251 Elevating Interior Design in Model Homes - Doris Pearlman Jan 15 2025

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.

Greg Bray: And we are excited today to have joining us on the show, Doris Pearlman. Doris is the president of Possibilities for Design. Welcome, Doris. Thanks for being with us today.

Doris Pearlman: Thank you for having me.

Greg Bray: Well, Doris, let's start off by just getting to know a little bit about you. Give us a quick overview and background about yourself.

Doris Pearlman: Possibilities for Design is located in Denver, Colorado. We are interior [00:01:00] designers and merchandisers. We primarily work within the new home building industry. I have been in business going on 40 years now. Love the industry and have a real passion for new home building.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. So, before we get into anything more about possibilities for design, can we find out one little tidbit about you that has nothing to do with family, work, or the home building industry?

Doris Pearlman: Okay. I was a schoolteacher for about three seconds before I went into design.

Kevin Weitzel: Did you become a teacher then realize you hate children or what?

Doris Pearlman: I just realized I wasn't cut out for that job. I grew up in a family that had a big design background. My father was a textile designer, and I loved design. And so, after going through and getting a bachelor of science in education, got a job and found out as a teacher, a fifth grade teacher, found out that it wasn't for [00:02:00] me. And so, I moved on.

Kevin Weitzel: My fifth-grade teacher was named Doris Green. She was also a Doris. Doris Green. Yeah.

Greg Bray: And what helped you, Doris, say all right, I want to go into design instead. What kind of triggered that moment for you?

Doris Pearlman: Well, I grew up around design and I always liked design, and I really believe that people who are involved in design, in general, if they are gifted, have a design brain. There's a sense of balance that comes along with design and just a direction that's internal, and I think that for me, it was always there.

Kevin Weitzel: I think there's some truth to that, Greg, because I remember when I was a kid, I had a friend and their entire family were classically trained musicians, you know, travel the globe, playing one concert after another. The whole family all literally looked like they could all be librarians. And I know that sounds crazy. I mean, it's not an insult. It's just that there is something to that [00:03:00] mindset that puts you into that environment to where it's almost self-prophesizing. Is that the word?

Doris Pearlman: I think also it's a left brain, right brain kind of condition. Creative people are programmed one way internally and that is who I am and I've been fortunate enough to live in that world. So, consequently, I have a real passion for what I do and love going to work.

Greg Bray: Well, Doris, tell us a little bit more about what you guys offer. Who's kind of your ideal client that you like to work with and what type of services do you typically provide?

Doris Pearlman: We work within the home building industry. That is not only our primary segment, it is our only segment. We do model homes, clubhouses and public spaces, and sales offices, and design and install them and have been doing that for a lot of years, obviously, and work all over the country. We're Denver based, but actually have [00:04:00] worked in Canada. We work coast to coast in the United States, north, south, east and west really.

Greg Bray: So, you've obviously had an opportunity to have conversations with lots of builders over time, and there's some builders, I believe, that are much more interested in design, and then there's others that maybe not so much. Where do you, in general, see builders’ kind of fall on that spectrum? Are most of them really interested, or is it just a few that really want to kind of get that top notch design service in place?

Doris Pearlman: Well, you have to look at homes today as really any company's product. So, ultimately, all home builders should be interested and are interested, I think, in their product. We work in a medium that helps them define the product, highlight the positives, minimize the negatives because there are no perfect plans in this world. And then [00:05:00] we actually, create and design sales. So, everything that we do is geared toward product development and a refining product development and then ultimately working to sell the home.

Kevin Weitzel: So, speaking of selling a home, Doris, let me ask you this question. In today's day and age, there's not a ton of differentiation from builder to builder because they're all buying their tile from the same companies, they're buying their paint from the same companies, you know, it's regionally specific. With everybody using various shades of it used to be beige, then it was gray, now it's greige, when are bright, bold colors ever going to come back?

Doris Pearlman: Well, they're always there. So, I used to belong to an association called Color Marketing Group. Are you familiar with that organization?

Kevin Weitzel: Nope.

