July 22nd, 2010 – Chicago

Design Inside is pleased to announce that we are now approved resellers of the beautiful furniture pieces from Vanguard Funiture.  Vanguard Furniture has a wide variety of furniture collections that cross many design aesthetics and have been featured in many design magazines such as Interior Design, House Beautiful and Elle Decor.

I’ve always loved Marshall Street Canopy Bed from the Thom Filicia Home Collection as well as the Whitaker Sofa from the Michael Weiss collection.  I’m excited that we can finally bring these pieces to our customers and use them in our home designs.

- Kathryn Cherne

If you are interested in learning more about the Vanguard furniture line, any other pieces or for general interior design help, please do not hesitate to contact us.

About Design Inside

Formed in 2005 by Kathryn Cherne (formerly Kathryn Welsh) and Bill Cherne, Design Inside specializes in creating interior spaces for homes and small businesses in the Chicago and surrounding areas of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. If you find that decorating seems like a challenge too difficult to tackle, let the team at Design Inside guide you through the decorating process – helping you find an aesthetic and functional solution that will let you truly enjoy your space.

About Vanguard Furniture

It all started with a velvet chair, the perfect velvet chair – the one at the forefront, the vanguard of the room. Today, more than 40 years later, Vanguard Furniture is still making good on its name to be in the forefront of furniture — From one perfect velvet chair, to endless possibilities.

That dream of one man now employs over 500 people and occupies over 400,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Nearly all shareholders of the company are employees or grandchildren, therefore possible future employees. There truly is a family atmosphere at Vanguard, even for those that are not actually family. We work in teams from the shop floor to the office, and respect and integrity are words everyone lives by. We understand that a good reputation is easy to lose, both personally and professionally, so we strive to be good corporate citizens. It is important to us to know that our partners find us to be easy to work with, dependable, and that the products we sell are a good investment.

We have many customers that buy blinds, shades and drapery directly from us., and many are a little skeptical as to how easy it is to install window treatments in most homes.  Thanks to these excellent guide from InstallYourBlinds.com, you too can now hang your window treatments like a pro.  Click on the images below for guides to the most popular types of window treatment styles.

Horizontal Blinds

Roman Shades

Roller Shade

Honeycomb Shades

Horizontal Soft Sheer

Other Types

Images courtesy of:

• Fergus Randall
• Smith & Noble
• Muffet
• s.alt

As part of New Era Portfolio’s 10th year anniversary celebration, one of Design Inside’s projects was featured on their website for using their artwork within a interior space.  Design Inside was was featured along with other well known design firms and architects in the industry.  Click here to see the site featuring our work.

I’m excited to see that we have been selected as a featured designer on their website, it always feels good to be recognized for something that is your passion. – Kathryn Cherne

About Design Inside

Formed in 2005 by Kathryn Cherne (formerly Kathryn Welsh) and Bill Cherne, Design Inside specializes in creating interior spaces for homes and small businesses in the Chicago and surrounding areas of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. If you find that decorating seems like a challenge too difficult to tackle, let the team at Design Inside guide you through the decorating process – helping you find an aesthetic and functional solution that will let you truly enjoy your space.

About New Era Portfolio

New Era Portfolio is the only source available offering custom sized canvas and framed art. Their collections of art reproductions are available in multiple sizes. This means that you can get your canvas artwork in the perfect size necessary for your environment. They also specialize in signed and numbered limited edition prints.

Design Inside has made it to the “Best of Yelp!” list for Chicago Interior Designers.  We couldn’t be more excited about being featured on such a prominent website where people give their honest reviews about businesses they use on a daily basis.

I’ve been using Yelp! for years to find great businesses and I’m thrilled that Design Inside is being featured at the top of the list for Interior Designers in Chicago. – Bill Cherne

If you haven’t had a chance, I suggest you check out our customer reviews on Yelp! I also recommend that you also read reviews by our other customers that got filtered out because they are not avid Yelpers.

We are big believers in recycling everything that we can, unfortunately not every neighborhood in Chicago has the wonderful blue carts outside of their houses that makes recycling cardboard, glass and bottles easy.  Also, most apartments or condos in the city do not have city waste and recycling pickup due to the number of units.

