"I know what I like when I see it — but could never put it together myself.

"He invested the time to understand us. We know what we like, but we don't have the ability to pick things out and combine them in a way that will produce the look we want. He takes our style and combines it with his artistic ability to show us how to make things look fabulous together. It is exactly what we want.

"We just finished our basement and wanted to use color to make it fun — so it would be great for the kids. He picked a combination of paint colors that looked so tasteful together — and at the same time made a great statement. He chose a taupe for most of the walls with an accent wall in adobe orange. It looks great — and is perfect for the kids — the colors work perfectly for both our daughter's guests (punchy and fun) and our son's guests (not too girly).

"I wanted someone who would understand what I like and who would bring me just a few choices. He got that down pat. He would bring a small number of choices. He would tell us what his top three were, and almost every time, I picked his top one. He knew right away the one that I would like and what would look the best.

"I wanted my daughter's room done in something that would take her through her teenage years, even though she was just 10. He gave it a really sophisticated, classic look with just the right amount of 'youth' with softer features and touches. Once he showed it to me, it was clear that that was the way to go, but I would never have been able to pick them out.

"He consistently goes out of his way to do things for us that help us out. He has picked out accessories, showed us exactly how/where to hang pictures (and has hung them for us), arranged furniture — just to name a few! He makes fabulous choices. We are so sure that he will pick colors and styles we like, that sometimes we agree to go with his choices, even without having seen them.

"He even understands the differences between my husband and my tastes — so he suggests choices that he knew we both could agree on that still look great.

"So many designers have their strong opinions on how they want your house to look. But he was able to figure out how to take our perspectives and combine them with what looks best with the house — to provide the perfect solution.

"We wanted to paint our kitchen. I wanted something fun. My favorite color is turquoise. So I went to the store and picked a bright turquoise. I called him up and told him the number. He laughed and said, 'You are going to get a headache every time you walk into your kitchen.' He called me back in a few minutes and gave me a number to give to the painter. We came home the next day and it was a beautiful turquoise. I looked at the card and it was 15 times less intense that what I had picked. I would never have thought that it would be this beautiful color from looking at the paint chip. I wouldn't have known that it would be perfect — bright and beautiful, exciting and fun, but not so much as to make you dizzy after a while. He easily knew the one with the right balance and tone which would look just right."

      —Sara and Fred

"Sometimes he calls me up and says, 'I found something for you.  I think you are going to love it.' And sure enough, we love it.  He has a gift.  He can read people.  He is just amazing.

"My mother-in-law loved everything that he did for us so I referred him to her.  She is very particular about her house.  He picked out a color for the house, and then got the pictures, rugs and accessories.  Both my mother and father-in-law are very happy.  They just love him.

"My husband and I had just purchased this home.  We were clueless as to how to decorate it so we went to a show at Pheasant Run in St. Charles.  He was there and we started to talk to him.  He told us that he would come over and look at the house, so we made an appointment.  He was our guide.  He made everything happen.  We are very happy with our home.

"He wasn't pushy, which I hate about some designers. I told him, 'I want you to be honest with me and tell me if it is going to be a lot of money.  I want you to understand my needs.' He did all that.  He was very humble and honest.  He said it was a lot of money and work.  My husband was very concerned about the work aspect.  Brian made him feel confident about it.  I guess his personality is a big part in the equation, and he nailed it.  Everything he did for us was great."

      —Karina T

"He always laughed because we had a lot of things in the basement from our prior home.  He'd say, 'Well, we can go shopping down in your basement.' "

      —Kathleen  

"I worked in the trades while I was in school so I know how jobs should be done.  I have very high expectations about the quality of the work and I am willing to be home to make sure a job is done correctly.  Having Krista relieved me from that burden.  In a lot of ways, she was the general contractor for the decorating... and it was heavy duty decorating construction.  When there were any issues, she managed them in the most professional manner.  She made sure everything met my expectations.  The lack of aggravation that I could have incurred was a tremendous value added benefit."

      —David M.

"Lots of people only talk about how great their house looks.  Function is just as important to me.  My house works well and looks great because she is so talented.

"Some would consider us extremely picky because we know what we want.  She really knows her stuff. She has a great eye for design, function, color, fabric... everything.  It made it very easy for us.  She is beyond the beyond of amazing."

      —Elisa M.

"I wanted a designer that understood what I wanted. I had a couple of people come in before him. I told them what I wanted, and they came back with designs that were completely off the wall. I told one designer the colors I that I wanted were warm with an orangy-rust included. She came in with faric for my drapes with leaves and pineapples. It was not me at all. I might have been great for somebody else, but not for me. I said, 'I'll get back to you after I talk to my husband.'

