The Sharon sofa designed by Susan Hopkins as part of Susan Hopkins Lifestyle.

I am very proud to announce my new furnishings line called Susan Hopkins Lifestyle. You can check out the initial pieces here.

This past summer I was invited to design furniture for the Kristin Drohan Collection, which is a North Carolina based manufacturer of high-end furniture built with the best materials and the highest respect for the environment.  I met Kristin for the first time in September, and we clicked immediately sharing an obvious passion for furniture, interiors and not sacrificing quality – AT ALL!  We also share a passion for being environmentally responsible.

Susan Hopkins Lifestyle for Kristin Drohan Collection

It is an absolute pleasure to announce this new venture.  We hope you’ll also check out Kristin’s site here.  She’s currently building a new site where you’ll be able to see our complete collection, hopefully in the next month or so.  So please check back!

For the next three days in the “Seat Yourself” sale on OneKingsLane.com, the Sharon sofa will be available!  This is our first piece shown on onekingslane.com and it’s surreal.  Pinch me!  Click here to see the sofa!

We’re also proud to offer To-The-Trade pricing, so if you’re a Designer please contact us and we’ll send you the application to get started.

Happy shopping!

The post ANNOUNCING! Susan Hopkins Lifestyle for Kristin Drohan Collection… on OneKingsLane.com TODAY! appeared first on .

George Oliphant and NBC were helping a woman from Southampton, NJ, so being a Philadelphia Interior Designer, I was contacted by the producers of the show to go through the screening process to see if I would be the right designer for the show and if I would be interested in helping – and it was a match!

Read about the ins and outs of how we pulled off a beautiful design in just two weeks of installation. Together with the help of the producers, field producers, show host, and the rest of the vendors we set out to change the life of Brenda Jones, creator of HugWraps.org, and her efforts to help people struggling with cancer to make each moment just a little bit more comfortable.  Ten percent of our book sales are being donated to Hug Wraps.

Please share your thoughts of the book, the final design, and about any inspiration that came of reading about the experience or Brenda’s story!

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After playing some phone tag, I finally spoke with Andy, the producer of the show. After going through a thorough interview, I heard Brenda’s story, and I shared my connection to the cause and we both decided it was a perfect match for us to work together on this episode of the show.

Above: Susan Hopkins and George Oliphant

George to the Rescue is a miniature version of “Extreme Home Make Over”, hosted by George Oliphant. They travel through the United States to help people or companies in need of assistance, especially when they are helping others as well.

I decided to do the project because of Brenda, her story, and how I would not only be helping her, but indirectly helping all of the people she assists with cancer. Brenda was a breast cancer survivor and she started a non-profit organization geared towards providing comfort, warmth, security and identity to patients going through cancer treatments. My Nanan, my grandmother on my mother’s side, passed away from breast cancer when I was sixteen years old and it was devastating for me. I knew even at that age that someday I wanted to provide help and comfort to those going through this horrible experience.

My role was to be the Interior Designer for the show. As the process progressed I learned that I was able to take on a lot more responsibilities as I do for my typical client projects such as scheduling, project and purchasing management, overseeing installations, deliveries, etc. I was also able to bring in some of the tradespeople we work with on a daily basis through our company, such as BFC Painting, Wasserson Design, Kushner Draperies, Avalon Carpet, Tile and Flooring, Paul Bartholomew Photography (our final photographs). We also worked with a new vendor in the Southern Jersey area – Amiano & Son Construction.

The film crew and George were incredible to work with and I will absolutely never forget this experience.

We hope you’ll check out the show and let us know what you think by leaving us some comments here!

Air Dates and Cities

WCAU – Philadelphia: Sa 10a
WNBC – New York: Sat 10a / Sat 7p / Sun 1215a
KNBC – Los Angeles: Sat 930p
WMAQ – Chicago: Sun 1205a
WRC – Washington: Sun 105a
KXAS – Dallas: Sun 5p
KNTV – San Francisco: Sun 1230a
WTVJ – Miami: Sun 11a
KNSD – San Diego: Sun 3p
WVIT – Hartford: Sun 130p
NECN – Boston: Sun 11a

How you can help provide some comfort and security for children with cancer…
Donations are so important as they enable Brenda to make HugWraps and donate them to people in need, especially children going through cancer treatments. If you’d like to help, thank you, and please go to www.hugwraps.org to submit a donation.

