FRIDAY FILES – Workroom Profile – Clearview Sun Control

This week, we interviewed Sarah Kennedy from Clearview Sun Control, supplier of commercial and residential window furnishings. We asked her a few questions that she kindly answered with both candour and humour.

Give us a bit of a background on your company?

We started in the second bedroom of our little Victorian House in Kew in 1999 pre kids. My husband Sam had run a Window Furnishings/Interiors business for five or so years before that which he had sold. I was working in Hotels in Front Office Management and we decided to go out on our own. Kennedy Interiors was born, now called Clearview Sun Control. It’s been a lot of hard work, countless hours, but we’ve done it together which has been good fun, we’re still happily married and it’s been very rewarding. 

What are your main projects, residential or commercial?

Mainly Residential and Hospitality with a little bit of Commercial thrown in here and there. No job too big or small as they say! We have done so many great jobs over the years that we are still very proud of. We have worked on some amazing restaurant fit outs and also some beautiful houses which has been a lot of fun and very inspiring.

What is your favourite part of the industry? 

Working with lots of different designers and clients and watching projects from start to finish and seeing the beautiful end results.

What is your greatest challenge? 

I would say it’s the fast-paced way everyone lives and works now – with email/social media etc – the expectations are way higher and I can’t bear not to deliver so we put so much more pressure on ourselves.

In an ideal world how would your project go? 

I think ‘time’ is the biggest challenge these days, with more than just work! Some projects we work on for a year with lots of revisions and changes and then it comes down to the wire at the end and we have serious deadlines that push everyone to the limit. It would be lovely in a perfect world to place orders and get everything in production with months of notice and no changes.

Where is your favourite place to go after a long day at work? 

The days are definitely long, start pretty early and are extremely busy so it would have to be Home. Cook dinner, hang out with the kids, try and get them to study, relax ready to do it all over again.