Furniture Store Blog

Paula Smail is the owner of Henry Road, a textile design company that started out small but has quickly grown into a Los Angeles-based design studio and store. The name comes from one of the streets on which Paula lived as a child in South Africa. Influenced by such amazing textiles design houses as Marimekko, her aesthetic is a mix of bold graphic patterns and Caribbean flair. In this Designer Dailies, she takes us through a day in the life of a designer/shop owner.

A very hot Saturday in July…

6:30 – 8:00 AM: Wash dishes; head to supermarket with Leo (the dog) for flowers and other styling stuff as a photographer and stylist are doing a walk-through of my house this morning for a magazine shoot tomorrow; stop at lumber yard for sheet of wood to mend a hole in the fence; water plants. Obsess briefly over the shape created by the hose.

8:30 – 10:00 AM: Make things look pretty; the Tse & Tse vase looks good filled with yellow roses and is still one of my all time favorite vases; like the lime green story in these pictures; do walk-through with talented Kelly Ishikawa and Rod Hiskind.

10:45 AM – 6:00 PM: Open up shop; eat super healthy breakfast/lunch picked up en route designed to give me a sugar fix and keep dehydration at bay; check email; put camera on counter so that I remember to take photos throughout the day as I forgot to use it during the walk through at home.

Add fresh flowers; straighten shelves and dust which is daily undertaking; Kelly and Rod come by to take pictures of the store and I forget to take photos of them taking photos.

Between visits from my wonderful customers, sketch a few ideas for a tea towel that will probably never see the light of day; play a couple of games of Solitaire; take a few necessary bathroom breaks.

7 PM: Dinner with a friend visiting from Austin who is staying in a lovely little house in the Hollywood Hills; beautiful sunset in the garden followed by coffee in a mug that looks like my sketches from earlier — mmm maybe the universe is telling me to take a look at that sketch again!

Thanks, Paula!