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Frank Fontana shares his Dirty Little Secrets of Design

Frank Fontana, Chicago’s own designer from HGTV’s Design on a Dime and the Today Show dished recently on his Dirty Little Secrets of Design at the Chicago Architecture Foundation Special Event on January 12^th.

Fontana suggests when crafting your design plan to focus on what the room should feel like. What do you want the emotional ambience to convey when spending time in this room. Use that emotion to identify an inspiration that you design your room around. Also, always consider the frequent occupants on the room, who is spending time in the room and what are they doing?

Frank shared with us his favorite places to shop in Chicago, even sharing some resources I hadn’t heard of before, such as the Cooper Hotel Liquidation on South Halsted Street where you can get quality used furniture at unbelievable prices. Same with Fort Pitt Hotel Furniture Liquidators, located near Midway Airport. Leather Chair and Ottoman in grey? $150 bucks. A final thought added was to frequent estate sales, as often times a final clearance is more important than a higher margin.

A couple highlights of the question and answer session?

Stay away from Ikea’s Billy Collection and their sofa collections. Quality issues.

Check out the garbage areas of stone, marble and tile places. Or better yet, go in and make a deal. The stone shops must turn over inventory, and often deal with rejected customer pieces.

Don’t ever underestimate the value of minimalism. Fontana says if “you haven’t sit on it, haven’t used it or loved it in six months – it’s got to go.

For those who must rent and deal with landlords unwilling to allow them to paint? You don’t have to sacrifice your style while renting, line your focal walls in fabric with zip line curtains, which can be found at Ikea.

Best thing I learned from Frank? Scratch & Dent Sale at Z Gallerie, & Skimstone, an easy way to transform a kitchen cheaply.

Not only was Frank signing his new book “Dirty Little Secrets of Design”, but also he was sharing his little secrets of the design world on TV vs. the real world. Frank’s candid tone while explaining how he won the TV Show lottery by pure happenstance and hard work was a refreshing tone to hear from the designer. I’d say Chicago is quite proud to call Frank one of their own.

Kate Marengo, Arranging Order