Designer Kathy Barry Creates a warm and welcoming interior for the Housing Center of West Michigan. By Eileen Schwarz-Duty Press Advertising Department (click on any image to enlarge and enter the photo gallery for this project)

Picture this: You're an interior designer and a member of the Home & Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids (HBAGGR). Most of your experience is residential interiors for area homeowners. You serve on the Interiors Committee for the HBAGGR, and committee members are asked to submit specific color schemes and designs for the new Housing Center of West Michigan.

Your design is selected. And your name is Kathy Barry, of Home Life Interiors.

Barry had a vision for the Housing Center right from the beginning.

“One of my basic premises is that people can feel at home anywhere, whether it’s their actual home or business”, Barry says. “Knowing this building would be populated by many men, I wanted it to reflect men’s preferences for warmth and comfort, stained woodwork instead of painted.”

At the same time, Barry used current color trends appreciated by both genders: golds, warm reds and browns. “All those tones are very popular, both commercially and in residences,” Barry says.

The building’s many uses provided sufficient challenge for Barry and her crew. “We knew the Conference Center would be used for special events, like weddings. It needed to be more upscale, to compete with the nice restaurants that have banquet space. We used lots of beautiful wood in there – all donated, by the way.”

Which brings up another challenge: Making full use of the many donated materials and services in designing the Housing Center’s interiors.

“We had to coordinate all the wonderful donations and make them all work together. The door casings are a perfect example,” Barry says. “They’re just beautiful – what you’d see in an upscale home, and they’re too expensive for us to specify them. But Philip Elenbaas donated them, so we were able to incorporate them into our design.”

Office space on the upper level of the Housing Center is more business-like in look and feel: It’s lighter, with more painted space and lots of lights coming from the three-story atrium. On the main floor, where there is more traditional, residential look and feel.

And just like that, you’ve just gone from being a residential interior designer to the largest commercial design you’ve ever done.

Click Here to view the article in Grand Rapids Press.

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