NHOME110407

A mess in the kitchen, an orderly man

Joel Koyama, Star Tribune

Jeff Schreier won't allow his kids to pick up his habit of putting his feet on the counter.

Design guru Jeff Schreier runs an interior design shop and glossy home store in the heart of Stillwater. At the end of the day, he brings home his attention to detail.

By Kim Yeager

Last update: November 2, 2007 - 2:59 PM

Q When does your weekend start?

A Friday afternoon. One of my favorite comments to my wife is, "Please tell me we don't have any plans." Whether we're cooking together as a family or we decided that we're going to go out for pizza, we're very, very unstructured on the weekends.

Q Cooking? Do you make a mess?

A I don't really cook very often, but when I do, it's a big production. I'm a big chili nut. ... In our family, my mom had a brother-in-law whose name was Ray. He would cook and and mess up the entire house and then leave it. And then his wife would have to clean it up. So whenever I cook, Liz calls me Ray!

Q Hmm. But your penchant for order is well known.

A My wife would say I'm obsessed! I'm all for chaos, making a mess. But I don't live in a mess. We all benefit from the order that we strive to maintain. And then you're not spending the weekend worrying. It took us 13 years to figure that out.

Q So how do you spend time that order buys you?

A We do the family thing. We're getting into biking now, we all go. We're out here by the Gateway Trail. My daughter's 5 now; she's in the Burley. The Buddy Bike is next.

Q And for relaxing?

A I like running. We're just trying to fight the turning 40 thing. We're 3-, 4-mile runners. We had a perfect weekend; we still talk about this, we have one once a year. It was Thanksgiving weekend. We got up, the house was all in order, people coming over later. We got up early enough when we could all go running, literally, the whole family went. Had a sauna, showered, went to church. To me, that's just the perfect deal.

Q You've got three small children. How do you keep your house as gorgeous as your showroom?

A Everything in our house is user-friendly. Like the booth: We had it recovered, but the reason we did that fake ostrich is, we can Windex it. We will never do a Sub-Zero with a stainless steel front again. It's ridiculous with kids!

Q What's up with the yellow tassels on the cupboards? They look like the ones in your shop.

A They are. We have black and white ones in the store. The whole store is black and white, but the tassels are yellow in a sales period.

Q Does that mean your butler's pantry is for sale?

A This house is very basic. It's very plain. ... I always enjoy [seasonal decor] at other people's houses, but when it comes into our house, it drives me crazy. I can't handle it for any length of time. So it's a way of changing the season out, without bringing in the scarecrow. They're tassels. They're very temporary. They'll be up for awhile and then we'll get tired of them and they'll be gone!

Q Have you always had this attention to detail?

A This is a true story. Every time my mom sat down in our dining room, she said, "That window should be lower." I was in seventh or eighth grade and my brother was three years older. My parents went out of town and we hired his contractor to lower the window. We have it on video.