🛋FIELD GUIDE 24: The interior arts
In 2001, Kate moved to the end of my street, and I forced my friendship on her. She’s been stuck with me ever since. She’s talented, hilarious, intelligent, a great mama, and an amazing friend.
Her profession allows her to share her talent with her city (and beyond), providing functionality and comfort with room for her to flex her artistic flair. She’s sharing with you what she does on a day to day basis with Mason Inc.
Name
Kate Rountree
Habitat
Savannah GA
Occupation
Interior Designer
Soundtrack
I’m Kate. I’m 31 years young, and a typical 90’s kid. Imma bust out to some Usher no matter the situation. If it’s on, I’m singing it.
I am a college graduate, momma to two beautiful children aged 4 and 6, and a wife to an amazing man.
Some things about me are that I’m always willing to lend a helping hand, I could talk to literally anyone, and I’m genuinely sarcastic. I have a pretty quick wit, and crack jokes like it’s my job. I have a creative side and a very analytical side to me. But overall, I’m super simple.
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and moved around the states quite a bit because of the Army. In 2001 we moved from Viva Las Vegas to Savannah, and I’ve been here ever since. 21 years later, I still have no southern accent. When I open my mouth, you know I’m “not from ‘round these parts”.
The high school I went to allowed its students to select a “major” (for lack of a better term). I chose Choral Arts and Piano, from there I attended Armstrong Atlantic State University where I thought it would be a more wise career decision to go the nursing route. Well… I was wrong. Nursing is a job that you have to be married to and I found out quickly that it wasn’t for me.
I have always loved real estate, housing, scrolling through floor plans, and just in general am an HGTV junky. I decided to enter into the Interior Design program at Georgia Southern University minoring in Business Management.
Once I got my foot in the door, I knew that this was the career for me. Now, GSU’s Interior Design program is a CIDA and NASAD accredited program. I would like to say our training was more of an Interior Architects education rather than just Interior Design. We had to learn literally everything.
Hand drafting
Building codes
Healthcare
Commercial
Hospitality
Residential
The amount of programs that we learned to draw, build, render, and present is just…astounding.
I was trained in:
AutoCAD
Revit
3Ds Max
Sketch Up
Adobe Design Suite
the Microsoft Suite of programs
I spent countless nights sitting in the studio doing projects. We were expected to know door widths, flooring materials, wall sizes, drywall types, plumbing, HVAC, roofing, you name it we did it.
This was not just a throw pillow and paint color career.
After college, I got hired into a commercial furniture dealership where my role is to aid sales representatives in the design process with clients selecting their commercial furniture packages. We meet with the client, discuss needs, aesthetics, wants and budget.
From this meeting, I typically take a CAD plan, import it into a program called CET – yes, another program – that is specific to our industry and take their list of things and apply it using the expansive manufacturer list of furniture products.
There is a manufacturer for pretty much anything you can think of, price-wise and style-wise. I usually give 1-3 options of space plans to fit in what the client needs, keeping in mind ADA codes and building codes and then put the drawings into 3D renderings, and a formal presentation.
Once a client decides if they want to make changes or proceed, we go to quoting the product. Every manufacturer has their own discount structure, freight policy and what not. Once the pricing is done and the client accepts, the order is placed. After the product arrives, we have an installation team that goes to site and assembles the furniture in place.
The process sounds simple, but projects can last months, even years in some cases, and there is a lot in between that happens from the initial meeting to the close of the project. Not only am I doing interior design, I am doing product selection and project management, and a bit of budgeting and value engineering too.
Overall, I love what I do. This is a niche of interior design that really gets to show how deep your education can go. Like I said previously, I do a little bit of everything in this field using both my major and minor in the process. While I feel like generally, people think office furniture comes from Staples, there are many dealerships in our area, but I work for the best one.
:)
Learn More
Mason Inc., the company that Kate works for, has a blog!