Along the road of my career and travels, I've been extremely fortunate to meet and work with an array of incredibly talented people. Ramblings is my way of picking their brain for more insight and juicy tidbits to share with you.
Meredith Heron is a Toronto-based interior designer and television personality who has appeared on HGTV's Love by Design, Design Match, and as a guest on House & Home. She has also been featured on several episodes of the Food Network's Restaurant Makeover. I "met" Meredith via Twitter, and will finally have a chance to chat with her in person at
Blogfest. If you don't already know Meredith's work, she is a dynamo whose work combines the classic with the most unexpected details. She recently launched her blog,
Sashay and if you love design it is one to follow. Meet Meredith!
What is your greatest extravagance?
Honestly? Food. Followed by purses. My husband is a former caterer and is a fabulous cook. We buy organic, locally grown foods. When we travel, we love to indulge in fabulous restaurants. But purses really are a close second. I'm not a label girl so much, but I just love a fabulous shape, colour, texture. My husband thinks I have a problem. I'm a collector not a hoarder.
What career would you pursue if you weren’t doing what you do now?
Floral or graphic Design for sure. I love to do both but I'm more of a MacGyver renegade. I have no formal training in either but boy do I sure have opinions. I study flower arrangements all the time, deconstruct how they were put together and then practice. I used to be a school teacher - I'm not cut out for routine.
Which living person do you most admire?
Given the events in the world right now, I have to say without a doubt I am full of utter admiration for the Japanese people. How they are able to work together for the greater good, sacrifice themselves for the safety and well-being of others and their stoicism in the face of so many horrors both natural and man made. It really goes to their collective character as a nation.
What three things can’t you live without?
My family, without question. I have the yummiest of yummy baby boys.
A great lipstick. As a natural redhead who is losing all colour to her hair, I was going with my hair stylist but really, a great lipstick is the key. It keeps me from becoming entirely translucent in the winter months. I prefer a matte pinky brown - my favourite one was sadly discontinued but now it's a cheap and cheerful Annabelle shade called Classic. It's the perfect day shade. Makes me look put together even if I'm in sweats.
Sadly, (as if admitting it here finally means I'm admitting I have a problem) I can't live without my iPhone. It feels like such a cliche answer but it's true. I have heart palpations if it's not within say 3 feet of me. I break into a sweat if I'm on low battery with no charger around. I get rather territorial if someone ::cough cough (myhusband):: needs to use it - kind of like my laptop. I really don't like people using it. I make the exception for my son who at 20 months can unlock my phone, find YouTube and watch endless loops of Elmo videos.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Without a doubt crap tv. Remember Temptation Island? I do. I miss it even. It was a horrible, terrible show and I loved it. Sadly in Canada, we are a few months/years behind in some shows. I've yet to have the pleasure of the Real Housewives of Miami or Beverly Hills to entertain me. I find that the trashier, more train wreck of a show, the better able I am to totally disconnect from my real world and just exist. Tweeting with other people about said Train Wreck makes it all the more enjoyable. @ShutUpErica @BrokeSocialite @KelliDaisy and @Possessionista are fabulous tweeps to follow for their Savvy accounting of television crapdom at it's best.
What is your favorite color combination?
I'm a card carrying Life Time Member of the I Love Indigo club. I pair it with so many different things and I love them all so much. Currently I'm pairing, Indigo, Blush, Coral & Emerald Green in my bedroom; Indigo & Citrine in my son's room and Indigo, Blush, Pomegranate & Cobalt in my living room.
I'm a lover of Kelly Green and I just pitched a project that revolves around Grey Scale & Hermes Orange that I'm particularly in love with.
What is the favorite room in your house, and why?
I don't have a favourite room (yet). I have favourite vignettes & vistas but not really a favourite room. I love my Vladimir Kagan chairs in my living room. I upholstered them in Manchester Wool from Threadcount in the most delicious shade of indigo. I never tire looking at them. I love my art wall in my dining room. I love that I painted white & vivid Citrine horizontal stripes in my Vestibule. Makes the whole space look gigantic and so chic. A perfect welcome, a total surprise.
What is the most memorable event you’ve attended and why?
My wedding. Without a doubt. Technically my husband proposed to me on our first date. Jokingly, but that still stands as the only true proposal on record. Three years later we were in Le Singe Vert in Chelsea in NYC and after several bottles of wine & the most delicious butter-soaked Tilapia on record we decided that we should get married. This was in August. We bantered about having it on Ward's Island here in Toronto, the site of our first date. Wondered about having it at a friend's restaurant there, and threw out the date of the upcoming Thanksgiving long weekend (we are Canadians people & Thanksgiving is in OCTOBER! ha ha ha).
We got back to Toronto, called our friend Ken up, he was enthusiastically behind the idea and made sure to close the restaurant down for us.
In under 6 weeks we planned a sit down dinner for 60 people, an oyster bar, designed & had made my wedding dress (in acid green), made all of my own centrepieces, bouquets & floral arrangements for the day & decorated the restaurant. We sent out invites to all the guests via email and asked them to wear red. All the decor was red too. I of course, a redhead, wore green. Now it seems perfectly designed but I had intended to wear pink (my husband loves me in pink) but he went out and bought a suit that had a brown/orange shirt with acid green in it. Pink would have looked horrible with it. So I remembered some acid green dupioni silk we had used for a client's project and ordered more of it. I had my drapery seamstress (who was a fabulous gothic-ware designer) make the dress. The bodice is hand-boned.
It was absolutely stress free. A client who is a fabulous wedding photographer - Michelle Quance, was unusually available to shoot our wedding. I splurged on the photos but the wedding itself was well under $10,000 all in. It really does help to have friends in the industry and of course it doesn't hurt to have designed over 25 restaurants and renovated them in five days on a budget. The final WOW of our day - as the evening wore on the moon came up on the horizon - a harvest moon. Like our guests, it too wore red as part of the overall design. Priceless.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
I'm actually rather shy. I mean sure I'm on tv and comfortable speaking to a crowd of thousands at an event. But I often feel like I'm rather shy and nervous about different social situations. I just hide it by being overly confident and outgoing.
Please don't ever sing happy birthday to me in public. I want to crawl under the table and hide.
What is your biggest pet peeve?
Just one? Gum chewing. I used to chew it all the time but somewhere along the way I stopped. I have always hated others chewing it noisily around me but it's become an obsession. It's banned from my office. I can't tolerate even the smell of it. Creeps me out.
