Linda Erlam is a designing woman.
Erlam creates drapes, blinds and slipcovers in her business – Design Sewlutions.
Believing that, with a little instruction, people are perfectly capable of solving their own design challenges, Erlam recently produced Every-Day Design Dilemmas.
Available online, the book addresses size and placement of coffee tables, area rugs, lamps and coffee tables as well as suggestions on creating calming rooms and developing pleasing contrasts.
As well as operating her own business, Erlam believes in using her talents to give back, something she has done at Haney Heritage Village in partnership with archivist Deborah Chapman.
“Deborah asked me to do something a few years ago; I had to make a padded rocking chair,” she says, noting a photo of a baby in a bassinet with everybody standing around it was reproduced as a vignette in the museum. “But they didn’t have a padded rocking chair, so they gave me this wooden thing.”
After her initial success, Erlam was asked to help with creating new curtains for the nursery in Haney House.
“I found the fabric, embroidered cotton, at Fabricland and (owner) Denise Green gave me just a smoking deal,” she says, noting the quilting guild had also given Haney some money. “We came in way under budget.”
Erlam says she and Chapman have had discussions about further plans for the iconic Haney House and are working on designs so the work can progress as soon as the funds are available.
It is a collaboration that suits Chapman very well too.
“She shops for the best deal for me, she gives me a choice of appropriate fabrics and designs to choose from and then lets me make the decision,” Chapman says.
Chapman describes Haney House as the jewel in the Haney Heritage Village crown and the reason for its existence.
“Marjorie Haney Fulton donated the land and the house to the District of Salmon Arm on the condition the Salmon Arm Museum manage it in honour of her father,” Chapman says. “It is the most significant appropriate building on the property. It’s on the heritage register and protected by bylaw – the only home in Salmon Arm that is protected by a bylaw.”
Erlam, meanwhile, is looking forward to the next project .
“Old-world drapery pattern making is very specific… the art has been lost,” she says, noting she attended classes at the Custom Home Furnishings Academy in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s how you do these oldest things, so I am itching to get into the drawing room and create some swags and outrageous trim in velvet. Deborah knows any time she phones me, I’ll be there.”
Erlam’s book is now available online at www.everydaydesigndilemmas.com. The cost is $6.
