THE LOOK
Area Designers Explain Why Home Is Now
Where Major Changes Are Occurring
H OME
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
HOMES HAVE TAKEN
on new meaning during the
COVID era: They are no longer
just places to come home and
rest at day’s end and for raising
families. As more people work from
home at least some of the time,
homes have become multi-
functional, according to local
interior designers.

This does not mean that the
predicted home office boom
has come to fruition, exactly.

Some clients do want home
offices or to update their
existing home office spaces.

But more often, the multifunc-
tional house is one in which
people can use different spaces
for a variety of purposes,
according to Michelle Erdosi,
the owner of Aeternum Design
Studio in Philadelphia.

A breakfast nook can be
for drinking coffee or working
from your laptop. A big
bedroom can be for sleeping
or taking a Zoom meeting. A
home office can be a place to
add a lounge chair or a sofa for
nap or relaxation time.

But at the core of all these
upgrades is remote work,
Erdosi said.

“How can we utilize every
space in the house to support
work?” she said, referring to
the question many clients are
asking her.

This reconception of the
home started in March 2020.

Amy Cuker, of Down 2 Earth Interior Design, said this dining room could also function as a home work space.

Photo by Rebecca McAlpin
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THE LOOK
Almost overnight, white-collar
companies transitioned to
virtual spaces and recognized
that they could work.

While offices are not
obsolete, the
transition continues. More and more
interior design clients are
working from home, according
to Erdosi.

Business is so good right
now that Amy Cuker, the
owner of Down 2 Earth Interior
Design in Elkins Park, elimi-
nated her waitlist. She didn’t
want to make people wait for
over a month.

Cuker now tries to finish
her jobs, clear space on her
schedule and start on the
next client right away. If a
homeowner calls during a busy
stretch, she tells her to call back
in a month or two.

“We only take jobs when
we’re ready,” Cuker said. “That
way we’re limber.”
According to the Down
2 Earth owner, her busy
schedule is not just the result
of more remote work. During
the pandemic, with so much
of society closed or partially
closed, people just started
spending more time at home.

When homeowners spent
the majority of their weekdays
and much of their social sched-
ules outside the home, they
didn’t look too closely at the
infrastructure. Now, though,
with people home more often,
they are actually looking at
their houses and seeing poten-
tial upgrades.

If a cabinet has wear and
tear, and a homeowner sees it,
she can’t unsee it, Cuker said.

“And once you have that,
it stays on your checklist,”
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