Jackson Free Press

"This. This is Paula," Susan Fontenot, owner of Fontenot Designs said, entering a room straight from a Pinterest Dream Home board. The room was a perfectly orchestrated smorgasbord of textures, prints and colors. It's eccentricity and lack of one central theme was a clear reflection of the woman who spent her days there, perched on the orange sofa or stopping by to gaze out the window on her way from kitchen to living room. When I met Paula, I already knew her.

Fontenot is half creative genius and half psychic, as all great interior designers are. She isn't loyal to a specific style, nor does she create carbon copies of her own eclectic home. Instead, she spends time with the client, learning them and their tastes and intertwining pieces of their lifestyle and personality to create something as unique as they are.

A day at Fontenot Designs is a mad rush from client to client and store to store, her minivan loaded down with rugs, lamps and pillows. Her fellow designer and sidekick, Beth Blackwell, drives. The pair began working together a little over five years ago after the furniture store where Blackwell worked closed. Fontenot explained that because interior designers are often in the same store several times a week, they pick just one salesperson to deal with. At that particular store, Louisiana native Blackwell was her go-to girl.

"I always knew she would work for me, ever since the day we met," Fontenot says.

Born and reared in Jackson, Fontenot moved to Starkville with her family as a teen. After high school, she lived in Memphis, Tenn., for more than 15 years, and then moved to Wilmington, N.C., where she owned and operated a bed and breakfast until she came home in 2000. When Fontenot returned, she started her namesake design company and began creating beautiful spaces for people to dwell in.

"The Fontourage," as the company is affectionately called, is comprised of the two designers and their installer, Justin Rogers, who does the heavy lifting, literally. Their clients are all over the Jackson area and beyond, from Belhaven, where Fontenot lives, to Memphis. They aren't just home decorators, either. The team does corporate spaces, living centers and has even designed new homes from the ground up.

What clients love most about the Fontenot Design team isn't their expertise, despite more than 35 years of experience between them. They love the level of intimacy that they develop with each person. "I went skydiving this past weekend, and nearly every one of our clients was commenting on my photo saying different things," Blackwell says. "Most of our friends start out as clients."

One client, Jean, says that she and Fontenot are "married" for life. "I was ready to put this house on the market—that's how bad it was. And then I met this lady," she says, motioning to Fontenot.

Jean took me to each room, explaining the process of getting rid of old items that didn't complement one another and replacing them with pieces that make the house feel like a home—her home. Rogers removed an old, dark antique-esque rug from the hardwood living-room floor and laid a champagne-colored, nearly pearlescent one in its place. The space transformed as light flooded in through the French doors, bouncing off the rug and lighting up the room. "You did good," Jean says. "You always do good."

For more information, visit fontenotdesign.com or find it on Facebook.