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Because you are visiting our blog, you may notice that design surrounds you in interesting ways. Everything has a design whether it is naturally created, manmade or a combination of both. But what is actually behind the design? What makes one design incredibly brilliant and another one rather boring?

Expect to read thought-provoking ideas in this blog. And, expect to see ideas that trigger your emotions.

I will share …
• My favorite products, furnishings, accessories and artists
• Our newest completed projects including before, during and after photos
• Sneak peeks of our current projects
• Advice to help you achieve great design
• Information to help you organize your project, pic or work with the right designer for you
• Exciting news about our company and events
• And a potpourri of everything else we love and want you to know about

From left to right: Raeanna, Jeffrey, Susan, Maggie

If you’re new to our site, I’m Susan Hopkins and my company is Susan Hopkins Interior Design.

I am admittedly design-obsessed. Great design is my passion and it attracts me like honey to a bee. It is more than just the visual representation of design that interests me; it is the textures, combinations, colors, use and function of space and so much more.

Twice a year I attend High Point Furniture Market in North Carolina to feed my hunger for new and innovative ideas to keep my projects fresh and cutting-edge.
Susan Hopkins Interior Design was founded in 2006. During the beginning, I worked full-time out of my home and moved to my first studio office in September 2010. After having my son, I was so busy that my husband volunteered to work with me because he could see that the business was consuming me.

By May 2012 our first employee, Raeanna started as an Interior Design Assistant. Maggie then joined us after Labor Day 2012 as an Interior Designer, so we now have three designers total on staff. We’re growing rapidly and have some exciting new things coming up that we’ll share with you in this blog.
You may wonder why I decided to blog since so many interior designers already have a blog. When I browse design magazines, it seems that design projects are “OK,” but not fabulous. Some newer designers copy what they see, and seem to think that makes their style current. However, it makes some magazines seem boring and cookie cutter to me.

Occasionally, I am absolutely blown away by the talent that exists, but sadly seems to be hidden because it doesn’t fit what the magazines want to show. I’m sure you’ve noticed that not all design is great, or even good, so when design is impeccable, it should be recognized!

Great design is more than picking a few pieces of furniture and some accessories from a retail store. It takes considerable thought, creativity, knowledge of technical details, resources, vendors and artisans to assemble the perfect montage of finishes and furnishings to evoke an emotion.

When you follow our blog, we will critique some of the good and not so good design that we see so you can understand how we think.

We will share favorite designers that are breaking boundaries and taking risks by stretching their creativity.

Research is part of the daily education process, and I often encounter amazing photography, artwork, fonts, stationery, set or movie designs, and inspiring products that trigger or drive our designs or our out-of-the-box thinking. We’ll share these as well.

Everyone loves “Before” and “After” shots including me, but wouldn’t it make sense to see the progress shots and stories to go along with them? The progress shots provide the context and thinking behind the decisions.

Let me know what you think. We have a lot of projects that are almost complete, so we’ll go back to the beginning of these projects and revisit the pre-existing conditions, walk you through the design challenges and process we used to come up with the final design. We will post professional shots of the finished spaces as soon as the projects are finished assuming they aren’t under consideration for publication in a magazine, and if so, we’ll let you know when the final shots will debut, and in which publication.

It will be fun to share our vision and passion with you. Please be sure to comment when you read our blog or browse these before-progress-after projects, so we know how to keep it interesting and fresh for you.

There are guidelines for great design, but there are no hard and fast rules though other designers might disagree. In fact, I purposely find ways to go against the “rules” to create unique spaces.

Every space has the potential to be unique – even within homes that look identical on the outside.

The architecture or existing elements of the space provide the bones, and the way the colors, textures and selections come together makes them unique. Your personality, style, aesthetic taste, requirement for function and efficiency is different than your friends, family and neighbors’. Your comfort level with your financial investment, quality preference, collections of art, heirlooms, furniture, and so much will be different. This means the Design Program (our thorough interview with you) helps us understand your needs and priorities.

No two projects of ours are the same or even similar. We design for our clients’ personalities. See for yourself when you view our portfolio.

Our blog is the beginning of our conversation with you – another lover of design. We are excited to introduce our brand new website, and as we grow, you’ll get to peek behind the curtains to see how we create our concepts and execute these complex projects that look “oh so simple,” but are quite the opposite.

Let us know what you’d like to know, and we will create posts about your topics of interest. Be sure to give us your feedback so we can make this your favorite design blog.

Warmest Regards,
Susan Hopkins, CID, ASID

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