Area interior design students are rolling up their sleeves and jumping at the chance to see their creations come to life in the Fall Homearama Charity House to benefit Tidewater Builders Association’s Scholarship Foundation. The house is one of nine custom showcase homes on display at Tidewater Builders Association’s Fall Homearama presented by TowneBank Oct. 15-30 at The Riverfront at Harbour View in Suffolk.
 
In keeping with the educational theme, Women In Design, an organization of local designers, is teaming up with instructors from Tidewater Community College and the Art Institute of Virginia Beach to mentor interior design students in a competition to design a space in the home. The winning team will work with designer Rich Kahler of Exotic Homes to furnish the space.

The mentors, some of whom are directly involved in interior design and others in design-oriented businesses, are offering the students guidance and direction and personal insight.

About the competition
Seven teams took on the challenge – three from the Art Institute of Virginia Beach and five from Tidewater Community College.

They were given a packet with a color palette and a set of criteria to meet to be considered for the competition. The students were given a choice of rooms in the house, including two bedrooms, the family loft and teen den/media room. They then created storyboards, boards with images of how a room will look when completed, with paint samples, wallpaper and fabric swatches, flooring samples and more. These storyboards were used as a basis for selecting the winning design.
 
Charity House builders Michael Newsome and Lee Ward of Clark Whitehill Enterprises are thrilled about the competition and how it turned out. “We wanted the educational aspect to be real, to reflect a real-life experience of what an interior design professional may be confronted with in his or her career, and that it not be some clinical, sterile experience,” said Newsome. “What we were able to cobble together involved a budget, time constraints and a presentation, all of which were separate from the normal things that they are focusing on in school. I think they’ll look back on this and always remember it.”

One mentor was even able to teach the students about business practices for designers — from presentations to financing a business. “The whole house is about education,” said Kathy Browning of Design Consultants, who spearheaded the competition. Not only are the students, who range in age from 18 to 68, learning to work in teams on the project, but they were also eligible for course credit.

The students are “very attentive to detail. They are embracing the color schemes and utilizing them to blend with the entire zone,” said Browning. “They are thinking outside the box and are thinking not only about the individual moving into the home, but they are thinking like a team.”

It’s that thinking outside of the box that landed the Art Institute of Virginia Beach’s Chad Krikorian and Rechelle Palacios the winning design in the competition. They are now busy working with lead designer Rich Kahler of Exotic Home to incorporate their design into the home.

“We are going to implement 90 percent of their design into the house,” said Kahler. “I thought it was fantastic and was impressed with all the designs and work that the students put into the house.”
  
Newsome agreed. “What really surprised me the most was not just their artistic expression, but the thought process of the use of the room, how it was going to be used and how to accommodate it in such a creative way,” said Newsome of the entries. The students’ storyboards will be on display in at the Charity House throughout Homearama.

Newsome is also the chairman of the TBA Scholarship Foundation, which will receive proceeds from the sale of the home. This marks the third house built by Clark Whitehill Enterprises for the foundation, including the inaugural house in 1966 and again in 1990. The foundation has awarded more than $1.66 million to 424 students since 1965.