From the days when he was growing up in a Kansas home that lacked indoor plumbing to today, when he spends his time designing the interiors of New England homes, Thayne Emrich has come a long way.
Emrich, 46, who opened an interior design company in Concord last September, chuckled when he recalled his childhood in Kansas. He was raised by parents who dropped out of college to join the "back-to-the-land" movement that swept the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Emrich spent his first years in a trailer, and when he was 12, the family moved to a concrete house they built themselves. It was powered by solar energy and featured an outhouse.
It's a distinctive background for an interior designer, Emrich said, but one that helped him think outside the box and taught him a wide range of skills, from building cabinets to welding, from pouring concrete to cooking, from gardening to sewing.
Through his Concord firm, Thayne Emrich Design, Emrich helps clients with space planning, color selection, kitchen and bath renovations, window treatments and custom furniture.
All he does, said Emrich, is help people live the way they want to live by offering them a better integration of elements that make up their living space.
"It's about their lives," he said. "It's not only about their space."
People, he said, intersect with space, but that process is often marred with problems. Mistakes are commonly made when it comes to color selection, furniture arrangement and use of space, he said, and the combination of those elements sometimes leads to situations in which people don't feel comfortable in their own homes.
When clients come to see Emrich they usually don't know what the problem is, but they know something is wrong. Hoping to fix the problem, some buy new sofas or draperies, but sometimes those actions only worsen the situation. That's where interior designers come in, said Emrich.
Interior designers look at how colors, textures, furniture, lighting and space work together to meet the needs of their clients. Emrich will meet with clients, visit their homes and look at the furniture and the use of space to get an idea of what needs to be done.
"I try to get an intimate sense of how they want to feel," said Emrich. "When people come to see me because they don't know why things aren't working out, the best part is that we're able to figure out the answer."
Interior designers use elements of environmental psychology, architecture, product and furniture design, and traditional decoration, all of which sets them apart from interior decorators, who work mainly with surface decoration such as paint, fabrics, lighting and other materials.
Among examples of Emrich's work are a coffee table for a client's summer home on Martha's Vineyard that's made of layers of clear resin and paint colors that mimic the color and depth of the ocean. Emrich worked on the project with an artist who uses resin, and a Vineyard metal sculptor. To express a client's love of the ocean, Emrich designed a metal fish chandelier. For a Sudbury client who wanted to decorate a room where her daughter keeps a pet bearded dragon and garter snake, he chose a complex green color for the walls and a deep purple/blue for the ceiling reminiscent of a rain forest at night.
Emrich studied interior design, interior architecture, apparel design, and theater design and direction at Kansas State University. He transferred to Brandeis University's theater program, from where he graduated magna cum laude at age 28. All his education serves him well in his competitive field, he said.
As for the latest trends in interior design, Emrich said there are benefits and pitfalls. The popularity of television design shows and a wide array of furniture stores, such as Pottery Barn and Crate&Barrel, have made good designs more readily available to the public, but that very same factor threatens the individuality and uniqueness reflected in people's homes.
"Some see a catalogue and buy an entire room," he said. "There isn't anything distinctive about the house's occupants. You walk into 10 houses in a block and you'll find the same chairs, sofas and coffee tables."
But for many people who can't afford the cost of an interior designer, those furniture catalogues are a good alternative. Still, Emrich said, many people could save more if they'd hire an interior designer before remodeling their homes or rooms rather than only relying on general contractors. In his work, Emrich has seen many people who have spent more than they should have in kitchen renovations, and yet are not happy with the end result.
"It's less expensive if you bring a designer into the project," he said. "If you avoid redoing your rooms, you're much better off."
A man of many interests, Emrich ran a theater production company, doing set design and management for Boston-area theaters. He also ran a catering company with his wife during the 1980s and the early 1990s.
In the mid 1990s, he and his wife opened their Lancaster home as a bed & breakfast. In 2003, he went to work for a Concord-based paint store, and three years later he opened his design firm, where he hopes to grow a loyal clientele and some day be able to accomplish his interior design dream project: designing a small hotel in the Caribbean.
It'll be almost like working on a vacation home, he said. Second homes are his favorite kind of projects because "they don't have to meet many needs as opposed to private residences," and provide an opportunity to work on the integration of the indoors and the outdoors.
"I want people to feel good where they are," said Emrich. "I like to help create a fantasy."
