Ever since Dawn Patrick-Wout can
remember, she has had a knack for sizing up a room’s parameters,
contours, and life force. As a child, she often rearranged
furniture around her parent’s home in St. Thomas, keeping her siblings
and parents guessing about what she, a diminutive designer-in-training,
would conjure up next.
Reminiscing about her childhood quirks, Patrick-Wout
said, “I remember I was about nine years old when this crazy career
started unbeknownst to me. It was just something I did. It
made me happy… made me smile… gave me a sense of accomplishment.”
Little did she know that her past time as a youngster would gradually
mold her into an adult interior design guru.
As a professionally trained psychotherapist,
Patrick-Wout employs the art of people-reading to coordinate the colors
and textures that reflect her clients’ unique personalities. During her
initial meeting with clients, she gets a sense of their likes and
dislikes, and creates physical havens of living or working
spaces. “Design is about more than furnishings and color.
It’s about creating the spaces where we can live our lives to the
fullest,” she says.
Her background and philosophy are what make her a
tour de force in the business. She continued, “I think a person’s
fear of not being understood is directly attached to his or her fear of
hiring an interior designer.” She says she also uses her mental
health schooling “to understand people… to minimize their fear… to hold
their hands through the process.”
Charged with the notion that people thrive when
their living and work spaces reflect their inner selves, Patrick-Wout
began Creative Re-Designs, a professional design service company, in
1994. She opened About
Interiors, a furniture showroom , seven years later. The two
story store is full of furniture that she hand-selected from reputable
manufactures. Located in Beltsville, Maryland, the store is a
21st century wonder brimming with Moroccan-inspired lampshades,
mahogany vases, golden candelabra, well-positioned plants, iridescent
curtains, and chandeliers with amber tear drops.
If you are wondering what kind of cash flow a
professional design job will take from your already diminishing
coffers, Patrick-Wout discourages her clients from speculating about
the price before sampling the pay off. Home décor is an
investment, says the About Interiors executive, because it is both
aesthetic and psychical. Home should be synonymous with haven, a
place of rest and solace, a proverbial oasis of peace and tranquility,
contends Patrick-Wout. “A designer has the training to eke out a
sanctuary from any space, provided that the person who dwells there
desires the same thing. And that’s as good as priceless,” she added.
Designers are also no different from
service providers such as doctors, mechanics, plumbers and attorneys.
Patrick-Wout continued, “We take these parts of life seriously and hire
professionals to do these jobs. How then could the most important
part of our lives [our home] not require that we hire a professional
designer… someone to help us achieve the maximum impact; the maximum
yin and yang?”
Like Patrick-Wout, Sherry Ways of Design Scheme Interiors
incorporates the ancient principles of yin and yang—two opposing but
complementary forces found in the universe—into her
Baltimore-Washington corridor firm portfolio.
Read the complete
story in the print issue.
Talk
to mortgage loan consultants, architects, real estate agents and
interior decorators at Build
/ Renovate Your Own Castle II.
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H. Dawn Patrick-Wout
and the About Interiors team transformed this family room from cold
and
impersonal to warm and inviting. Before
the
transformation, the two-story wall of windows and and stone hearth
loomed above the plasma
TV
and fireplace that stood out against stark white walls. |
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H.
Dawn Patrick-Wout and the About Interiors
team
transformed this family room from cold
and
impersonal to warm and inviting. Before
the
transformation, the two-story wall of windows
and
stone hearth loomed above the plasma TV
and
fireplace that stood out against stark white walls.
|
|
