Rita Williams is used to working from a story line when she creates a model home’s interior design.
Does a family with children live there? Empty nesters? A young couple?
The cues come from the builder, who knows the target market.
But for D.R. Horton’s Talbot model at Aberdeen Castlegate, Williams used real people. Her grandniece, Charis Lapkovitch, was one of them.
Charis is a senior at nearby Bartram Trail High School, where she takes classes at its Fashion Academy.
Williams invited Charis to design a bedroom for herself.
Charis transformed Williams’ teal and coral color scheme and paisley fabrics into pillows, wall paint, curtains and mirrors.
Then she injected items that personally inspired her — sketches, a dress project, fashion magazines, photos of her classmates, a Project Runway sewing machine.
“It’s not anything like the room I have now. But it’s one that I wish I could have,” she said.
Charis helped Williams design the other kids’ bedrooms as well, one for a high school graduate who joined the Air Force Academy and another for a junior high school football player.
She took advice and photos from a friend in Bartram Trails’ ROTC program and from her brother, who is on the school’s junior varsity football team.
They are themes that make buyers more aware of the community’s assets, Williams said.
“It’s a real lifestyle, instead of something that’s a passing fad, like Star Wars,” she said. “This model will last for years and still tell the community’s story.”