Doris Pearlman: All right. So, in every industry, there are fashion forecast groups, and those groups, they actually set the trend because all major industries have [00:06:00] to kind of band together to figure out a direction. And what somebody figured out about 30 years ago was that if everybody decided, let's just say a color for the year, and everybody in every industry that was associated with that forecast group adopted that color, you then would get much more of a consensus and much more of an exposure to people's acceptance of the change.

And so, nobody wants arrows in their back. So, if you talk about color, you talk about how it moves in waves, you talk about the economic conditions, you talk about what people will respond to in a stable and prosperous economy versus an economy that would be a little more insecure. So, there's a lot of psychology around color too.

But what you asked was when will bright colors come back, and I believe accent [00:07:00] colors are always there. You do not want to paint a room an entire room terracotta, but today one of the biggest accent colors around is terracotta. And you would put it against gray walls. You could put it against a beigy/taupey wall or you could put it against a white wall. But the idea is you have to understand how to use color and you have to understand what it does as far as creating a memory, number one, and also an attitude or a mood.

Kevin Weitzel: So, to be a little bit more specific, are we going to see in my lifetime pink bathroom tiles come back in Vogue, or blue toilets and sinks and tubs. Are we going to see anything other than just plain old white and black come back? I mean, something other than just the same old stuff.

Doris Pearlman: But then you haven't really been looking closely because there are all of those colors right now. Everything you named is in the [00:08:00] design loop right now. Pink is coming back. It might not come back as appliances, but it has come back in accents, in furniture and furnishings, and is taking hold. In specific places with specific buyers in mind, you might see a primary bedroom that is very softly a blush color. So, it's here already.

What comes around goes around. Harvest Gold. Do you remember that, guys? Well, Harvest Gold is back. I mean, nobody's going to call it Harvest Gold, but they could call it Champagne. Design right now is looking at, number one, a lot of gold hardware on cabinets in bathrooms. So, gold is a very prominent finish and the color also has come back as far as an overall color for paint.

Kevin Weitzel: So, I mean, I'm as masculine as they come, you know, facial hair. I look like a tailgating party, you know, [00:09:00] executive, but I would kill for a spare bathroom in Jackie Onassis paint, you know, the whole thing, boom, ceiling to floor. But let me ask you this, do you think that home builders stay in the safe lane with the beiges and the neutral tones because they think that that's what the consumer wants or is it because that's what they're being supplied?

Doris Pearlman: It depends on the audience. First of all, you have to talk about the percentage of color that you use in a home. So, the two biggest percentages of color used in a home are the flooring and the walls. Our objective is to create and enlarge a space visually. It's not really only about safety, it's also about making a home look as large as possible. It is about being able, today, to unite the exterior and the interior. I know you gentlemen have probably heard about biophilic design, but it is huge. Since COVID, it has been really a driver.

Also, you [00:10:00] have an unknown quantity walking through your model home doors and you're right, you don't want to turn anybody off because they dislike red. So, the idea is that you do try to stay in a safe range. Coloration is determined as far as trend goes, it used to be by fashion and the fashion industry. The furniture industry followed suit and kind of followed after the fashion industry. And really now, it is the same.

I think that you can walk into a store, and you can look at the racks in a store, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom's, and see the colors that predominate and know that if they're not In the furniture industry now, they will be within the year. So, again, nobody wants arrows in their back, and the idea is that creating a consensus and an acceptance for color works. It puts everybody in a comfort [00:11:00] zone.

Greg Bray: So, Doris, you mentioned earlier, and you've hinted at it a couple of times, that what you're trying to do is help the builder sell the home. Sometimes I've run into creative artist type folks who don't want to let other people influence their creativity. This is my vision. This is my look. You can't come in here and say, people won't like that, they won't buy it. How do you balance that with the creative, I want to do something maybe a little different on the edge and then balance it with, I've got to have something that they can sell that most people will like? Do you find there's tension there or do they line up pretty often, or how does that kind of play out for you?

