What our Clients Say...

'Anna redesigned the living area my apartment and advised on the subsequent redecoration and furnishing. The result is a beautiful and very comfortable space. Her service was prompt and professional at all times'

CM, Kingsbridge

'I had never used an interior designer before and the renovation of a property as big as Farwell House was exciting but also rather overwhelming. We had ideas of what we wanted, but I wasn’t sure where to start – and it wasn’t just the décor and fittings– we are talking about essentials for living such as lighting and electrical circuit diagrams, room layouts and new heating. Anna was excellent – picking up where the architect finished and guiding us through some very major decisions. Once the decisions were made, she then transformed these into working drawings that the builders could follow. Her extensive knowledge helped with sourcing and co-ordinating the right products for the house. She also mediated between us when there were some differences of opinion, and encouraged me to be more adventurous and creative than I might otherwise have been. The whole process then became a fun experience and as a result we have a large but warm and very beautiful and comfortable home. Thank you, Anna!'

MH, Dartmouth

'We have been working with Anna over the last few years on our planned design update for all the reception areas in our family-run hotel. Her ideas are highly creative, and we always find her extremely professional and dedicated going the extra mile. All decisions are discussed and reasoned through ensuring the end result is pleasing to all. An extremely competent and confident person, and we would not hesitate to recommend her interior design services'

Peter & Dena Wharton, Hotel Riviera, Sidmouth

'Anna is a delight to work with from every perspective - she listens and works hard to understand your needs, desires and limits, and she will come up with very creative but pragmatic ideas and solutions, things you wouldn't have thought of. She's got a great eye for gorgeous design, researches well and tries to use locally sourced materials. But best of all she is collaborative, witty and patient - she worked with us on a enormous house in Devon which was partly new-build and part conversion of a very old house and we have continued to go back to her for new elements. I would highly recommend her'

CB, Dartmoor

'Anna has helped us over the course of a number of years with design advice for improvements to our barn conversion and courtyard, which was feeling dated and relatively untouched for 30 years.

Her insight and inspiration have been invaluable. She is very responsive to clients' needs, and offers excellent aesthetic and practical ideas and solutions. We’ve really appreciated her advice on colours, lighting and materials that suit the spaces.

She has a good overall vision that she translates into achievable steps. We've been particularly impressed with her attention to apparently small changes that make a big difference to the feel and dynamics of the place. We would highly recommend her'

IS & ML, East Portlemouth

'Anna is an exceptional and intuitive designer, able to effectively engage with the client over difficult issues and an absolute delight to work with. I cannot overstate the importance of her contribution to the creation of our home at Wortham. Her natural instinct for style and proportion was instrumental in fashioning some wonderfully bright & contemporary spaces, whilst her inspirational ideas solved many an apparently insoluble problem! Anna's enthusiasm and commitment throughout the project were outstanding and I wholeheartedly recommend her services'

PB, Dartmoor

'Anna helped me with my house renovation earlier this year. She is exceptionally talented and has a wonderful eye for colour and design. She helped choose worktops and other colour schemes in my house, which let me to proceed with confidence that I was on the right track. She enabled everything to fall into place without any hiccups. The end result is very beautiful and I’m thrilled. Thank you, Anna'

MB, Kingsbridge

A commercial client tells his story...

'Tally Ho! Coaches are a traditional bus and coach business based in Kingsbridge. We operate from an industrial building which serves as an operations centre and garage. The building is functional and the offices were old fashioned. Back in 2013, the company was building a new exciting coach holiday business and our customers started visiting the offices so we needed to change the look of our customer space and interface. We needed help and I invited a number of suppliers to come and draft a design for a holiday business, but unfortunately we ended up with a typical Travel Agent layout. Then we met Anna Kalnars!

Anna was extremely enthusiastic about the project and started by asking how we worked with our customers. We explained that we sat them down and chatted, and this idea led to a design concept loosely based on a popular Saturday morning TV cooking show. Anna spoke with the staff, and photographed and measured our offices before producing detailed CAD plans of the existing space. She proposed opening up the office by removing walls, and designed a central cluster of desks so that we could sit next to our customers and talk in an informal setting.

Once the structure of the building had been agreed Anna worked on a complementary colour scheme that had to work for our customers - we advised her that 86% who buy from us are female and this was reflected in the proposals. From the concept Anna was able to recommend suppliers for everything we needed from new office furniture, a cluster of pastel-coloured Anglepoise lamps and other new lighting throughout, to a new suspended ceiling with a vertical boarded format to introduce a visual impression of extra width to the very long space. She also recommended we put everything in that we would need for the next ten years, such as structured cabling and LED lighting, to ensure we were future-proofing the design.

The building work took approximately six weeks, the suppliers were all good people who delivered on time and there were minimal problems for a project of this size. The result was fantastic; it completely changed the working environment! We find it a relaxing, friendly place to work and the customers changed their behaviour: previously we sort of had to negotiate with them but now they just buy with a smile on their face.

When we budgeted the design scheme it was considerably more than I had originally planned to spend, but we decided to go ahead. We see it as money very well spent and I am really pleased we decided to go with Anna’s ideas. If you are thinking about a similar project and want to see what can be achieved, please come and see our offices for yourself, you will be very welcome'

Don McIntosh, Owner & Managing Director of Tally Ho! Coaches and Tally Ho! Holidays, Kingsbridge