- Host, co-producer and co-creator, Room Service, Design Inc. and Sarah's House; Principal, Sarah Richardson Design, Toronto
Some days Sarah Richardson is like a storm tracker, chasing after chaos and mishaps with the camera crew from her television shows Design Inc. and Sarah's House. And while she and her crew are unlikely to capture footage of roofs being sucked up by tornadoes or windows being smashed by debris, there's a good chance they'll run into a hallway mirror broken in transit or upholstery fabric not quite cut out for the room she had in mind.
"Our show is a realistic portrayal of the interior design process and we shoot live to tape, as things happen," explains Ms. Richardson, who hosts the two programs and co-produces them with long-time collaborator Michael Prini.
"There's enough that can, and does, go wrong in the design process that we don't need to fabricate a situation to create drama," adds Ms. Richardson, who also creates furniture and lends her interior design services to private clients through her Toronto company, Sarah Richardson Design. (She also writes a column in The Globe and Mail's Real Estate section.)
Her unvarnished approach to storytelling, combined with her elegantly clean design aesthetic and appealing on-camera presence, has clearly hit a sweet spot. She is a star in the competitive world of TV designers, with a hit show that attracts hundreds of thousands of viewers in Canada and around the world.
"I get tons of mail from Brazil and Italy. It's extremely rewarding for me to know that design concepts we're implementing here ... also resonate with people living in different climates and cultures."
Ms. Richardson, whose father taught architectural history at the University of Toronto and whose mother was director of parks planning and design for the city, didn't set out to be an interior designer or a TV personality. But in the mid-1990s, thanks to a friend from university who remembered her tastefully decorated student apartment, she landed a job as a set designer for a now-defunct show called Home Style, produced by Mr. Prini. There, she got a crash course in television.
"Working behind the scenes for intense, 16-hour days, I learned what went into a great TV show and what made people succeed — drive and limitless energy, and knowing how to work collaboratively as part of a creative community," says Ms. Richardson, who has a two-year-old daughter, Robin, with husband Alexander Younger.
"I still apply those same lessons to what I'm doing today."
Special to The Globe and Mail
