By Meg Brazill

Working on hundreds of home projects a year is a tall order for two people, but for Walter and Sharlee Lourie, the husband and wife team behind Thinking-Out Loud Designs, Inc. (TOLD), it’s all in a year’s work. Since the company’s inception in 2000, the two have combined their talent, passion and experience to provide their design and flooring services throughout New England and as far south as Florida. In 2004 the couple plans to expand beyond their home-based business into their own design showroom in Burlington, Vt.

A full-service interior design company, Thinking-Out Loud Designs has a special division called Impact, which handles all aspects of wood flooring including installation. Homeowners, contractors and builders work directly with TOLD to solve their design and flooring needs. A homeowner may seek advice about flooring options, furnishings, paint color or about overall color flow throughout the home; a builder may be interested in consulting about manufacturers and product choices, about furnishings or specific color finishes; or a contractor may want a full-service, high-quality wood flooring job.

TOLD President and Founder Sharlee Lourie says when she was doing color consulting, faux finishing and furniture buying for clients, the jobs would expand to address other needs. Meanwhile, Walter was selling and installing hardwood flooring 80 hours a week for a growing company. TOLD evolved out of the Lourie’s desire to combine their complementary specialties, and they decided to put their energies toward growing their own company. Clients seem to appreciate the husband-and-wife team approach with its balanced perspective and blended results.

While Sharlee likes to avoid labels, she admits she leans towards a modern or contemporary look, choosing well-made products with simple, clean designs. She is resolute about treating her customers and their homes as if “I was hiring someone like me.” She also doesn’t “take over” or impose her own personal vision on a client. “I just help them find what they really want and can grow with.”

For clients who want a personalized, unique finish for their walls, Sharlee offers decorative painting such as color washes and faux finishes. Decorative painting adds character and interest to a room, much the way wallpaper does, but with a much greater variety of choices. Tuscan and Mediterranean color washes, which lend warmth and texture to a room, are current favorites with customers, according to Sharlee. Some of these finishes actually simulate the look of worn plaster — like that found in fine old buildings. Sharlee’s artistic skills allow her to combine and mix color to great effect — an essential component of decorative painting. “Climbing 50 feet up a ladder, painting free hand with a small brush and a small bowl of paint is thrilling!” Sharlee says. “With design, you have to always be ready to do something another way.”

TOLD evolved out of the Lourie’s desire to combine their complementary specialties, and they decided to put their energies toward growing their own company.

The other half of the team is Walter Lourie, vice president of TOLD. As head of Impact,
Walter handles all sales, installation and distribution of wood flooring. The options for flooring are seemingly limitless and a homeowner can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer availability of choices. While builders and contractors are usually more experienced clients, they reap the benefits of
Walter’s up-to-date market information, his years of experience in the field, and Impact’s relationships with high-quality reputable manufacturers.

“We choose products that we would use ourselves,” says Walter. Whenever possible, they buy from manufacturers they can develop a personal relationship with; ones who share their values of honesty and integrity in business. “We have realized that working with a company that shares our values is very important to us — and that it’s worth not doing business with some companies. It’s reflected in the products that our customers spend money on.”

Wood flooring is sold in a variety of species, grades and widths. Walter works with clients so they can get what they want and need. For customers who have specific requests in color, depth, width and length, Impact can obtain custom milled flooring. The Louries furnish stair parts and millwork, and are currently adding borders, medallions and pattern flooring to their line.

Wood flooring is available both unfinished and prefinished, each of which has its own benefits depending on the specific situation, the customer’s needs and overall budget. With prefinished flooring, the customer has the advantage of a stain or paint job which is applied in the most modern methods, direct from the manufacturer.

In hardwood flooring, the traditional species include: red oak, white oak, maple, ash, North American cherry, white birch, red birch and pine. In the exotic class, they handle bamboo, which is actually a grass. It is an extremely fast growing natural resource that is reharvested every six years from the same stock. While bamboo is harder than oak, it’s also very resilient. Other exotic hardwoods available through Impact are Brazilian cherry, rosewood, Santa Maria (Bolivian) mahogany, and walnut. Brazilian cherry is one of the hardest and richest woods available. It’s so tough it can be used for “a pet elephant owner’s floor,” jokes Walter. Its toughness, however, is surpassed by its beauty.

As the company has expanded, the Louries have added three full-time employees. In addition to their existing products, they plan to sell floor coverings including rugs made of natural dyes and fibers. Sharlee is currently exploring the development of a product line for her furniture designs, and she plans to carry many of the decorative items they don’t have the space for now. “As customers ourselves, we’re always asking, ‘What would I want? What would I be concerned with?’” she says.