Working at the Parade of Homes is an opportunity few professional interior decorators experience in their careers. This year, six Ohio State students will get the chance to participate in the 2003 Parade of Homes before their careers technically begin.
The students were recruited by Schmitz Executive Homes to help with this year’s Parade of Homes, which is slated to start June 6.
“Even though we are students, we have some new ideas and some knowledge, and we’re confident that it’s going to turn out well,” said Lisa Savage, a senior in interior merchandising and a student selected to work on the house.
Builder Joe Schmitz is not afraid to take risks, she said.
“This was a big move on his part. He is taking an initiative that no one else has, so I give him a lot of credit for that,” she said.
Savage said she and the other five seniors could not pass up the wonderful opportunity, and that she was surprised when she heard the good news.
This is the first Parade of Homes for Schmitz too, who turned to OSU looking for a different approach to design.
“We were just calling around looking for new, fresh ideas. A lot of times you go to the Parade of Homes and you see people that have been in the business for years and years,” Schmitz said.
“It’s good exposure for them and good exposure for us. Most people don’t ever get to do a Parade of Homes in their whole career, so it’s a really good opportunity for students,” he said. “They get a lot of experience that might help them later on in life.”
Creativity remains a challenge under the guidelines and budget set by the Parade of Homes. The $399,900 value of the three-story house is not limited strictly to the interior.
“The builder does have a budget. The Parade of Homes has a limit of what you can spend, and we can’t go over that. He just wants everything to be pretty upscale and high quality,” said Nikki Trivisonno, a senior in interior merchandising.
The students are responsible for working with the builder to turn their ideas into reality.
The house is divided equally among the students. However, all the ideas are run by the group before they are implemented.
“We’re all working together. There are two of us that work on each room, but we all get help from each other. It’s really a group effort, but we run it by the other women so we can make sure we’re all on the same wavelength,” Savage said.
According to Savage, the students did not fight about which rooms they were going to work on.
“Everybody wanted to do separate rooms so there were no arguments. It all kind of flowed. I think we all got the rooms that we really wanted,” she said.
The students are also responsible for locating area businesses willing to donate items for the project. Trivisonno said one of the most difficult things is trying to find a creative way to use the available items.
“We only have one person that we can get our furniture from, so you can’t really get whatever you want. You pretty much go with whatever people donate,” she said.
Despite competing against long-time professionals, realize that the opportunity will help them gain more experience and they have made valuable contacts that could help them after graduation.
“This is new for all of us, but we are confident it is going to turn out well. We’ve had some bumps and we’ve gotten over those,” she said. “We have had to compromise and go back to the drawing board a few times, but that’s how it goes.”
