A Life Well Designed

BY CHRISTINA RUOTOLO

Photos by: Kris Fay

ome is more than the items within a particular space. Home is a feeling. It’s the calm wave of your heartbeat when you melt into your living room sofa after a long day at work. It’s the relaxation you feel in your home ofce with the rich wooden desk, dark gray walls, and supple leather couch. It’s your formal dining room with the Oriental rug, chinoiserie drapery, and matching ceramic lamps. Or It’s the periwinkle walls, satin duvet and gauzy linen curtains in your childhood bedroom.

Home really is where the heart is. It’s our safe space, our utopia. It’s where we create memories. Each room is special and should refect our tastes, color choices and favorite décor items. It can be comfortable, cozy, refned, retro, classic, modern, country-French, and everything in between. Each piece of furniture, lamp, curtain, drapery, valance, or specialty design item tells our story, and every story has a narrator. One such creative narrator is Lisa Pendry. She is the owner, along with her husband, Dale, of Fabric and Home Furnishings in Greenville.

The showroom in Arlington Village provides a quaint personal experience to turn your home into a showplace. The entire staf will assist you with your interior design needs and make sure your experience is fun and exciting. Lisa is educated, friendly, funny and super easy to talk to. You walk in and you immediately feel at home and comfortable. The store’s showroom is inviting, with waterfalls of colored fabrics from classic forals, neutral basket weaves, rich and elegant textured brocades, and beautiful chinoiserie styles including traditional Chinese scenes, animals, and pagodas. Fabrics start your design story, and then you move on to curtains, valances, and throw pillows. The colors and shapes and styles are a wonderful decorating journey for you to experience, and Lisa can help bring your design vision to life along with her amazing design team including Ben, Matthew, Meghan, and Delaney. The design world is similar to the hospitality feld with crazy hours and lots of moving parts. A typical day is anything but ordinary.

“My typical day is never typical,” Lisa says. “I usually get to the store by 8 a.m.. Our store hours are 10 to 5:30, but I can spend those early hours being creative and adding fnishing touches to a home I am working on, or to merchandise the store.”

The design team starts to arrive at 9:30 a.m. to focus on its daily goals. Fabric and Home Furnishings is a fabric store, a furniture store, an accessory store, and it manages re-upholstery, custom drapery, and a rug gallery as well as ofering blinds,

www.reflector.com/her Her — April 2021 5

6 Her — April 2021 www.reflector.com/her

shades and shutters.

“Every day is unique and exciting,” Lisa says. “We laugh and keep moving through days of chaos sometimes. Ben actually gave me a name plate for Christmas that says ‘chaos coordinator,’ so that must be my title.”

It’s safe to see why Fabric and Home Furnishings has been open for so long and is a central design hub for residential to commercial customers. The design journey for Lisa and Dale started back in 2001 when they moved to Greenville from High Point to open their business. They wanted to bring their combined 53 years of textiles and furniture experience to eastern North Carolina. Their frst store was on Moseley Drive, and it offered fabric and drapery services. They quickly decided Greenville needed a complete interior design center and opened a furniture and fabric store combination.

“The decision to ofer in-home design services was a wonderful solution to everyone’s custom furniture and drapery needs,” Lisa says.

Lisa has an extensive portfolio with experience in complete interior design solutions for commercial and residential clients. Fabric selections, furniture design, custom bedding, lighting, and accessories are all a part of the services she ofers. She attended American Business and Fashion Institute in Charlotte and has always had a passion for interior design. “When I was little, even my Barbie ‘dream home’ had to be redecorated,” she says, laughing. “My husband Dale has spent his life in the fabric business. When we put our talents together, we realized our concept of fabric and home furnishings with complete design services was a wonderful idea”.

They closed their Fire Tower Road store in 2008 and decided to open the Arlington Village showroom. They moved to Charlotte to be closer to family when their son started middle school and opened a store in Denver, to help with all of the growth around Lake Norman.

“Dale did most of the commuting between stores (because he is actually the brains of our business). When our son graduated in 2017 and decided to return to his purple and gold roots, we moved back,” Lisa says.

Now more than ever, people are wanting to re-do and refresh their home décor as they have been living, working and using their home more during the last year of stay at home and pandemic lifestyles. Fabric and Home Furnishing ofers in-home design services so Lisa, Dale and the team can help you transform you space post-pandemic with a fresh outlook to go into 2021.

“I decided to ofer in-home design service when we opened Fabric and Sofas in Winterville in 2003,” Lisa says. “In college, I was sure I wanted to buy a ‘decorating den’ franchise to be able to take the design choices into the customer’s home. My goal was to simplify the design process and take away the overwhelming feeling customers have when they walk into a store full of options. When we get invited into their homes, we can get to know how they live, and what their goals are. Plus I love to see how they enjoy their homes so I can fnd the best solutions for them.”

When not working 100 miles an hour, you can fnd Lisa and Dale relaxing in their comfortably designed home. For Lisa and Dale, their personal design style exudes comfort.

“My home is comfortable!,” Lisa says. “By the time I fnally sit down at the end of the day – comfort matters the most! So my home says ‘welcome home.’

“Sometimes the word ‘home’ has several meanings,” she says. “Home was always Charlotte/Lake Norman for me, but when we came back to eastern North Carolina, I realized home is actually where your passion lives. It’s making friends and seeing their joy when the transformation is compete and they realize their home really is their sanctuary.”

Even though there are hundreds of fabrics to choose from, Lisa’s favorite pattern or style is an elegant chinoiserie. Her home includes a beautiful crypton sectional with dramatic pillows and very colorful Thibaut Chinoiserie drapery.

“I love to mix patterns to make each home unique,” she says. “In the phase of less is more and white linen drapery, I can still add the right pizzazz with pillows and help people realize how to combine patterns to become art.”

For Lisa, the most important element in any design project is the fabric, because “fabric is the glue that pulls the entire room together!”

If Lisa had to turn the word fabric into an acronym to describe what elements design encompasses to her design style, her letters would spell out:

F – FABULOUS

A – ARTISTIC

B – BOLD

R – REJUVANATING

I – INTERESTING

C – COMPLETE Even with all the elements in place and a successful design journey, the job can still be hard and the pandemic does not make it any easier. “The hardest part of my job is the lack of control on production. When fabric is on order, furniture is on order, and my vision is complete, but I am at the mercy of over 12 vendors to pull a home together,” she says. “I try to employee local craftsman and manufacturers so we can deliver faster than most stores. The best part is a happy and excited customer that will forever be a friend.”

Design will continue to evolve and change in the coming years and Lisa and Dale can keep you updated on new trends and fabrics. They update their Facebook page daily to keep you engaged and educating on new decorating trends.

“For 2021 we are bringing wallpaper back and sending shiplap out the door,” Lisa says. “White, gray, and soft blues are still a hot base for a creative room. Bold drama will never go out of style, but making sure each client’s home is a refection of their personality and lifestyle is number one in my designs.”

If you are ready to add to your home story and re-do, refresh, or change your home style and décor, spring is the perfect time to do it and Lisa and her team can help. The design service comes with a one-time fee.

“We don’t charge by the hour and we pour our hearts into your home, one room at a time,” Lisa says. “I am so excited to announce that every employee on my sales foor is a designer. I have four big personalities, with four design styles that are all amazing. We work as a team and make sure your home is everything you ever dreamed!”

Fabric and Home Furnishings is located at 646 E. Arlington Blvd. Business hours are 10 a.m. -5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Call (252) 493-0550 or visit the website featuring recent residential and commercial design projects and testimonials at www.fabricandhomefurnishings.com.

www.reflector.com/her Her — April 2021 7