About the Designer

Becky has spent 22 years in building design, on a wide variety of projects , both commercial and residential, and hybrids of both. Past projects include private home design, mixed used residential and commercial spaces, community living facilities, and specialty spaces like medical offices and business shell fitups.

Gradually over the past 5 years, Becky has transitioned into primarily residential kitchen and bath design. She views residential space – whether single home or multi unit homes – as a personal sanctuary & a buffer from public & working life. She believes there is an underestimated importance in the connections between daily life quality and the physical environment, both natural and manmade.

Becky’s design style marries green materials & efficiency with simple, contemporary aethestics. She is highly mindful of both budget and the environment, and a straightforward, no-nonsense communicator. She is a member of both the BBB, and the local chapter of HFES (Human Factors & Ergonomic Society). She is also tech savvy with digital design and visualization tools, and has strong organizational abilities for larger projects.

Becky holds a Psychology degree from UNC Chapel Hill, and studied architectural technology briefly before going to work in design in 1986. She has taken several design studios at NCSU SOD, and has worked on many community art projects, such as the 20th anniversary art car design for the Independent in 2003.

Why Hire a Designer? Do they matter?

Here’s what I have written in the past about how I design:

Foodpairing is a site that maps complimentary flavors. Blueberries apparently get along with cinnamon and sage. The point being, all of us have access to the same ingredients. What makes the end product different is the person who puts them together.

This is just a tool to inspire you. You still need as a chef the craftsmanship, the experience, to translate this inspiration into a good recipe. It is not only mixing two components together. The balance & proportion between the two is important.

Got Time?

If time is a luxury, sometimes it works out ok by instinct. If not, the experience of practice can deliver a much more efficient, fitting, and pleasing solution. That’s why designers (a group inclusive of chefs, graphic artists, interior space designers, choreographers, etc) matter, and why it’s well worth it to hire one.

The tricky part is that the best designers make it look so easy to do. Anyone can go out and get new cabinets and countertops from Home Depot. But if they’re unfamiliar with nuances in style, color, circulation space, or how height changes can feel, it won’t look or be anything like that picture of what they wanted. And chances are very, very good that it will bug them at some level every time they see it, use it, move through it. Some folks may even start over. Which translates to more time, money and inconvenience.

Designers are hired for that accumulation of experience – because time is valuable, and learning to do it yourself may not even get you where you want to go. By some estimates, we spend up to 1/4 of our lifetime in the kitchen. Doesn’t it make sense to trust a designer with creating spaces in which you actively live every day?