needs , a trend that will probably continue in the near future, Wright said.

Other participating designers include Janine Thierry Brown of Janine Brown Interiors/The Home & Garden Shop; Lynn Crosby Harland of Duffy’s Designs Inc.; and Carolyn LaPierre of C.A. LaPierre Interior Design.

The tour will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Advance tickets are available by phone for $20 until June 17 by calling the ASID office at (858) 274-3345.

Day of event tickets are $25 and are available at selected tour sites. For information and tour site addresses, please call the ASID information line at (858) 646-9896.

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