"Then Brian came in and nailed everything. There was only one item that he brought that I was not crazy about and he instantly took it back. Everything else was perfect. He knew exactly what I wanted. Every idea that he came up with was what I wanted. It is an absolute pleasure working with him.

"He works with me. I bounce ideas off of him, he bounces ideas off of me. He really does listen to the customer.

"We redid almost every room in my house. That gets costly. So when it came to my six year old daughter's room, I just wanted to do the accessories. I already had her furniture. I did not want to spend a lot because I knew that in a couple of years, she would want to change it. I told him, 'I have no idea what I want to do.'

"He said, 'I'll take care of it.'

"And he did. It was perfect. Not babyish, not too adult. I think she will be good in this room for four or five years.

"He really listens to you. He really works with you. If he brings in something that does not make you happy, he is more than willing to start all over again.

"I don't have the knack for decorating. He gets me. It is so much easier to have him come in and do it for me.

"When I first did my house I had glass everywhere. When people came into my house, they were afraid to sit. I wasn't thinking, because when we had kids, my first thought was, 'I have to get rid of all this.' So I told Brian, 'I want warm, welcoming and comfy.' And that is what he did. He turned my house into a home."

      —Grace Positano

"We are building a home from the ground up. Loren is helping to get me through everything that is required, such as where to place the wall sockets and ceiling lights, and the best way to design the bathroom so it is user friendly. We’ve done our appliance, light fixtures and hard surface flooring, but not the carpeting shopping. We just entered the furniture phase. He has helped us keep our color coordination in line. I would truly have been in a tizzy if I did not have Loren to lean on.

"He has been my partner in crime about spending money. We try to stay within our ‘allowance’ as much as we can. We have had so much fun. He really takes the pressure off shopping by being such a happy spirit.

"He knows me better than I know myself.

"Building a house has not been as frustrating and scary as I thought it would be. We did a huge addition on our current home by ourselves and found our own contractors and tradesmen. It took ten months. That was overwhelming. My part in building this home from the ground up has truly been made easier with Loren as my sidekick and 'go to' guy.

"It is a huge, huge process. He has been with me the whole way. He has kept me from panicking, which made things a lot less stressful for my husband.

"One of the side benefits is that he buys me red licorice. Loren and I have similar tastes. He has allowed me to be a little bit spunkier and he confirms that is OK, which makes it a little bit more fun for me. My husband and I are very modern and contemporary. But sometimes I like to push the edge. This project has given me the opportunity to do that.

"We always keep my husband in mind. Loren is just about an inch shorter than my husband is. So when we go looking for furniture, we always put Loren in it and take a picture so my husband can get an idea of how he will look in it. My husband wants the furniture to be comfortable and fit him. We are good about that. He does not want to be in the process, but we keep him in mind.

"The whole design process has been comfortable. He makes it so easy for me. Less stressful.

"I was not looking forward to shopping for tile. I figured it would be days and days and days of having to go places. But the day breezed by. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. Loren showed me things and in just that one day my whole house was finished.

"He knows my tastes, which helped tremendously in the buying process. He showed me things he knew I would like that went with other things we already picked out. He can remember, without writing things down, the smallest details. It is remarkable. He remembered exactly what my island granite looks like. We picked it out last February, before the foundation was even in, and now it is September. I asked, 'How can you remember that?' He said, 'I don’t know, I just see it.'

"I think it is remarkable, a real talent, a thing you are either blessed with or not.

"He never pressured me into getting something that I truly didn’t like. If I say, ‘no,’ he respects that. That’s not saying that we don’t sometimes talk about it. He’ll ask, ‘What is it that you don’t like?’ He shows me what it can be like if we do it this way or that way. He gives me options and then sometimes I see why he suggested it.

"He is not my first designer. I can tell you that my other experiences were totally different. He is not like the designer that brings you the fabrics ‘you are going to use.’ I once saw a designer who had all our material picked out before even being in our house. I’m stuck with some furniture from another designer that we don’t even sit on.

"His method is just so much more personable. He doesn’t say, 'You’re the client and I know better than you do.' He wants to show who you are through your home."

      —Jeanne W.

"When he first came to my home I told him that I have lived in the house for three years. I had been and still was very busy with my business and I had not had any time to spend on my home. All I did was move in and unpack my boxes. By that time, I had already made several mistakes that cost me time and money. Loren did not come in and insist that I had to spend thousands of dollars to start over.

"I asked him, 'What do I do? There are some pieces here that I like and I don’t want to throw all of them away.' He was very understanding. He was willing and able to work with pieces that I had an emotional connection to or that I really loved. He never said that I had to throw anything away. He worked with my personality and tastes and added to and enhanced what I already had. Now friends walk into my home and tell me how they love the color or my walls, how wonderful and comfortable my home is. When I walk in, I get peaceful. I can see myself in my home. I love my home again.

