Award-winning Emmaus Design Firm Born of Passion, Necessity

Special to Emmaus Patch By Chrissy Cilento, Emmaus High School Class of 2013

Business:
Jarrett Design
312 Main St. Emmaus
610-972-5218
www.jarrettdesignllc.com
Hours: By appointment or by chance. When the “Designer is in” sign is up, we’re here!
Owner: Jill Jarrett

What service do you provide? 
We are certified kitchen and bath designers and cabinetry dealers. One of our designers has a degree in interior design, so we also do interior design services and some interior decorating now. 

What inspired you to start this business? 
I became a single mom and realized that I needed to start providing for my kids. My background is engineering, so I was debating going to Air Products or going back to school to become a teacher. But the year prior I had just finished designing and building a home from scratch, and I enjoyed that so much that my sister suggested that I do kitchen and bath design. I thought that was kind of a cool idea, so I contacted the NKBA and I did a home-study course and started working on my certification. So really it was a mixture of passion and necessity. 

Why was this business located in Emmaus? 
Because we have long-standing relationships with a lot of the other businesses here in town, so Emmaus has become kind of a hub for home design. I also live in Emmaus, and we find that the town is charming and the vibe is really nice. It’s growing and businesses are coming in, and that’s exciting to be a part of.

How long have you been in business? 
Our studio in Emmaus is relatively new, but we’ve been in business since 2006. We built the studio really to have a space to bring our clients so they can touch and feel the products they can purchase, as well as have a nice meeting place with our clients. 

What’s the most rewarding part about this business? 
Seeing the transformation of the space, whether it’s renovation or remodeling, and how that renovation enhances the lives of the people who live there. 

What's the hardest part of the business? 
Dealing with the challenges. Whether there’s a mistake made, something that was unforeseen, or a shipping problem-- you have to troubleshoot the challenges. When there’s a disappointment on the end of the client, that’s always the worst for us. We want everything to go perfectly and for there to be no glitches, but there are inevitably.

What makes this business different from the competition? 
Our unmatched customer service. We’re very client driven. We pretty much will do whatever it is in our power that we can to help them and get their desired result.

Where do you hope to see this business in the future? 
We already feel like we’ve grown so much just in the last year that we can add another space that would address growing areas of our business. We just moved here, but we feel like we’re already sort of outgrowing this space. The business is really busy right now, so we’re not totally sure where we're headed.

What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received? 
Nothing original, but just that the customer is always right. You really have to cater to the customer, and customer service is everything. That’s what we base all of our decisions on, so the bottom line is a happy customer at the end of it. 

What business advice would you give to someone else? 
Make sure it’s something that you love and that you’re passionate about. Anything can be successful if you’re willing to put in a lot of hard work and you enjoy the work that you’re doing.

Do you have a role model for what you do? 
Some of the top designers -- Mick de Giulio is a slick and suave designer who has this great coffee table book; it’d just be so cool to be big enough to have our own book of stuff that we put together. There’s also Ellen Cheever who’s more of just an expert in every facet of kitchen and bath design. We’re inspired by lots and lots of people.

What do you do in your free time? 
I have a non-profit called Hearts for Haiti, which is actually a public charity. We are a partner in an orphanage in Haiti, so we do fundraisers in local schools to help provide formula, diapers, and supplies for children there. Besides Hearts for Haiti I have seven kids now as part of a blended family, so there’s always a lot to do with that! I like to travel, and I try to stay balanced.

Anything else the community should know? 
We actually just won a national award in 2012, so that was exciting! We started entering design competitions, and we were lucky enough to win the $10,000 grand prize in the "Zephyr Inspire My Kitchen" design contest. We were then published in a couple magazines and can now call ourselves award-winning designers, so that was really fun! 

Chrissy Cilento plans to study journalism in college in the fall. She is a periodic contributor to Patch.