What is my niche?

I belong to a designer chat every Tuesday and the topic today is "What is my niche?"

Well...good question and takes a bit of thinking, can you smell smoke?

After contemplating this one for a bit, I don't feel like I can just describe just one niche....I think I have a few different niches, so I will list a few that I am more passionate about. (You can recognize these with all the "loves" in the sentence, couldn't think on another word!)

** I love to renovate. I love the history in older homes and buildings, I love to preserve or incorporate old and new. I love going into an old house and opening up walls to make it more open and into today's world. I love to wonder who lived here before and before them and what they did for the world.

 My niche: Combining old with new to give an updated look and feel

** I love to do framing walk-thrus on new construction. I always find hidden areas that can become storage. I find areas that reflect more or less light than I originally thought and use that to my advantage by using a mirror or a reflective accessory to bring more light into the room or a place for a halogen spot to light up a particular piece of artwork. Framing stage is also a phase to reassure any electrical questions you may of had.

 My niche: Seeing and Understanding All Aspects of the Job in the Construction Phase.


**I love color. I love when a client is not afraid of color. I love when a client gets excited with me when I suggest using something bold and something that makes a statement.

My Niche: Color is definitely my niche!

**I love installing jobs. I love opening up the boxes at the job site and putting the picture that is in my    head into reality. I love presenting the final project to client and they are as happy as I am.

 My Niche: Loving what I do and feeling the passion until the very end!!

Custom Lighting Workroom Visit

I was invited to a gathering at a local well known lighting company called Hinkley's here in Scottsdale.  They set it up in the back where they actually made the custom fixtures.  I was really intrigued.  I love watching things being made. 

We were walked around by one of the designers who showed us some of her work. She is very talented and knowledgeable and you can see by the way she explains some of the fixures very passionate about what she does.

Also at the workroom there were guys actually melting steel, hammering it, twisting and turning it, and molding it to make parts of the fixtures.  I love lighting fixtures and why I had never seen this part of it I'll never know.  I guess I was to busy specifying them then to get into the science of how they were produced.  That was their job.  This I am understanding now, was my loss.

I have been getting pretty involved with going to my vendors events lately and I am happy I am doing this.  Vendors are also taking this time to inform designers on their products properly by putting on these events.
In the past month I have been to Kallista for a presentation on Custom Showers, Kravet Furniture where they uphostered a chair in front and displayed the types of frames/padding, fabrics, etc.  And as I mentioned above Hinkleys Lighting.

  Business being a bit slow is giving me a chance to relearn.  To put a face to a name rather than just talking to vendors on the phone.  Actually seeing what it is that they do on a day to day.  Realizing that always seeing them in my place of business could hamper me because seeing each little thing that goes into the job is just as important to the whole process of what they bring to the table.