GHBA Prism Award Winner!

October 5th was a big night for Wamhoff Development and By Design Interiors!  Every year, the Greater Houston Builders Association hosts an annual awards gala to recognize great design and building in the Houston area. "The GHBA Sales & Marketing Council has been honoring the building industry's finest for more than 30 years with its elegant dinner and awards gala, Houston's Best PRISM Awards. The PRISM (Professional Results in Sales & Marketing) distinction has long been synonymous with the industry's highest caliber of excellence."

Wamhoff Development and I entered a recent project in the "Whole House Renovation" category.  The category highlighted projects where a home has gone through significant renovation and may include the exterior changes as well.  

You may have seen this project in the past.... and now it's a Prism Award Winner!

The project was in immense undertaking and involved adding a large portion to the house to create a new master suite, renovations to every bathroom, expanding the living areas and certainly the kitchen, and new furniture throughout as well. 

In case you haven't seen the pictures yet..... enjoy!

Kitchen and breakfast area with custom cabinetry, stone and copper backsplash, beautiful Colosseum Granite, and stone flooring.

Great room - perfect for lounging, catching up, or housing an entire family for holidays. 

Master bathroom!

One of my favorite spaces.... the powder bathroom!

My favorite place to sit in the house, the homeowner and I have had many meetings in this space.

So, I actually didn't attend the awards ceremony and found out when my boss, Peggy, texted me the amazing news!  It was about 9pm on Saturday night.  I promptly went to Kroger, picked up a couple bottles of champagne and headed over to the Wamhoff's. Greg had no idea what I was doing there and was equally surprised when I handed him a bottle.  His reaction of jumping in the air and high-fiving everyone in the room when I told him the news was.... priceless! :) 

My project was not the only By Design winner.... CLICK HERE to check out BDI's other amazing awards!

Behind the Scenes - Photo shoot

Designers are often depicted as glamorous, high-heel wearing, antique-loving, iPad-wheeling people. 

Truth is, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that is a lot dirtier, trickier, and heavy-furniture moving difficult.  The ladies at By Design have a new mission - to bring you some of the off-the-wall things that go on in our crazy world.

Earlier this month, I had my cowgirl's home professionally photographed by my favorite photographer, Brad Carr. (Check out his website here!)

Photo shoots can be really tricky.  More often than not, a photographed space is not at all how the space is lived in. In addition to taking over someone's personal space for awhile, camera lenses often skew what you see and furniture/accessories have to be placed accordingly.

Anyway - here are some amazing behind-the-scenes shots.  Can't wait to show you the professional photos once they're finished!

Who was ready for her closeup? 

Jesse. Pets are great things to have in interior photos; Jesse was gracious enough to model in a couple of shots!

How do you get a great photo of a fabulous powder bathroom? 

Yup! Squattin' on the toilet!

Brad's computer is directly linked to his camera.  This way, we can see exactly what is going on with lighting, exposures, and get a general idea of how everything looks.

Have a lot of windows causing some unwanted shadows? 

Sometimes we have to cover certain windows to get rid of unwanted shadows or brightness. 

How comfy is your bathtub? 

Brad will do anything to get the perfect shot!

Even if it means standing on his car to get the perfect shot of the house!

Can't wait to show you the pictures!