Dorothy Horning Custom Window Decor Is The Fabric Of Designer’s Life

Dorothy Horning loves to do windows.

But you won’t catch her with a cleaning rag or a bottle of Glass Plus. The tools of her trade are plush velvets, silky satins and cozy cottons.

Horning, 42, creates custom window decor. Revenues from her company, Dorothy’s Design Interpretation, have doubled each of the three years she’s been in business.

“Window treatments are to a room what great jewelry is to a great dress,” she said. “They’re like an accessory to a beautiful outfit.”

Horning’s designs have graced windows at three Spokane Home Shows and are featured in some regional furniture stores. She markets her business through display and word of mouth, she says, because advertisements don’t fully convey her abilities.

In the finished basement of Horning’s Mead home, two sewing machines sit below a sign hand-painted on the wall which says: “Strive for perfection, settle for the best.”

Another room holds a huge roll of flowered fabric. A third stores books displaying hundreds of fabric colors, along with numerous volumes showing styles of drapes, blinds, valances and curtains.

Horning’s home itself is a constantly changing showroom of her talents.

Tasseled plum and green valances with a vine pattern hang above her kitchen windows. Soft plaid cotton cornice boxes dress up her living room windows. And in her 8-year-old son Michael’s room, multi-colored triangles of cotton spike down from the windows, acting as team pennants to complete the room’s sports theme.

Children’s rooms are a favorite of Horning’s because of the playfulness they allow. The child of one customer was an avid fan of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, so she took the team’s logo, enlarged it and copied it onto royal blue corduroy, outlining the team’s name in silver. Matching pillows pulled the design together.

Horning began doing custom design as a child in Fargo, N.D., when she cut out and sewed clothing for her dolls. She quickly graduated to furniture when her father gave her a dollhouse for her eighth birthday.

Years later, Horning was cleaning the attic in her parents’ house and found the dollhouse furniture. Layers and layers of fabric were still glued to the tiny couches and chairs.

“I just laughed and laughed,” Horning said. “There was the blue period, then the traditional period, then the Oriental period…”

Horning went on to manage fabric stores and eventually opened her own dress shop in Missoula. Shortly after that, she met and married her husband, Phillip, who now works as a lineman for Inland Power and Light.

The couple moved to California, where Horning changed careers, going into real estate. Even there, her interior design experience helped. She made more sales by telling customers how best to decorate the homes they considered buying.

“Interior design helped sell houses because you can imagine what the house can become,” she said.

When Michael was born, Horning stopped working for a while, but continued to do interior design as a hobby for her own home and for friends. She soon realized she wanted to make it her full-time career.

“I love working for myself,” she said. “Being a Mom, I couldn’t go back into real estate, so I started thinking, ‘What do I love? What am I told I’m good at?’ “

She decided to specialize in window decor because she loves to work with fabric. She also does custom covers, bed skirts, pillow covers and shams.

She’s found a niche in the fact that she both designs and manufactures all of her decor. Many other interior designers choose the styles but contract the manufacturing work. Sometimes, Horning said, important design factors are lost in the translation.

Horning’s custom window designs can cost anywhere from $300 to $3,000 per window, depending on the fabric and the amount of labor. With the help of three part-time employees, Horning spends about three days, including consultation, to create a design.

Perhaps the most important part of the process, Horning said, is helping a client decide on a design. When Horning talks to a new customer, she focuses on the colors they love and what they want the rooms she decorates to say about them.

“You can have a slam dunk or you can have something that takes forever to work through,” she said. “Clients have a hard time visualizing the designs.”

What’s important, she added, is that her customers love the designs every time they walk into the rooms.

Horning says when she comes across a design that fits a customer perfectly, shivers run down her arms, and she says, “That’s it!”

Horning has completed about 50 custom window designs for clients throughout Spokane and is eager to branch into North Idaho. She said what she has earned so far has been poured back into the business, but she’s certain her business will one day turn a profit.

“I’m continually amazed at where it’s going,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo