A driann Wade fell in love with interior design early in life.
She was 12, actually.
It was during the Seattle Street of Dreams when she was helping paint and texture walls as part of her mother’s fledgling faux-finishing business.
Wade followed her mother’s instructions but offered her own opinions, too. When it was crunch time, she jumped at the chance to help interior designers who asked her to arrange towels for tidy bathroom displays in the luxury homes.
“We pulled very late nights and everything was so beautiful,” Wade said. “Being as young and as impressionable as I was then, I think those things were very attractive to me.”
Today, at 24, Wade is a rising design star.
Not only does she boast a bachelor’s degree from the top-ranked Washington State University interior design program, she has been working professionally on residential and commercial projects for two years, on her own and also at Serendipity Home Decor in Marysville.
Instead of slowly working her way up the rungs of a larger design firm – like many of her college classmates – she runs her own business, Adriann Nicole Interiors, and works under contract with Serendipity at a rate of $75 an hour.
“Having a young designer in this area, I think, is really important,” said Serendipity owner Terry Sawyer, who hired Wade as her right-hand woman in 2005. “She’s established herself in this area as a premier interior designer.”
Sue Freimuth of Mill Creek, hoping for a fresh vision, hired Wade to redesign one of her bathrooms.
“It’s something different and that’s just what I am. Different,” Freimuth said of her new modern space, featuring a frosted vessel sink, acid-stained concrete countertops and stainless steel shower tiles. “I don’t know anybody who walks into that bathroom for the first time who hasn’t gone, ‘Wow.’”
Wade has a way of sharing her vision and expertise without stomping on her clients’ ideas, a huge asset when working with a variety of Snohomish County residents, Sawyer said.
“That’s what I appreciate about her,” Freimuth concurred. “She will have ideas, but she’ll listen to me.”
Sawyer, 55, is so confident in Wade, in fact, she’s selling her the business she founded nearly seven years ago in her Lake Ki home.
“Adriann, for the past two years, has really helped me incorporate new design concepts and added a young, fresh mindset about design,” Sawyer said. “My clients loved her from the beginning.”
When Serendipity changes hands on July 1, Wade and Sawyer will effectively change places, with Sawyer still offering her custom design services but as an independent contractor working at Serendipity.
“I’ll design for her and support her,” Sawyer said. “We complement each other really well.”
Sawyer used to be a research buyer for a yacht and boat manufacturer. She studied textile design in college and, during her years selecting fabrics and hardware for new vessels, developed a keen eye for fine fabrics as well as deep connections in the home furnishings industry.
In 2000, she struck out on her own, assembling a large collection designer fabrics, luxury bed linens, pillows and trims, along with rare items from discontinued lines and one-of-a-kind designer samples at unbeatable retail prices.
Business boomed and she eventually moved into increasingly larger spaces in downtown Marysville. She found a desperate need for not only her so-called “soft goods,” but also for design expertise.
Though Sawyer could hold her own designing any project, her specialty was soft goods. Wade helped Serendipity offer design for every aspect of home interiors from smaller projects such as color consultations to large remodeling projects.
“I don’t have an interior design degree,” Sawyer said. “She’s been able to teach me some things.”
Wade, meanwhile, has dramatically expanded her knowledge of custom bedding, upholstery and window treatments, something she didn’t get enough of at WSU.
“They didn’t teach styles of window treatments,” she said. “When I came here, I had to learn it all from Terry.”
Sawyer, who has more than 1,000 clients on her company mailing list, never expected her business to grow so steadily. Now Sawyer, longing for a less demanding schedule and looking toward retirement, is thrilled to have found Wade.
“I wasn’t planning on creating an empire,” she said. “If I wouldn’t have found someone like Adriann, whom I know will be able to take Serendipity to new levels, I probably would have closed the doors.”
Serendipity’s client base is still growing.
“People are hiring professionals more than they ever have,” said Sawyer, who expects Serendipity to grow exponentially under Wade. “My guess is she’s going to have three interior designers in here working with her within three years to handle the business she’s going to get.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Wade definitely has the connections.
Tracy Wade Design, her mother’s faux-finishing business based in Mukilteo, is as busy as ever. Her father, Mike Wade, runs Wade-McDonald Construction, a home-building firm in Mukilteo.
“I did kind of always dream of having my own business,” Wade said. “I always thought it would be when I was 40.”
Wade, who graduated from Kamiak High School, has always had a natural knack for color and design, said her mother, Tracy Wade.
“She could put her own wardrobe together really early in life,” Tracy Wade said. “She would take her socks and put them up to her top to make sure they were the exact pink.”
When Wade met interior designers as a kid, she quickly learned what she did not want to be when she grew up.
“Designers can have a bad reputation, some of it deserved, and I wanted to be different,” she said. “I did not want to be a snob or anything close to that. There is nothing better than when a client tells you how much they love the design you created for them.
“Working for people in this capacity allows me to do something for people, not for myself.”
Reporter Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037 or sjackson@heraldnet.com.
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