"It was all about my personality. He was able to pull my personality out, understand it, and then put it into my home so that it turned around and became a part of me.

"I was so tired of my house that I said, ‘You know, I think that I am going to sell this house. I hate it. I don’t feel comfortable in the house.’ Loren said, ‘You know what, there is nothing wrong with your house. Let’s just move some things around. Let’s warm it up. Let’s bring some things in that make you feel good about your house.’ So he did and I didn’t want to sell my house anymore. He put some of ‘me’ in my house and turned it into my home.

"My husband was involved. He gave Loren his input and Loren listened to him. His tastes were decidedly male. He had certain things that he wanted in the home, things that made me think, ‘Are you crazy?’ But Loren made sure that my husband was comfortable as well. He incorporated certain things into the rooms just for my husband that made him comfortable. It became our home, not just my home.

"Loren’s ego is not involved when you work with him. His concern is to make you happy. Loren works with you. He works with what you have and makes it look fabulous. It’s not about making him look good. It’s about you being comfortable."

      —Rose De Paola

"There were times when we were doing the salon that things needed to get done and I did not have the time to handle them. Loren got involved when I could not. He was a good leader. He managed the contractors and artisans to keep everything on track so things got done when they needed to be done so that we could move on to the next step in the process. He was a great project manager.

"There were moments when I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is going to cost thousands of dollars more than I can afford." But Loren always took the budget into consideration. I never came back and said, ‘Well, that is way more than we spoke about.’ He always stayed within budget and never made me spend more than I could. He was very trustworthy.

"The salon is a reflection of me. People see it from the street ant tell me it is very intriguing. The salon makes a statement, but is approachable. When clients walk through the door, they say that it is very warm and inviting. It has definitely made a huge difference in my client base by attracting people that want the best and recognize the best. It attracts people that want the finer things in life.

"The salon stations are an interesting story. As a child I collected elephant figurines. But only ones that had their trunks up, which signify good luck. Loren found an artisan and brought him in to meet me. I told the artisan about collecting the elephants and asked if he could make me stations that looked like that. And he said, 'I can do that.' So that is what the stations are, an artistic rendition of raised elephant trunks meant to bring me good luck with the salon. I also wanted to stay as green as possible in the salon and use as many recyclable items and possible. The artisan was able to make the stations from recycled aluminum."

      —Rose De Paola at Couture 360

"I had never before used a designer and Mark Farrahar, who designed my kitchen, knew that I needed to find a table of a specific size and said that the people in the office next to his were designers. There was a woman there that he knew could help me find a table. I contacted her and she did. The kitchen table was expensive. And that was ok. But I did not want to spend too much on the chairs because I have kids. She suggested places to go and went with me. She did not make anything on those chairs because I bought them directly from the store. That was when I knew she would be willing to go the extra mile for me. I really enjoyed her company, so all said, we kept working together. She helped me pick colors and the light fixtures for the kitchen and then we went to work on the bathroom.

"I was redoing my first floor bathroom because there was an extra piece of granite left over from having my kitchen redone. She suggested I look at a website for mirrors, another one for light fixtures and a third for knobs. They were great. I would never have thought to look at those sites. I could talk to her at night and we would go online together. We were shopping together without having to go out shopping. It was so convenient. We did go out shopping once for fabric, but most of what I used was purchased online.

"I liked her as a person. I am a very frugal person and she respected that. She did not take me to high priced places or push top of the line items.

"Having done the kitchen and bathroom, I felt comfortable doing the living room. I knew I was paying a little more than if I had gone down to North Carolina, but by that time, I knew it was money well spent. I wanted something cool. I told her I wanted my living room to be different. I did not want the typical living room. So she said, 'Well, why don't we do four chairs and an ottoman.' And I thought, 'That would be cool.' So we did it. And it is.

"We went into Loren Reid Seaman's showroom and picked out a few that that I would consider putting on the wall. She brought those and a few things that were, well, a little off the wall, kind of crazy. But they were perfect. She did such an awesome job arranging them. They are dimensional discs, with all kinds of colors, angled off the wall and at different heights. They are totally cool. There are seven of them. There was a light switch in the center of that wall and she was so annoyed with how that looked. So now one of the discs hides it. It's perfect. Everybody that walks into my house stops and looks at my living room."

      —Mary E. Holdsberg

"We had paint samples on our walls for two years and could never decide which colors we wanted to paint.  My husband was at a chamber of commerce golf outing and received a card from Loren, which was good for a one hour of decorating consultation. So we called, with thoughts of having him help us to choose some paint colors. One hour turned into two and a half.  One room turned into the whole first floor.

