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Community Corner

Mary Olk Creates Rooms with a View

The art of arranging books and accessories is just that: an art.

You page through a Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel catalog and dream that your rooms could look so inviting. A few vases in various sizes here, pillows with colors that pick up other accent hues there. Cocktail accoutrements gleaming on a side table, coffee tables all cool with a little container of bright-green grass next to some huge moss (not moth) balls that sit cleverly atop a few large books on gardening …

Then there are the throws that look so casual and fitting as they drape over a couch arm or enticingly adorn an ottoman. Speaking of ottomans — wow! You could go catalog-chic. Get your feet off the ottoman and scatter on top of it a few trays brimming with all you need for a good party or a quiet read (a jaunty pitcher of lemonade or margaritas topped with sunshiny lemons and limes, cute coasters, colorful bowls of pistachios or popcorn … ). Now, that’s living.

The appeal of these rooms is that they look right. They are at once comfortable, artistic, clever, charming and inviting. 

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“I would love to have a knack for pulling together a room in my home that looked like it all worked together,” said Connie Miller of Troy. “That’s really an art and something not many can do, including myself.”

Homeowner Laura Scaccia, also of Troy, agreed. “It’s really cool when a designer can take things you have and mix them with, perhaps, new pieces.”

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Indeed, it takes a rather artful eye to “throw” it all together.

Mary Olk, owner of Royal Oak-based Designer Interiors, was born with that artful eye. 

When Olk enters people’s homes with arms full of boxes filled with bright-green vases, huge iron grasshoppers, pretty yellow trays, pillows, a toolbox and more, she’s raring to go. In a short period of time, she can take a client’s room (or home) from nice to nifty, from fair to fabulous.

Artist in residence

Books under the coffee table or under the side table? One picture over the sofa or three? On transformation day, Olk typically arrives with a lot of thoughts and questions on what she might do, already having received photos of the space that needs a face-lift. She’s also talked to clients about their tastes, personalities, favorite colors and styles. Often, she may have visited the home first to get an idea of its needs.

One foot over the threshold and Olk is immersed in a swirl of ideas. Like a sculptor or painter who’s deep in a creative zone when turning out masterpieces, the hammer-wielding Olk flits about the space, moving furniture and lamps, rearranging books and pillows, removing knickknacks, assessing art and accent pieces (in all rooms of the house) and voilà! A new look is born.

Besides placement, style, color and composition, Olk focuses on the homeowners’ personalities and knows how to reflect that in the designs of their spaces.

It shouldn’t be all perfect and fussy, she noted, echoing the premise in the book Undecorate: The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design by Christiane Lemieux. The idea is that no home should be without personality. Olk, too, is more about lived-in reality and surrounding yourself with things important to you.

She tells homeowners who hope to fashion a room that reflects themselves to not be afraid to try new ways of showcasing or arranging things.

“Don’t get scared,” she said. “The minute you get scared, you won’t move ahead.” On a recent house call, Olk considered hanging oversized steel ants (yes, ants) on a wall so that they looked almost as if they were coming out of a garden-themed painting. “There’s a garden, so why not ants?” she asked with a laugh.

“You’ve got to try things,” she added. “This is not rocket science; you won’t have a brain hemorrhage if you put a hole in the wall.”

Art in her blood

The designer, who calls herself an “interior merchandise specialist,” said her roles have shifted during her long career, but they always have related to interior design.

“I started out doing custom draperies in my basement,” said Olk, a longtime Troy resident. For years, she was immersed in model-home interior design. “My first model was in 1978 in Rochester,” she recalled. At the same time, she was taking on private-residence clients, and then in the 1990s, her model-home design business took off. During that period, she had three warehouses full of accessories in Clawson.

Meanwhile, she was hired to do the interior design for the Resorts of Tullymore & St. Ives in Stanwood, west of Mount Pleasant.

“When the model-home design opportunities went south, I decided to keep my accessories and design business and focus on securing business outside of  the homebuilding industry,” she said. She’s been located in Royal Oak for the past two years.  

For home and design buffs, walking into her 2,000-square-foot Royal Oak studio-store is a downright giddy experience. Lots of track lighting puts the spotlight on everything from $6 wine bottle “necklaces” to large sectional seating to racks upon racks of upholstery samples.

Have a seat in a well-made C.R. Laine (one of Olk’s favorite brands) chair. Look up, and you’ll spot wall art galore. Look down, and there’s likely a chic rug beneath your feet. Little vignettes designed by Olk hint at the designer’s talents and her ability to spot great treasures everywhere, from the Chicago home shows to the annual High Pointe Market in North Carolina.

“Mary has an amazing vision for style, detail and space,” said Bridget Katzman, one of Olk’s clients. “She has an eye that will transform any space into an extraordinary environment. Her ability to understand my taste and lifestyle to achieve a cohesive and gorgeous home is unprecedented.”

Katzman, who lives in Franklin, also appreciates Olk’s patience. “She makes the process a pleasure.”   

Olk went to school to be an attorney, as that is what her father hoped she would be. “I was thinking of being a clothing designer but ended up going to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston at night and took art classes,” she said.

Part of Olk’s creative repertoire includes staging homes that soon will go on the market. Recently, a Royal Oak homeowner commissioned Olk to stage her home for resale.

“The client was moving north and wanted to sell her home here,” said Olk. “It ended up that she wanted to actually buy all the pieces I staged her home with.”

For Olk and her many clients, what it comes down to is “enjoying your home,” she said.

Need some help coming up with the perfect layout for your accessories? Olk shares these accessorizing tips for making your home, sweet home:

  • When hanging pictures, I like to use two nails, so the artwork doesn’t tilt. Also, I hang pictures a lot of the time by feel. It doesn’t bother me if they’re not all perfectly centered and aligned.
  • With pillows, it’s best to bunch them together. All people naturally place pillows horizontally across a couch, which isn’t as inviting. 
  • One thing that surprises people is when I use fabric on a shelf. You can even prop a pillow on a shelf; fabric softens everything up.
  • Bookshelves are great places for lamps or lights.
  • When filling shelves with books, place some horizontally and some vertically. Then you can put a picture frame or adornment on top of the large horizontal books.   
  • Paint is a great idea on the back of bookshelves. Then the items on the shelf have a colorful backdrop and "pop" more.
  • An unusual addition to a bookshelf is a mirror, which can be placed behind the books. Places such as The Home Depot will cut mirrors to fit in the bookshelf, and you can use two-sided tape to place them against the back wall of the shelf. Don’t leave any space open, though. All space has to have either mirror showing in the back or filled with all books, so it’s not a disturbing patchwork to look at. 

Design Interiors, 2665 Nakota Rd., Royal Oak, is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday during the summer or by appointment at 248-709-5996.

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