Scott Radburn is design director of Homehouse Design. It’s a new boutique interior design group based in Vancouver, but Radburn is no rookie to the profession. He’s a trained architect who’s spent 30 years designing buildings and interiors in Canada and Europe. He’s adept at working with modern, transitional, and traditional styles, as well as space planning and creating custom furniture.

Georgia Straight: What do you love about being an interior designer?

Scott Radburn: It’s all about design, creating spaces, and realizing people’s dreams. I love seeing things built in three dimensions, like a sculptor creating something that’s useful.

GS: What should a homeowner do before hiring an interior designer?

Scott Radburn: Do some research. Spend time thinking about what your requirements are. If possible, have some images that you can have on hand to be able to explain visually what you’re hoping to achieve. Obviously, the design field is more of a visual art, so images say a lot more than words.

GS: What’s important to know before designing a traditional home’s interior?

Scott Radburn: You should have some knowledge about traditional architecture. Somebody once said a good architect, particularly with traditional homes, is actually a master craftsman. You have to know how it can be rebuilt or how parts of it can be replaced to feel like it was the original home. You have to take the best qualities of that house and enhance them and you have to diminish the bad qualities. Also, traditional homes were often built with separate smaller rooms. Each room had a fireplace and you went in and closed the door. These days, people like the idea of houses flowing and being more open. So that’s another aspect: if you can adapt a traditional home into being more suitable to today’s lifestyle and still reflect the qualities of the traditional home that people love.

GS: Has any architect or interior designer had a major impact on you?

Scott Radburn: I’m biased toward Arthur Erickson, who’s a Canadian hero. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to move back to Vancouver. He loved gardens and he was exceptional at bringing the outdoor spaces into the house. That’s definitely a special ability that I love to emulate.

GS: How do you enliven areas not as well used as the kitchen or living room?

Scott Radburn: Somebody once told me that unless an indoor and even an outdoor space has been given a name or an identity, it will end up being a clutter space. You’ll pass by it. You often find that’s where refuse gets left. Houses are often made up of rooms and there’s a lot of circulation space between them. An important element of space planning is to try and eliminate those circulation corridors. It’s as simple as putting a piece of furniture, a chair, creating a focal point, light over a certain space, or a carpet on that floor. Instead of a minimum width, make it five feet wide so maybe you can stop and sit down in that space and do something.

GS: What’s a common mistake that do-it-yourselfers make?

Scott Radburn: My advice would be to do a renovation one step at a time and don’t take on too much. You’re often living in the house. You need to start a project and you need to finish it. You can’t start a project and leave half and go on to the next one. If you can see what you’ve finished and achieved, that gives you the hope and will to move on to the next stage.

GS: Any advice for people wanting to change the colours in their home?

Scott Radburn: I definitely don’t like to overdo it with the colour or with materials. If you keep them more similar, the rooms flow and the space feels bigger. It’s hard enough to choose colours in any case. If you pick a nice one, go with it. Colour is something that can change over time. The good thing is it’s not a costly thing to do. So I have no issues with painting even a whole house a very neutral colour. As you live in it, then you can start adding colour.

GS: What used to be out of style but is now coming back into style?

Scott Radburn: Gold, believe it or not. It’s actually coming back. Gold and black.

GS: Do you have a favourite wood?

Scott Radburn: I love wood that has the effect of having sat on the beach for a long period of time—the bleached type, particularly on floors, very natural, with a low sheen. Traditional houses had a high-sheen, glossy, varnished shellac so they shined. Now, it’s very low sheen so you don’t even know it’s there. Obviously, if it’s got the protec­tor on it, it’s easy to clean. You get the benefit of looking natural but you also get the benefit of being able to maintain it and not even have to wax it.

GS: Where do you look for design inspiration?

Scott Radburn: Architects and designers get better as they get older. That’s because you spend your whole lifetime looking around you. Your mind becomes an encyclopedia of everything you’ve seen. The best designers are the ones who can take that encyclopedia of images that are in their head and bring them out at the right time and in the right place.

GS: Do you have a favourite interior public space in Vancouver?

Scott Radburn: Back to Arthur Erickson, definitely it’s the Museum of Anthropology. If any guests come over, I definitely take them there. I think it’s an absolutely spectacular space and no doubt enhanced by the objects that are in it. I can go back and look at it again and again.

Contact Homehouse Design at 604-628-3715 or email info@homehouse.ca.