Doris Pearlman: Well, I think it's a design philosophy. The sense of whimsy and the sense of fun and putting a smile on people's face as they walk through the door of any model home is important. Ultimately, no matter what the home is, there should be a sense of creativity [00:12:00] about putting things together. There are just certain strictures that you need to understand. Design in home design, is about, first of all, scale and flow and traffic and size. Without that piece, you have nothing. You just have people dropping furniture into place. So, it's a very, very carefully curated process.

And it's kind of like layers of a cake. Number one, you've got to create a floor plan that let's people move through it easily. You've got to create a floor plan that highlights the architectural features of the home. And you've got to create a floor plan that allows the indoor/outdoor relationship to happen as well. So, that's number one. Number two, you've got to figure out who the buyer is and what their lifestyle is. And then number three, everybody likes to feel good.

And so, what you're really all about is getting [00:13:00] people to walk into that home, identify with that home emotionally, and then feel good as they go through the home. The whimsy can happen in a lot of spaces, but secondary rooms, children's bedrooms are a great place to make people smile. Studies are used to number one, create an identification with the profession of the potential buyer. Let's say that buyer is a fan of classic cars, you would use art that would bring that to mind. So, there's lots of places for creativity, it's just that there are also guidelines that you've got to respect that allow people to see the home better.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, obviously, and this kind of goes back to my same question again, and I hate to keep beating this up, but it's just something that really just sticks in my craw. I realized that not everybody is a Mondrian fan. You know, nobody wants to go [00:14:00] in and see bold squares of primary colors just blasted all over the place. But I truly do see from model home, after model home, after model home, after builder, after builder, after builder, I see nothing but just safe neutrality.

What's to say a builder couldn't take even a simple, simple box style home and Trina Turk it to death? You know, just go in there and do all the Trina Turk colors and just pop them everywhere. What's to keep that from happening and would that really turn people away? Or would it be so different, bold, and new that it would actually draw people in?

Doris Pearlman: The way you use color changes also and evolves. Exterior colorization right now is different than the way we did it, say, 10 years ago. And the same thing goes for interiors. You can use color, it's just that you have to be careful of not overwhelming the persona and overwhelming the style of a home. Because color can create a huge effect and it creates [00:15:00] memory, but you don't want it to obscure the architecture or the flow of the plan.

To answer one more question, let's just take the color orange. Orange and shades of orange and brown, orange and terracotta are all as I mentioned, coming in right now. So, how would I and in what spaces would I involve the color is kind of what maybe you're asking and how would I involve it?

First of all, orange has a lot of negativity associated with it, so you have to be careful about the shade. Would I use it in a great room? Only as a throw pillow, not as the entire wall. Next question would be, would I ever use orange as a wall of paint? If I did, and if I was brave enough to do it, I'd do it in a child's room or in a loft. And would I do it as a whole wall? No, probably not, but I might do it as a stripe.

Greg Bray: Doris, as you see [00:16:00] lots of design that others have done, not just your team, and you walk into a builder and say, Oh, you know, we need to tweak this or tweak that. What type of impact have you seen design changes make on actual sales? Can you go in and improve some design and all of a sudden the same home, same location, same price point, everything, and all of a sudden they're selling more because of what they've made it look like?

Doris Pearlman: Yes. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes, it changes the dynamic. The first thing would be that if you have five floor plans and you only choose to design and merchandise three of them, you can almost guarantee that the two that you haven't designed or haven't merchandise aren't going to sell as well. That's number one.

Number two, if you are a good critic of the design, you can look at it and you can decide what is working. [00:17:00] Obviously, again, scale and placement of furniture and furnishings is really important. When people walk through the front door, you don't want to overwhelm them with furniture that's too large.

You want to utilize, again, the scale and the placement to show the room off visually as large as possible. So, if you walk into a house and you see two huge sofas blocking your view of the great room, it's wrong, you know. And, as a person who would critique it, you can help the situation by just creating a new floor plan for them. You will see houses change.

