Interior Designer's Mantra is Simplify

Interior Designers Mantra is Simplify
In the four years since Sarasotan Suzanne Sultana opened her high end interior design business, she has wowed builders and clients alike with her take no prisoners bold visual style.

It's a style that mixes both natural elements as well as cool shiny surfaces and a restrained palette can suddenly give way to colorful, stunning accents.

Visually, she wants to get in your face, in a warm, minimalist kind of way.

"Less is more," she quotes Mies van der Rohe of Bauhaus School fame.

Sultana has won an armful of awards and has snagged some of the region's most competitive design contracts.

But success was not seized without some growing pains and early missteps, including over-expansion in an expensive retail showroom, which was drastically cut back last year.

Last April, Sultana was named "DCOTA Rising Star," by the Design Center of the Americas at the Florida Design Industry's award gala in Dania Beach.

It's a big deal, coming on top of a 2004 platinum prize for "Home of the Year, Best living room/Great room," from SRQ magazine.

Sultana has won about a dozen similar awards in just the past few years.

Florida's Gulf Coast is seen to be more conservative and has less of a hip urban sheen than the East Coast in almost all matters, including home design.