With Thanksgiving cooking and socializing just winding down, and all the requirements of everyday living mounting up as usual, you may be too busy to even think about Chanukah. Sure, it’s one of the most festive Jewish holidays, a perfect occasion for entertaining family and friends. But the first night of Chanukah, Friday, Dec. 19, is just a few weeks away, and you’re worried there’s not enough time to get the presents, spruce up the house, prepare the latkes and do everything else needed to turn Chanukah into party time!
If that just about captures your frame of mind, you might benefit from the services of two enterprising friends and business partners, Mical Falk of Mill Valley and Ifat Shomrony of Berkeley.
Falk and Shomrony, both Israeli-born transplants to the Bay Area, specialize in redesign by rearrangement. In other words, they’ll give your home a makeover — without you having to spend gobs of money to purchase new furniture, much less hire a remodeling contractor.
The women formed IM Design in October 2002. They’ve just recently taken on another Israeli-born partner, chef Arnon Oren (formerly of Chez Panisse), to add an extra feature. Called Design and Dine, the ensemble service includes a partial or entire home makeover, typically focusing on the entertainment area, plus a catered holiday dinner.
They added the service in response to client demand, according to Falk. “We developed Design and Dine to eliminate the headaches and stresses that busy families endure with holiday entertaining,” so people can “focus on what they enjoy the most — the food, entertainment, festive design and fun of the holidays.”
Their Chanukah buffet menu includes roasted nuts and salads, the requisite latkes and homemade applesauce, sweet potato pancakes with crème fraîche and chive flakes, winter squash and leek quiche. Desserts include Israeli doughnuts filled with chef’s jam, and persimmon cake.
Design and Dine will be offered on a regular basis, for holidays or even Shabbat dinners. All the cooking is done in a kosher kitchen, Shomrony points out, and the food is then delivered to the home.
It’s a busy person’s dream.
Funny thing is, Falk and Shomrony could easily fall into the “busy” category themselves. Both are married, have two young children and work as much as they can.
Before collaborating on IM Design, each pursued a far different career.
Falk has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and a master’s in art therapy. In her studies she was especially intrigued, she says, by “environmental psychology” — the relationship between people and their physical environment, so much so that she then studied feng shui, the ancient Chinese art and science examining how people interact with their natural and manmade environment. She is also a painter and potter.
Shomrony has a background in newspaper journalism and public relations, mostly in the high-tech field and including coordinating events for clients. It was her work with a successful Israeli PR firm that gave Shomrony the opportunity to move to the United States six years ago. (She still does some PR work with high-tech clients here.)
Falk, who “was coming for one year for the fun of it,” had a change of heart. She’s been here 15 years.
Their children — all boys — are similar ages: Shomrony has a 13-year-old (the Tehiyah Day School student recently celebrated his bar mitzvah in Israel) and a 2-year-old; Falk has a 12- and 3-year-old.
Both have family in Israel and go back to visit at least once a year. A fellow Israeli brought the two together. “During a trip to Israel a few years ago,” says Falk, “I met someone who knew Ifat and gave me her number.” Falk followed up, and the two — both artistic and both ready for a career change — just clicked.
“We were talking of ways to start something new,” says Falk.
“It was a lot about chemistry as well,” Shomrony chimes in. “We like shopping together; that’s how it started,” she says with a laugh. And, yes, they have helped each other redesign their homes.
They work closely and collaboratively. Whether giving an interior redesign consultation for an hour or two (at $120 an hour), or putting in three to four hours a room implementing a design, they do it together. Sometimes, at the client’s request, they’ll create a painting for a particular room (they mostly do abstracts). And they often go shopping for accessories to pull a room together.
So far, says Shomrony, “We haven’t gotten to a place where we have to fight.”
The two say their interior rearrangement service focuses on creating “spatial harmony” within a room, and they’ve posted “before” and “after” pictures on their Web site (www.im-design.us) as examples.
“Usually people have somewhat of a consistent taste, but they don’t know how to put things together,” explains Falk. “There’s no flow. Things are too far apart. There’s no sense of cohesiveness.”
Sometimes they can simply rearrange existing furnishings to achieve a desired look and feel. “We have a lot of tricks that we use to make things work,” Falk says.
Occasionally, they’ll suggest that one wall, possibly two, be re-painted in a shade that compliments a room.
But mostly they like to use accessories — pillows, throws, lamps, rugs, sheers or curtains — to help pull a room together.
They primarily work in homes, though through Falk’s connections to the psychology profession, they have done some offices as well. “A lot of times you see that psychologists’ offices do not look like a very exciting or healing place,” she explains. “A lot of psychologists are afraid to put any personal say [in their office decor].” By adding a few decorative touches, she attests, a nondescript office can be transformed into a more inviting place for clients.
As for one’s home, just imagine the possibilities. “People cannot believe [that] what they have, just arranged differently, can transform the whole environment,” says Falk.
Information on IM Design: (415) 389-1012 or www.im-design.us.