Oh, I have a great example. We designed a community in Colorado, and we present, so nothing is a surprise. We just don't show up with furniture and furnishings. The presentation is very thorough. Everybody is involved and the builder and the marketing team [00:18:00] and the sales team all participate. And we had a home that was in a community. It was an active adult community outside of Denver. It was decided that the great room kitchen had a really large island and that we did not need a dining room table.

So, we furnished without and the commentary from potential buyers was, well, we don't want to buy that house because we don't have a dining room. The builder called us up and said, this is what we're hearing. We respaced planned it, refloor planned it and came up with an easy place to fit a table that was next to the kitchen. Added a table and I think it was eight chairs. It could have been six and they started selling the house. Honestly, I think that what we do makes a huge difference.

Greg Bray: Doris, how well do you feel that those types of design decisions can translate into the virtual [00:19:00] tour type scenario? So, for the builders who are not able to build out all of their available plans and so they do some of those with the virtual staging tours, do you apply the same principles there and all the selections? Do you find that people just kind of shortcut it and throw some stuff in there? What's your advice for those that are doing more of the virtual design instead of the traditional?

Doris Pearlman: I think it's the same process, honestly. We have done virtual design for home builders and you've got to apply the same process. The limitations in virtual design are number one, the library that you are using because again, these virtual companies all have libraries. Number two, it's without touch and feel. So, today, a lot of design is about texture and it's hard in a virtual present to really get that sense of touch and feel.

Greg Bray: That's great insight. We all know that [00:20:00] physical is probably better, but sometimes it's just a budget issue, right? There's only so many dollars to go around or a time as well. You know, until I get that other one built, I need to have something to show a buyer of what's coming.

So, Doris, as you have walked into homes, and we're going to go with ones that you did not design, right? You talked about the couches are blocking the view and things like that. What are two or three other common mistakes that you see in kind of how things are laid out or the choices that have been made, where you just walk in and cringe? Who did this? We got to fix this right now.

Doris Pearlman: If you asked me that 20 years ago, I have cringeworthy experience, but I think today there are a certain group of firms that work throughout the United States and I think that honestly, my clients are very aware of the expertise that varying firms will offer. And so, I think that the process has, in general, weeded out a lot of very cringeworthy things. [00:21:00] So, I think in general, when I look at markets, there are some things that are better than others, certainly, but there are fewer cringeworthy things.

Greg Bray: So, as you are working with a builder and you put together this great design, one of the things that I know personally is I am not a designer, right? I'm a computer geek coder type, the other part of the brain. But yet when I walk into a room, I go, Oh, that looks nice. Or, Oh, that doesn't right. But I couldn't tell you why. I couldn't tell you why it does or doesn't. I just kind of feel it. When I listen to somebody like you explain the whys of why you put it here, why you chose that, why this color, I'm always impressed. Oh, wow. That makes a lot of sense.

Do you feel like there's an opportunity for builders to do more of the explaining of the whys in their sales process and in their communication to kind of help the buyer get a better reason of It wasn't just some random reason that we just, oh, this was the leftover couch we decided to put here because we needed to put something there? Versus a lot of [00:22:00] thought went into this, a lot of planning went into this and there's a reason it feels good. It's because it's got A, B, and C. Is there a way to help communicate that to buyers better so that they kind of connect even more?

Doris Pearlman: I think you could communicate it to salespeople. At the level that we present, we like salespeople involved and we like them involved because we explain the why. They're actually involved as well in the why, because they have a sense of their product. In order to sell something, this goes back to probably the fact that I started out as a schoolteacher, I think that people have to be educated.

On an internal level, what you're sensing is akin to Feng Shui. Feng Shui is an Asian design philosophy that says that balance and placement are essential to life and living. When you walk in to a space you internally [00:23:00] absorb. If the space is done well, you feel balanced when you walk in, you feel better when you walk in.

So, number one, I think that reaction that you have is natural. That would be for almost everybody. And number two, as far as educating the buyer, I don't think it's educating the buyer. I think it's educating the person who is selling so that they can communicate and understand the space for both it's positive and then understand what is negative too. Because one of the things that I learned early on was that there are negatives every place. You need to understand them in order to, meet the challenge and then present to buyers in a way that minimizes the challenge, I guess.