"In the past, I’d used some furniture store designers and they were not open, there was no discussion. They said, ‘This is what I think,’ but it was more like, ‘Here it is.’ Loren’s personality was different. He made his point in such a way that I knew he would be someone with whom I could work. He spent time making sure I was comfortable. I mean he really took a lot of time with me. He reassured me. For instance - when you first put paint on the wall, you sometimes wonder, ‘Was this the right decision?’ Whenever I felt like that, he would take a step back and talk about it with me. He made it a very fun and pleasurable experience.　

"Looking at a million paint and fabric samples is not my idea of a good time. I’m not one of those people that can sit down and enjoy doing that. Loren sat down with me and gave me choices, but not too many choices. For example, when we went to the granite warehouse, I walked in and it was overwhelming. Thank goodness Loren had already been there and picked out two or three things for me. That was enough.

"Loren makes you feel like a friend, not just a client.

"When we were picking paint colors, Loren gathered some of the things that we had decided were going to be part of the design. He brought the rug I had bought, the cushion from a chair, other things that we decided we were going to use. He put everything on the floor and he added the fabric for the window dressings. Then we started going through the paint samples. I remember one time he said ‘I kind of like this color.’ I looked at it and said, ‘I think it is too muddy.’ He tossed it away and said ‘Oh! Let’s find another one.’

"We went away for a week on vacation. When we came back the walls were painted. They were a dark color, which was really a change for me. I had to live with that for a few days, but I’ve got to tell you, I love it now. Everything pulls together. When you stand in my kitchen and look at my Florida room, my dining room and my living room, it just flows together so beautifully.

"I have a modern, eclectic, comfy style. The first one-hour visit actually lasted a good two and a half or three hours. Later, Loren came back and had dinner with us. He took the time to get to know us. We actually sat in the room. He saw how I liked to sit on the furniture. He was very intuitive and was able to determine our lifestyle, our tastes.

"My husband is exceptionally pleased with the Florida room. It is no longer just a place, it is a finished room in our home.

"When he first came, Loren said, 'I bet you never sit in the living room,' and I responded, ‘No, we don’t.’ But since it has been remodeled, we sit in there more often than we’ve sat in there for the last 20 years.

"I have a modern, eclectic, comfy style.

"The colors we chose were not what I would have called my favorite colors, not colors to which I would have first been attracted. But you know what, I love them. They are so warm.

“It’s truly been a fun experience working with Loren – I’d work with him again in a heartbeat!”

      —Jan Poynton

"The whole package is well done and we like it. We made some things that we already had work, and we moved around some things. The sunroom used to be our poolroom. Very casual. It’s part of the house now. It doesn’t look like an addition any more.

"I told Loren, 'I don’t want you to start any part of the project until you have everything needed either in town, in my garage or in your showroom.' I didn’t want to be someplace in the process where we had to wait six weeks for something to be delivered. I don’t like living in disarray. Things started to come and we had the kitchen sink, the counter tops, the faucet and the cabinets all in the garage before we started the actual dirty work.

"We were contemplating painting our house. We had paint chips on the wall and we were trying to figure out what color to use. The paint chips were on the wall for about two years and we were still trying to make up our mind about what to do. One day I was at the chamber of commerce golf outing where Loren was sponsoring a hole. I think he had cookies and milk and a card with a free hour consultation. In October I said to my wife, ‘I’d really like to get the house painted. I got this guy’s card. I’ve never met him, but there’s this free one-hour consultation and what can it hurt it to give him a call and have him come over.’ So I gave him a call and he came over. He was there for about three hours and spent most of the time talking with my wife about decorating. We started out looking for paint chips and we ended up getting along really well. So we decided to remodel the whole downstairs of our house. It’s a small house. We did most of the kitchen, the backroom that is an addition, and the living and dining room area. It was a project.

"The only thing I wanted personally out of the project was final 'artistic approval' and input on the money. My wife and Loren had at it. We compromised on some things. Loren was excellent to work with. He and his staff did a nice job.

"The quality of the work was great. We had to have some cabinets moved after the painting was done. You cannot tell that the cabinets were moved. They actually took them off the wall and rehung them and you can’t find a flaw any place." His painters did a great job and the cabinet guys did a great job. I give them all a 10."

      —Tom Poynton

"When I walk into Couture 360 I feel as if I’ve received a BIG caramel hug."

      —Amy Hollowell

"I think that our vision of the office was consistent with Loren’s. As far as the overall look and effect of the office was concerned, we were on the same page for pretty much everything. So this was an "easy marriage", so to speak, between us.

"The look of the office is a reflection of me and the quality of work we do. My patients have given me phenomenal feedback. They love it.

"Loren is great at what he does!"

      —John P.