Kitchens by Design

Retro 70′s – a Kitchen from the past ~

0 CommentsTuesday • May 15, 2012 • by Duval • Posted in: Featured, Uncategorized

Retro – a simple, well planned Poggenpohl kitchen installed in the 70′s is still performing like the top notch kitchen it is!~

Integrity & the NCIDQ

0 CommentsTuesday • April 24, 2012 • by Duval • Posted in: Featured, Uncategorized

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of grading NCIDQ exams with around 40 other interior design professionals from all over the US. We met in St. Louis beginning on Thursday, April 19th and continued through the morning of Sunday, April 22nd. I only knew one person there, a grading coordinator named Barbara Pallat, a truly dedicated, lovely professional.

As the graders mingled and became friends, I found the range of participants to be from young, up-and-coming designers working alone or with small local firms, to seasoned designers working with large firms, some architectural, some interior design only. I met an online friend, who’s a distinguished professor of Interior Design at a state university, and was so glad to put face and name together! One woman I met was so interesting and talented, an architect in Massachusetts, a partner in a regional architectural firm that is extremely accomplished, and award winning. She and I really enjoyed our “away time” after “work” in the evenings. Yes, these were leading interior designers – all taking a weekend of their time without pay – to “give back” to the profession by grading the NCIDQ exams recently taken. There was a remarkable spectrum of personality, experience, education and talent in those rooms. A very uplifting experience, certainly.. .. .. ..

Impressive, more than I thought possible, the NCIDQ process is exhaustive in it’s pursuit of the perfect exam, exact & true fairness to all candidates, and it’s unending reviewing-and-improving pattern. It’s no wonder to me that the exam remains on the very sharpest cutting edge of the interior design profession, and is revered universally as the pinnacle of excellence – the qualifier of interior designers’ ability to protect the consumer’s health, safety and welfare.

I found it an honor to have this opportunity to serve ~ to learn more about the NCIDQ, go to www.ncidq.org.