Today on the Chaise Lounge, Nick talks to Kate Lester of Kate Lester Interiors about growing up in Southern California, wanting to grow up to be rich and evolving into a designer and how fun it is to tell people “No.”
Welcome to day 2 of the Chaise Lounge’s coverage of High Point Market Spring 2019. Today, Nick hosts Bria Hammel, Jeremy Bauer, Jason Clifton, Rachel Moriarty and Bobby Berk in the lounge.
And part two of this episode is Nick’s panel of traveling designers. He hosts Chad James, Susan Jamieson, Nina Magon and Benjamin Johnston as they discuss what it’s like to run design businesses with projects all over the world and how they handle the difficulties that come with that model and how they enjoy the benefits.
Today on The Chaise Lounge, Nick chats with Michael Stornello and Tom Konopiots, the couple behind Chicago’s Vincere, LTD. Both men started their adult lives in very different careers. Stornello was executive vice president of development at the company that would become CBS Television Distribution, and Konopiots was CEO and COO respectively of two different futures trading companies. At one point, Stornello was living his work week in L.A. and commuting back to Chicago to spend weekends with Konopiots. All the while they’d both become master decorators in their own homes, moving in, remodeling the place and eventually moving back out. So, in 2007, Stornello started Vincere, and three years later Konopiots joined him to become full-time business partners.
On this Friday’s episode of The Chaise Lounge, Charlotte-based designer Lauren Clement who grew up watching her mother make a living decorating. When she found herself at a crossroads after a serious car accident, grad school or follow her passion into interior design. She chose the latter, and currently runs Lauren Nicole Designs where she and her mother work on a dozen projects at a time with only the help of a bookkeeper.
Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer are partners in life and in business. Based in Jackson, Wyoming, WRJ Interior Design creates elegant residential designs and commercial and museum exhibitions.
On this Christmas-week edition of The Chaise Lounge, Nick chats with Timothy Murenzi from Studio Tumo in Ontario, California. Murenzi is a lifelong entrepreneur who started his first business DJing for weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs on Long Island. He left when he was 18 to pursue an interior design degree in Tampa where he started finding work redoing bathrooms, starting with his aunt’s. SInce then, He started Studio Tumo and is constantly growing his business and tackling two to three large projects at a time with his team.