Our Own ‘Designing Women’
For more than 20 years, Danielle has been helping Union Furniture and Flooring customers with their design plans through in-home visits and in-store consultations.
Schedule an In-Home Design Visit for Advice or Help Selecting Furniture, Flooring and Anything in Between
Shopping for furniture and flooring can be intimidating. There are so many choices! And if you’re not confident in making a selection, or maybe you don’t even know what you want, having a professional give you advice or point you in the right direction can save time and a lot of trouble. All of us here at Union Furniture and Flooring have a love for home decór and design, and we have a lot of fun helping people select the perfect sofa or the right flooring to fit their lifestyle and space. We are all trained to help you express your style preferences, but if you prefer a more intensive approach, we offer in-home service with a professional designer for a flat fee of $75 (or more for longer distances).
Meet the Designers
Danielle, our most tenured designer, grew up in Washington and is a proud graduate of Washington High School. She earned a bachelor’s degree in interior design and construction from Southwest Missouri State University, and her first job in the industry was with Directions in Design, a St. Louis-based company that does a lot of riverboat casino and commercial jobs. In Dani’s two years at Directions in Design, her work took her to the shipyards in Lake Charles, La., and to the S.S. Admiral, the popular excursion steamboat that operated on the Mississippi River from 1940 to 1978 before it was docked permanently at the St. Louis riverfront where it was used as an entertainment venue and later a casino. She also worked four years at a Home Depot Expo store in Dallas, Texas where she ran the flooring department, before joining the Union Furniture and Flooring team.
Sherry and Monica, both of whom previously worked at Union Furniture and Flooring, rejoined the design team last year.
Sherry, who had worked at Union Furniture several years ago, rejoined the team last year. She grew up in Marthasville, graduated from Washington High School and earned an Associate Degree in Applied Science, Interior Design from St. Louis Community College at Meramec. She spent around seven years working in Oklahoma and Texas before returning to Missouri. She has a total of 15 years of experience in both furniture and flooring, and she specializes in space planning/layout. Sherry likes working on all kinds of projects, big and small. She enjoys the variety of smaller projects, working one-on-one with clients, and she also appreciates the teamwork necessary to complete bigger projects.
Monica grew up in Washington, graduated from St. Francis Borgia Regional High School and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design Degree from the University of Central Missouri. Like Sherry, she also previously worked at Union Furniture (while she was in college) and returned last year. Her first job out of college was at Seville Home in Leawood, Kan., selling high-end furniture and accessories and providing design services on in-home visits. She also worked at KDR Designer Showrooms as an outside sales rep, selling high-end textiles, leather and wallcoverings across Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. Monica specializes in furniture layouts, textile/fabric selections and floor plans.
What to Expect
The designers all agree, in-home visits are fun! They’re like mini-field trips and an opportunity to get even more hands-on with their creative skills.
When the designer arrives at your home, she’ll begin the session the same way she does when you come into the store – by asking questions. “We want to get a feel for the house, the style of the house, their personal style and how they live and how they want to use the space,” Dani said. “It’s also important to talk about what pieces need to stay in the space. Are there any antiques or special pieces that they want to keep?” That’s important to our designers. You shouldn’t have to get rid of any family heirlooms or favorite pieces simply because they don’t fit with the designer’s vision. “We want to find a way to work with those pieces or incorporate them into the space somehow,” Dani said.
In-home visits typically last about an hour before the designer returns to the store to start working on the project. She will begin looking for the furniture pieces, flooring, tile and accents to complete your space based on the information you shared during the visit. Once she has options to present, she will call to schedule a time when you can come into the store, see the selections and get your feedback. And our designers won’t limit their advice to items that we sell in the store. They are happy to make suggestions on things like paint colors, window treatments and even the floorplan. At least one customer actually ended up taking down walls to create an open floor plan after meeting with our designer.
Ready to Schedule a Visit?
If you would like to learn more about scheduling an in-home visit or if you would like to talk to one of our designers to schedule an appointment, stop by the store or call us at (636) 583-3133.
If an in-home visit isn’t possible, you can still get the same custom advice and personalized service with an in-store visit (by appointment) at no charge. Bring photos of your space, room dimensions and maybe paint colors or finishes that you want to keep. The designer will ask all of the same questions and prepare a presentation just as they would following an in-home visit. We ask that you call to schedule these in-store visits to make sure a designer is available to meet with you and have plenty of time to devote to your project.
An in-home visit with Dani led Ron and Jackie Schell, Washington, to create an open-concept floor plan, giving them a much brighter entry-way and improved flow overall.
Ron and Jackie initially wanted to use a smaller tile in their laundry room, but Dani suggested a bigger tile would look better, and the Schells admit that Dani was correct. They love the look of the larger rectangular tile in their space.
One Success Story
When it comes to floor tile, Ron and Jackie Schell feel like bigger is better. So when our designer Dani explained that a smaller tile would actually be more suited to the size of their laundry room, they were surprised at first and maybe even a little disappointed. But the end result is so perfect that they couldn’t be more pleased.
“We really love the way it turned out,” Jackie said.
The Schells have long been customers at the store, mostly on the furniture side. When their son bought a new house in St. Louis, Jackie insisted that he start his shopping with us — “You can’t go anywhere until you go to Union Furniture, because they have everything at great prices,” she told him — and he ended up furnishing several rooms with what he found on our sales floor.
When the couple was ready to begin a renovation project of their own, they started by scheduling a home-visit with Dani. She did a walk-through to see what they had in place and where they might make improvements. “We had a mish-mash of flooring throughout the house, and each room was separated,” Jackie said. “We really depended on Dani for design tips and her expertise.”
The project took a turn when the Schells decided to tear down several walls in their main living space to create an open floor plan, giving them more options for positioning furniture and creating better sight lines. (There was an unexpected added bonus — tearing down walls also revealed extensive termite damage which the Schells were lucky to find when they did. Entire 2x4s and headers had already been completed consumed by the termites, creating a dangerous scenario.)
Union Furniture and Flooring provided the vanity top and also the tile flooring in the Schells’ guest bathroom.
Union Furniture & Flooring provided tile flooring for the laundry room and two bathrooms, as well as the vanity top for the guest bathroom. Next up is a carpet strip for the open stairwell leading to the basement. “And when we’re ready to replace our sofa and chairs, Union Furniture will be the first place we go,” Jackie remarked, noting the customer service can’t be beat.