To aid in the recycling process, I have pulled together a map of all of the recycling centers in the city that handle recycling common household goods like paper, plastic and glass.  If you have an obscure item that you want to recycle like Appliances, cell phones, or a bike; check out this helpful guide on the Chicago Recycling Coalition website.

View Chicago Recycling Centers in a larger map

Map Key

Chicago Recycling Centers

Waste Management Recycling Centers

Recycle or Donate Household Items (Clothing, electronics, batteries, chemicals, etc.)

Recycling Centers that Pay You

[Image courtesy of pomme_rewny]

One of the most common questions we hear from prospective customers is “how much should I budget for furniture?”  This is a really tough question since we don’t know what specific pieces will be selected until we actually select specific items and get final pricing. In order to assist with the estimation process, we have come up with this guide which will help guide you in determining how much your furniture may cost you.  If you find something that seems out of line, or if you think there should be a furniture category added, please leave us a message in the comments section. Happy estimating!

[Image courtesy of colinmford]

June 9th, 2010 – Chicago

Design Inside is pleased to announce that we are now approved resellers of the beautiful furniture pieces from Stanley Furniture.  We have always admired the design, style and quality of Stanley Furniture and it is great that we can now order this furniture for our customers directly from the manufacturer.  This not only gives us direct control over the ordering process, but it allows us to offer our customers every fabric, wood trim and option available.

About Design Inside

Formed in 2005 by Kathryn Cherne (formerly Kathryn Welsh) and Bill Cherne, Design Inside specializes in creating interior spaces for homes and small businesses in the Chicago and surrounding areas of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. If you find that decorating seems like a challenge too difficult to tackle, let the team at Design Inside guide you through the decorating process – helping you find an aesthetic and functional solution that will let you truly enjoy your space.

About Stanley Furniture

Stanley Furniture Company dates back to 1924 when Thomas B. Stanley—a young dairy farmer—founded this company. His vision was to create furniture of superior craftsmanship, style and afford-ability.  He started by shipping the finest lumber from the Northeast to a small town in western Virginia—later to be named Stanleytown—where he employed highly skilled craftsman.  Today, over 1300 associates carry on Thomas Stanley’s vision of quality, American-made furniture.

To all of you in the Chicago area, ComED is offering a new recycling program where they will haul off your old appliance, recycle it responsibly and pay you $25!  Sure beats bribing a few buddies with pizza and beer to help you move that old refrigerator in your basement.  As with any program, there are a few requirements that are outlined here at ComED’s website.

Photo by: armigeress

Today, the the National Association of Realtors announced that existing home sales in the month of April 2010 increased by a larger than expected 7.6% in April.  This was a 23% increase over last year’s results.  The big question is, will the existing home sales numbers decrease next month now that the government tax incentives are now over?  Many wonder if this is the “last hurrah”.

What do you think about this?  Did you just purchase a home in April to take advantage of the tax credit?  Or, are you planning to purchase a home in the coming months, regardless of the tax credit?

[ TheStreet and NAR ]

Photo by: TheTruthAbout

May 7th, 2010 – Chicago

Design Inside is pleased to announce that we are now approved retailers of the Rowe and Robin Bruce line of furniture.  We have used Rowe furniture in many of our past designs, and it is great that we can now order this furniture for our customers directly from the manufacturer.  This not only gives us direct control over the ordering process, but it allows us to offer our customers every fabric, wood trim and option available.

About Design Inside

Formed in 2005 by Kathryn Cherne (formerly Kathryn Welsh) and Bill Cherne, Design Inside specializes in creating interior spaces for homes and small businesses in the Chicago and surrounding areas of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. If you find that decorating seems like a challenge too difficult to tackle, let the team at Design Inside guide you through the decorating process – helping you find an aesthetic and functional solution that will let you truly enjoy your space.

Press Contact
Bill Cherne
800.776.3609

About Rowe Furniture

In 60+ years, Rowe Fine Furniture has grown from the dream of two men in Virginia, to one of America’s most respected custom upholstery furniture manufacturers. Visit the Rowe website to see how the Rowe-Jordan Furniture Company and their one small building transformed into Rowe Fine Furniture, Inc. with a portfolio of brands which includes Rowe, Clayton Marcus and Robin Bruce.