Tommy Smythe and you
Often referred to as Sarah Richardson’s sidekick on HGTV shows such as Sarah 101, Sarah’s House, Sarah’s Cottage and Design Inc., Toronto designer Tommy Smythe is more leading man than accessory, with a number of design books under his belt and ongoing guest segments on shows such as The Marilyn Denis Show.
The most important thing, he says, when designing your own home or getting someone else to do it is to think about what you like. “You” being the operative word.
“We talk about notions of courage, in other words being independent and not listening to what your motherin-law or your neighbour says when they come over halfway through the process and throw you into a spiral of self-doubt,” Smythe says.
Preparing yourself for the process is important, he says, and there are some key questions people need to consider before beginning a design project that will help them figure out their personal preferences and how they really want to live.
“A lot of people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about those things before they hire somebody like me. I say to them, ‘ How are you going to use this space?’ And they say, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ And I need to know that, really, in order to do the best possible job.”
Interiors, he says, should reflect the place, offering visual clues that indicate what’s outside the window.
When designing for clients in Vancouver, for example, Smythe says, there are visual clues he follows.
“It’s all about the sea and the natural elements,” he says. “It’s stone, it’s indigenous wood. I’ve always been obsessed with aboriginal art, but … if I had to choose a favourite it would be Haida art. So there are shapes and sensuous curves. There are animal motifs, wood elements, indigenous colour palettes like that wonderful black and white and red that you find in Haida art, I find incredibly inspiring.”
Whether we live in Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary, we all want the same thing, he says: to feel comfortable and at ease in our environment and to have our amenities at hand.
Smythe inherited his design aptitude from his grandmother, Dorothea Smythe, who became a qualified interior designer in her early 50s, but was designing homes for years prior — her own — and had innately good taste and a love of fabrics and antiques, often taking young Tommy along to antique fairs.
“I fell in love with the process of it as a child,” he says. “My grandmother and I were extremely kindred in that way. Later in life we would go to New York together and go shopping in West Palm Beach on South Dixie together. She literally went to her death clutching a House & Home magazine that I had recently been published in.”
The secret to Smythe’s successful onscreen pairing with Sarah Richardson, going on 16 years, comes down to the creative freedom each has.
“Certainly the chemistry is there personally and professionally,” he says. “We are also very different. Our personalities and our approach is quite different and I think that kind of dynamism works really well for us. I’m not afraid to tell her the truth and she’s not afraid to tell me the truth and we don’t get stuck in an argument, ever.
“She has always acknowledged and supported me in the notion that I need to do my own thing as well as the things I do in partnership with her. So we have both enjoyed this wonderful collaborative career together as well as very successful separate careers away from each other.”
This fall, Smythe and Richardson will take part in an HGTV all-star show and Smythe continues filming the Tommy Takes Us series for The Marilyn Denis Show, visiting Scandinavia, Prince Edward Island and Vancouver.