Designer Spotlight: Redefining Elegance With Ford Interiors
Southern Florida is home to some of the most high-end and high-priced real estate in the United States.
The median price for a single-family home in the region is around $300,000, but many residences on Florida’s exclusive Fisher Island sell for millions.
Christina Shackleford with Ford Interiors is no stranger to elegant and high-end home construction. She’s been designing luxury spaces in southern Florida for more than 15 years now. In this Designer Spotlight series, Watermark Designs spoke with Christina about how elegance is achievable in any home, as long as you have the right details in place.
Origins in Elegance
Christina’s career in design started more than 15 years ago: She jumped into high-end home design when she made connections with an exclusive contractor in the Fisher Island area. “The average income of the island's residents is a whopping $2.2 million,” reports Business Insider, who recently named the man-made Southern Florida island “the richest ZIP code in America.”
Christina started out her career working with highly esteemed professionals and clients, on some of the most luxurious (and expensive) homes in the country. “I worked with some of the world’s top architects and designers,” says Christina.
The experience made an impact on her, and she appreciated the challenge of achieving elegant design that met client demands.
“From there,” she explains, “I started my own design firm, and have been working on new construction and remodels in the high-end market ever since.”
For nearly a decade, Ford Interiors has designed some of South Florida’s most elegant and timeless spaces.
Luxury as a Lifestyle
“I like to stick to new construction or complete remodels,” Christina Shackleford says. “This gives us an open canvas to design our clients dream home and to ensure 100% satisfaction.”
Giving her clients that kind of upgrade in lifestyle means Christina’s process for working with clients is thoughtful, thorough and highly detailed. Christina works closely with each design to make sure it’s a success and meets her own unique standards for luxury design.
“I like to call my design style Modern Elegance,” she explains. This style embraces the flexibility of modern design, along with natural and textured elements that create an impact in a space.
“I love to create a timeless design using different textures and materials such as wood, glass, metal and stone,” says Christina.
Balancing Today’s Trends With Modern Elegance
To create luxurious design that stays relevant, designers need to be future-focused when choosing design elements and style details.
Christina suggests testing out trends in your own design, but she has a few tips to achieve modern elegance, without overdoing it, in your own home’s style:
- Experiment with color trends, because they’re always evolving and are easier to play with. “We are getting away from the trend of using greys, which were dominating for a while,” she says. “We still think the grey tones have their place, but our designs are using warmer colors.”
- Stealing a page from more classic, traditional design is also a great way to enhance a space with luxury. “We see heavy use of vintage pieces and we love it,” says Christina.
- Play around with wood elements in your finishes, for additional texture and impact in your design. “I love the lighter wood finishes being used as the dominant force in the designs with accents in black or dark wood finishes,” says Christina. “It still, to me, creates that fresh and unique design feel.”
- Pay attention to which trends might be overused. “I think that gold is finally dying off, and thank goodness for that,” says Christina.
Paying attention to detail is what makes Ford Interiors so successful with their clients. When it comes to bathroom and kitchen details, Ford Interiors has worked with Watermark Designs to help achieve luxurious finishes in their high-end homes. Christina uses Watermark’s H-Line series to help enhance her interior designs.
“I love the simplicity of the lines while maintaining sophistication with the most subtle details,” says Christina.
Innovating on Elegant Design
Creating impactful design can be a challenge, but Ford Interiors commits to creating a design that fulfills their client’s vision. Each home design is dedicated to meeting their client’s demands, down to the last detail.
“I love seeing our designs come to life. There is so much time and detail that goes into the creative process that when you finally see the finished product it’s a real feeling of accomplishment,” explains Christina.
Being able to achieve high-end design takes attention to each part of the design process and every element that goes into creating a space. But the hard work is worth it for Christina. “The icing on the cake is a happy client,” she says.
Check out more examples of modern elegance by Ford Interiors over on their Facebook page.
Need inspiration for your own design? Take a look at Watermark Design’s project gallery for ideas.