melissa.kradas.1250906

Melissa Kradas, Allied ASID

Personal Style

Scituate, Massachusetts

Project type:

About

After a successful 12-year career as a management consultant, culminating in the creation of the first teaching nursing home in Connecticut, Melissa Kradas, the principal of the firm, returned to school to pursue her first love, interior design. Subsequent experience in kitchen design, commercial design, and retail home furnishings prompted Melissa to open her own full-service decorating firm in 1983, and a unique, interactive kitchen showroom in 2004. The name of the firm, Personal Style LLC, reflects her philosophy that interior design should reflect each client�s unique personality. Today Melissa, an Allied Member of ASID, has a weekly syndicated newspaper column, Designer to the Rescue, teaches two interior design courses, lectures, and is a veteran of 7 showhouses. Her work has been published in 3 books, Ultimate Decorating, UrbanStyle, and Decorator Show Houses, and featured in Today�s Salon magazine. Darlene Spignesi, Office Manager, has spent the last 30+ years as a decorator, commercial sales associate, and accessories buyer for various firms, including her own. Her expertise is in merchandising and accessorizing. Darlene handles the administration of our very busy studio. We hire other designers on a subcontractor basis, as needed.

Services Offered

Personal Style LLC offers full residential and contract design services. In addition to the creation of innovative and dramatic interiors, the firm�s design specialties include kitchens & baths, custom cabinetry, life-care facilities, aging in the home, and award-winning hair salons.

Awards

There's no information available.

Fee Structures

While we definitely increase the cost at the front end of a project, the savings in the long run can be substantial. We offer two types of contracts, and choose the one that best meets the client's needs. In the first type of contract, we charge an hourly fee, plus expenses, with a small markup on product; and we require a retainer for a minimum of 5 hours. We request that all purchases be made through our firm, because we have found from experience that this avoids problems with clients surprising us with problematic purchases made on their own. In the second type of contract, we provide hourly consultations and drawings only; and the clients are free to make their own purchases and find their own contractors. Naturally, from a business point of view, it is more advantageous for a designer to spend time on a job that will include purchases rather than just advice and drawings, so in order to make up for the loss of revenue, we charge a higher hourly rate. In this case, the best thing for the clients to do is to maximize their time with us by preparing a list of questions and magazine pictures ahead of time.

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