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Blogs, Newsletters

Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Newsletter: Merchandising, Design, and Mother Nature

Don’t you just love this time of the year? The tulips are popping up and the cherry blossom trees are blooming: everything is awash in color. Plus, it’s such a wonderfully busy time, with many installations scheduled over the next few months. We want to help our builder partners be prepared to show off their model homes and amenities during the busy summer home-buying season.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Blog: Merchandising Multifamily Outdoor Spaces to Create Community

Every design starts with the buyer in mind. We work to create spaces that will speak to those who will actually use them. Which can make merchandising multifamily spaces tricky. These designs need to appeal to a wide variety of wants and needs. However, we know that in addition to the developer’s goals and the prospective residents’ requirements; it is the ability to merchandise and design to create a community that is paramount for multifamily outdoor space.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Blog: Merchandising and Emotional Selling

A successful model home can be a builder’s most powerful marketing tool. It can be the key ingredient in making the sale. And what makes a model home successful? The merchandising. It’s the merchandising when done right, that personalizes the home and brings out the emotions in the buyer. Staying competitive requires builders to provide a strategically designed and merchandised model home.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Interview: Lessons from Emerging Legends: Mollie Elkman

In March 1987 Congress passed a law designating March as Women’s History Month. The intention was to “celebrate the contributions women have made in the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.” It’s only fitting then, that our lead story for the March newsletter is an interview with a woman who has made tremendous contributions in this industry and this country: Mollie Elkman.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Article: Design Themes 2022

The overarching design themes we see emerging for 2022 are a continuation of what we saw in 2021, and a direct result of the pandemic. Health and wellness, the inclusion of nature, and flexibility are still undeniably important to home buyers. Like the aftermath of 9/11 and the housing crisis of 2008, just to highlight two recent phenomena, the emergence of Covid-19 and the resulting pandemic has changed our industry.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Interview: Construction & The Model Home

The Model Home from a Construction Point of View This interview is a slight diversion from our popular “Lessons from Legends” series. Realizing that as an interior design/model merchandising firm, we approach the need for and importance of model homes from a very specific perspective, we wanted a more holistic view. We wanted to truly understand and appreciate the model home and its crucial role in the sales process.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Blog: How to (Successfully) Merchandise a Model Home

It truly takes a village to create a village. Or at least a housing development. You have the builder and/or developer, the architect, the construction team, the marketing director, the model merchandiser, the branding company, and the sales team, to name just a few. Each party relies on the other to complete their part effectively. This is especially true when it comes to model merchandising.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Blog: How the Model Home Helps Sell the Community

How the Model Home Helps Sell the Community A community is not just a group of houses built together in a specific geographic area – it is so much more than that. It starts with construction and ends with… well, if done correctly and you’ve truly created a sense of community, it doesn’t end. And what ties it all together? The model home. Your model home can be the thing that ties the construction/building aspect of a neighborhood to the human element needed to make a neighborhood a community.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Interview: Lessons from Legends in the Home Building Industry: Art Danielian

Lessons from Legends in the Home Building Industry We are thrilled to bring you the latest installment in our Lessons from Legends in the Home Building Industry series. For this discussion, we were fortunate enough to sit down with none other than Art Danielian, architect extraordinaire. Art truly is a legend in the industry. His long, illustrious career is chock-full of awards, accolades, and stories. Below is just a fragment of his story. Enjoy! LD: Art, thank you so much for sitting down t
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Blog: Biophilic Design

Biophilia, or the idea that we as humans have an innate tendency to seek connections with nature, was first coined by social psychologist Eric Fromm in his 1964 work, The Heart of Man. It’s meaning was later expanded and made popular by American biologist Edward O. Wilson in the 1980s. Wilson observed that urbanization was leading us, as a society, to the disconnection with the natural world. He realized this disconnection was causing a host of health and wellness issues throughout the world.
Lita Dirks & Co. | Award-winning interior design and merchandising firm •

Blog: Importance of a Buyer Profile

In the not too recent past, simply having a model home was often enough to set you apart from other builders. Times have changed. Staying competitive requires builders provide a strategically designed and artfully merchandised model home. To do so, they need to engage a professional interior merchandising firm. As professionals, we understand the importance of a model home.
Diet-to-Go •

Blog: Stress and Heart Health

Stress plays a major role in our heart health. In fact, more than exercise or even healthy eating, stress impacts our heart health in a myriad of ways. Learning to understand the kinds of stress, the possible impact it has on your heart and overall health, as well as ways to manage stress, will go a long way in keeping your heart, and you, as healthy as possible. The Good, the Bad and the Too Much Stress Life is full of stress and that's not such a bad thing. In fact, that jittery excitement w
Diet-to-Go •

Blog: Exercise and your Brain

We all know exercise helps to increase your energy level, expedites weight loss and helps with weight management efforts, as well as provide tremendous benefits to your overall health, but what about your brain? What if any impact does physical exercise have on your brain? Many people claim that regular exercise helps keep them sane, but what are the facts? Are there real, tangible benefits of physical exercise on your brain? If you think about it, it makes sense that physical exercise woul
Diet-to-Go •

Blog: Health Benefits of Gardening

There’s something to be said for “playing in the dirt.” Gardening – the adult version of dirt playing – can be incredibly gratifying. Seeing that first bit of growth start to pop out of the ground after all your prepping, planting and pampering can be quite satisfying. However, did you realize that besides making you feel good about your agriculture aptitude, there are significant health benefits of gardening? It’s true.
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