WAILUA HOMESTEADS — Amid all theTim and Tiffany Shafto had a brief moment from all the work they do to sit down with their two Pomeranians, Brini and Zoey. “We just got into the Hawaii Crafts Fair in Honolulu and
WAILUA HOMESTEADS — Amid all theTim and Tiffany Shafto had a brief moment from all the work they do to sit down with their two Pomeranians, Brini and Zoey.
“We just got into the Hawaii Crafts Fair in Honolulu and we had to ship off our couple of pieces,” Tiffany said.
The Shaftos run two businesses, Tropical Wood Designs, unique koa and exotic wood keepsakes, and Inspired Interiors, Tiffany’s interior designing business.
Tim’s keepsake boxes recently won the Skolmen Award at this year’s Hawaii Woodshow in Honolulu for the best use of underutilized species of Hawaiian woods. In addition to the award, the Shaftos won $200 and an autographed book on Hawaiian trees by Roger Skolmen.
“That was such an honor since we’ve never done that before,” Tiffany said.
They haven’t been making the decorative wooden boxes for long. They had only picked up the trade in February.
“We had to do something to pass our time,” said Tim. “We love it. Sometimes when we start something we just keep going. We won’t stop till we’re tired. We might work for two weeks before we stop.”
They do all the wood sawing and put all the boxes together in their garage turned workroom.
The next stop for them is the Hawaii Crafts Fair in Honolulu Friday, where they’ll be showing their decorative keepsake boxes.
Aside from that, Tiffany runs her interior design business designing kitchens and little rooms for her clients.
“I’ve done rooms here and there,” she said. “I enjoy it. It’s what I love to dwo.”
There is no such thing as a room being too big or too small for her to design.
“I love to do both,” she said. “Little spaces are fun because there’s all these intricate details. But doing a whole house can be fun too because everything fits together.
Every room matches and everything comes together nicely.”
Her design concept is simple: Design a room that inspires the client to want to act, whether it’s relax or go out and do something.
“You create a space that feels good and harmonious,” she said. “You achieve that my listening to what the client really wants and needs.”
One of her favorite jobs was the interior design for an entire house.
“It was a lot of fun working with the clients who I knew pretty well, and creating a space that really works for them and the way they live,” she said. “They do a lot of entertaining and for their kitchen, they wanted the 48-inch range and because he’s an amazing framing contractor, I was able to design a fun custom hood.”
Another job she’s particularly proud of is when she got to remodel a bathroom for a couple that worked in a hospital emergency room.
“They really wanted a place to relax and sort of have a spa-feel to it,” she said. “They had a small bathroom so we made it bigger and I put in this cabinet and his and her sinks.”
But one of her strangest jobs was for a jeweler.
“Everything had to have a little sparkle. He wanted this powder-coated counter top,” she said. “It’s like an aluminum, metal finish and he wanted it on his TV console.”
The two haven’t yet merged their two specialties, his boxes for the around the room and her designing rooms.
“We haven’t figured that out yet,” Tiffany said. “Tim’s got this box that’s so beautiful it’s like I could do a whole room around this one box.”
The two moved to Kaua‘i from California about two-and-a-half-years ago. Tim worked with stone metal and Tiffany was a project manager for custom homebuilders, overseeing her designs and the overall construction projects. Tiffany said a lot of her designs have a sort of Asian feel to them.
“I think that’s why everything here fits so well with my design ideas,” she said. “This island is magical and I think that’s why we love it here so much.”
When her work is done, she is delighted when she receives thank you cards from her happy clients.
“Those are what I work for,” she said.
To see her work, visit www.inspiredinteriorskauai.com. Tim’s keepsake boxes can be viewed at www.tropicalwooddesigns.com. They can also be found at Ola’s in Hanalei, the Collector’s Fine Art Gallery at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and the Collector’s Fine Art Gallery at the Kauai Marriott Resort.
• Lanaly Cabalo, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or lcabalo@kauaipubco.com.