Kevin Weitzel: But do you ever think that maybe Feng Shui is missing the mark? Like think back to the art deco period, you know, when you have a house party and somebody might be a little tipsy [00:24:00] You know, you don't want them Feng Shuing in the bathroom. You want them to walk in and be like, What? You're in the bathroom sucker. That's the difference, right?

Doris Pearlman: Could you just say that one again? I mean like over I need to hear it twice

Kevin Weitzel: Which part the exclamation of Mr. T announcing that you just went into the bathroom? I'm just stuck in this world of, I don't understand why everything is so safe. All these buildings and design, they're all meant to be, you know, oh, it's not an obstruction. I don't think there's anything wrong with living next door to the blueberry house, or the Adams family mansion next door, living next door to a row of painted ladies. Is there a problem with being bold and just out there and it was in your face with your design?

Doris Pearlman: We all want to be able to create homes that we're proud of. We all want to create acceptance for the homes that we have designed, both architecturally and on an interior level. South Beach in Miami, where you have a great [00:25:00] many people who are looking for really adventuresome design, then you can do it. If you're looking for the Cleavers, you can't do it because the Cleavers are not going to respond. It's not meeting their needs. We're all about meeting people's needs.

Kevin Weitzel: So, if somebody walks in wearing linen, they're more likely to buy my style of home and the art deco movement. But if they're walking in wearing, you know, polyester blends with fashion jeans, they're more likely to go for that safe Copenhagen route.

Greg Bray: Just tell him he's not a designer.

Doris Pearlman: What he's saying is, how do you curb qualify? Is that right?

Kevin Weitzel: Yes. Because you can't just base it off of what people wear because people they fly pajamas anymore, Doris. Have you been on an airplane in the last 10 years? People literally fly in pajamas and sweatpants. Nobody is fancy anymore. Nobody lives their lifestyle anymore. They wear high fashion maybe in Scottsdale, but if you're selling in Toledo, Ohio, you're selling to backyard grillers. They're all wearing the same football jerseys.

Doris Pearlman: Yeah. And that's something you [00:26:00] recognize. And when you design a home, if that is the buyer profile of the people walking through the door, you create a home that appeals to those people. So, it is all about defining who that potential buyer walking through that door is.

Greg Bray: So, Doris, when you think about the fact that the vast majority of home buyers start on the builder's website before they come visit. And if a builder has made all this investment in design, they've worked really hard, they've tried to match their market with what they're offering, how do they go about, on the website, communicating that other than just saying, Hey, our design's better than their design. Come see.

Is there something else that they can do to help invite people to recognize the quality of the design that they've done? Is it just about good photography? Is it about some of the tours? Are there some other things you think could make a subtle difference in how they present that?

Doris Pearlman: I think you have to define what your offer is and you have to figure out what your market, your [00:27:00] product is all about? And if you want to be better than your competition, you have to shop your competition. One of the ways to move ahead of the competition is to do finishes and spec packages that represent upgrading perceived value. In other words, you can choose from a myriad of bathroom tiles, but if you have an option that looks more expensive or that is more on trend, you include it in your package.

And so, from a very basic level, walking through that door, you've got to understand what your buyers value as far as the finishes go and what rooms they create a judgment in. When they say this house is well built, how are they making that judgment? And then you figure out how to design for that positive response.

Greg Bray: Well, Doris, I've learned a lot today and we really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and insights. Do you have [00:28:00] any last words of advice that you'd like to leave with our listeners before we finish up?

Doris Pearlman: Last words of advice to the home building audience would be always use professional interior designers and merchandisers to design your models. Create a budget that allows for good work. That would be my total advice. Don't shortcut it.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, Doris, if somebody wants to learn more and get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to connect?

Doris Pearlman: Well, you can obviously go to my website which is possibilitiesfordesign. com You will find everything you need there to connect with us.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, thanks again, Doris, for sharing with us and thank you everybody for listening today to The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you. [00:29:00]