Interior Designers Join to Tackle Decorating Problems

Gracious Living Interiors
Owner: Peggy Hart and Cleon Johnson
Address: 2005 East Central, Bentonville 72712
Phone/Fax: (479) 254-8722 / (479) 254-9422
Hours: 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday; 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. Saturday and by appointment.
Startup date: March 1, 2005
Web site: Coming.

Cleon Johnson thinks of herself as a problem solver. The interior designer and co-owner of Gracious Living Interiors has been solving people’s home decorating problems for 35 years. She recently partnered with friend and former client Peggy Hart to open a picturesque showroom in Bentonville.

The business incorporates the service of interior design with the showroom concept. Not only can customers be part of the planning process for their interior design works, but freelance designers, building contractors and construction consultants can use it as a an idea library.

Johnson, an allied member of American Society of Interior Designers, chose Sarah Pounders, a graduate of University of Arkansas’ interior design program, to help her run things. The pair will work on any project, large or small, and can start at any stage of its development.

“If it’s in the client’s imagination, that’s the best place to start,” Johnson said. She prefers to be in on a building or remodeling project from the floor joists to the ceiling tiles, but if not, she said, “we’re just as delighted to go out and use all the things they have and to just refresh the look.”

Johnson adds, “I want to be there until the last picture is positioned on the wall, the last napkin ring is set on the table and the last soap dish is placed in the bath.”

Pounders said customers are in charge of how much it costs to design a room or a home. “They can spend a few hundred or several thousand. It really depends on what their individual needs are,” she said.

Johnson declined to say what start-up costs were, but did say the 5,000-SF colonial home had to be remodeled, stock purchased and employees hired.