Cherisse Moe

When you think about home re­mod­el­ling and in­te­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing, the pop­u­lar ca­ble chan­nel, Home and Gar­den Tele­vi­sion (HGTV), may come to mind. But, what if you could get the same pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices right here at home? Mem­bers of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Qual­i­fied In­te­ri­or Dec­o­ra­tors of T&T (AQI­DOTT) say they're up for the chal­lenge. Found­ed in 2009 by pres­i­dent/di­rec­tor, Lestra Hen­ry, AQI­DOTT com­pris­es 25 mem­bers, and is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion which acts as a sup­port sys­tem for dec­o­ra­tors un­der its mem­ber­ship, and by ex­ten­sion the gen­er­al pub­lic. Hen­ry al­so teach­es the tricks of the trade through her com­pa­ny, Lestra's Cot­tage-School of In­te­ri­or Dec­o­rat­ing, at Palm Plaza, Ari­ma.

Sec­re­tary and grad­u­ate of the school, He­len Alexan­der, said the as­so­ci­a­tion was cur­rent­ly on a mis­sion to pro­mote the field in T&T and was in talks with the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency of the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion to get the green light to award grad­u­ates with a diplo­ma lev­el cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, known as the Cari­com Vo­ca­tion­al Qual­i­fi­ca­tion (CVQ). "We are al­so await­ing word from the min­istry for the cours­es to be Gate ap­proved. Our cours­es are tai­lor-made for Cari­com ar­eas yet it's up to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards." Alexan­der said the as­so­ci­a­tion-the first of its kind in the Caribbean-was al­so call­ing on both cor­po­rate and pri­vate T&T to as­sist AQI­DOTT to fur­ther pro­mote the in­dus­try, which she said had "re­al po­ten­tial for growth."

Stat­ing that more peo­ple were be­gin­ning to con­sid­er in­te­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing as a lu­cra­tive ca­reer op­tion, Alexan­der added, "Thanks to tele­vi­sion, peo­ple are more will­ing to say 'yes, I'll pay a dec­o­ra­tor to make this look good.' "Some­times peo­ple have a house for sale on the mar­ket for a long while and won­der why it's not sell­ing. They don't re­alise that it could sim­ply be due to the way it's laid out. It takes a pro­fes­sion­al to see that and guide them through it." Alexan­der knows what she's talk­ing about. The well-spo­ken en­tre­pre­neur is the mas­ter-mind be­hind Dec­o­rate For You, an in­te­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing com­pa­ny she launched at her Arou­ca home in 2009.

When it comes to dec­o­rat­ing, Alexan­der, who honed her skills through years of help­ing friends dec­o­rate for wed­dings and oth­er spe­cial events, as­sured that her ser­vices were not lim­it­ed. From home and of­fice con­sul­ta­tions to de-clut­ter­ing-she can do it all. "Peo­ple tend to think of a house and the in­side of a house when­ev­er they hear the words "in­te­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing." How­ev­er, it re­al­ly means the in­side of any space. "You can even dec­o­rate some­thing like a gar­den, be­cause that's al­so a space and so the same rule ap­plies. It's such a great field to be in."

• For more de­tails on AQI­DOTT con­tact Alexan­der via aqi­dottdec­o­ra­tors@gmail.com or 749-6581.