A longtime Kennewick gift shop now offers a personalized approach to interior home design by helping customers visualize different looks featuring the rooms in their own homes.

The new 3D experience provides a way to experiment with different color palettes, materials and styles before buying any furniture or decor, said Linda Pasco, owner of Lemon Grass Gifts.

The Lemon Grass design center helps customers immediately see how different styles could change the look of their rooms, “rather than getting in your 100-degree car and driving from store to store to store and trying to put things together that don’t go together, only to wind up with the wrong size furniture, the wrong size rug,” Pasco said.

Instead of homeowners “just running around picking out stuff that doesn’t work,” the Lemon Grass team provides a white-glove approach, she said. Not only can homeowners see what their space could look like with different decor and furnishings, they can discuss ideas and a vision with designers.

The design center sources its merchandise from wholesale vendors, not necessarily from Lemon Grass’ inventory.

The store, at 8901 W. Tucannon Ave., Suite 165, just off Steptoe Street and Gage Boulevard in Kennewick, has been in business nearly 25 years, selling an array of gifts, home decor, gourmet foods, bath products and organic body care items.

The locally-owned store, like bigger chains nationwide, is embracing virtual experiences that allow customers to better visualize designs in their own homes.

Many companies – from Home Depot to Amazon to Ikea – offer a variety of ways to shop using technology. Shoppers can virtually try on a pair of new sunglasses when they upload a photo of themselves. They can snap a picture of the exterior of their home and see how a new paint color would look. They can “grab” a photo of a rug or couch and virtually place it in their own room.

Embracing technology allows retailers to “provide customers with a more personalized and engaging shopping experience, ultimately leading to higher customer satisfaction and driving sales,” according to the Home Furnishings Association.

A personable approach

At Lemon Grass, customers can review their curated designs on a big screen.

If they like what they see, they can order those items and have them shipped directly to the store. The Lemon Grass team can even take care of unboxing them, disposing of the packaging and confirming everything arrived without damage. For an added cost, they’ll deliver or hang pieces on the wall or ceiling.

Linda Pasco’s daughter, Melanie Pasco, recalled hanging a glass chandelier inspired by Dale Chihuly’s designs made of over 100 individual spirals of glass. She’s been a part of the design service offered by Lemon Grass for more than 16 years and was a manager at Co2 Furniture in Pasco.

Melanie Pasco works with Sarita Tomlinson, who contributes an artistic vision to the partnership.

“It’s kind of incredible for me because Sarita creates these thoughtfully curated home designs,” Melanie Pasco said. “Then I get a hold of it and I’m the first one who actually gets to see it. And then the client gets to come down and it’s like Christmas morning. They get to see what the room was, and what it could be, and it’s overwhelming for most people.”

The process is an upgrade from their old system of creating a collage of photos. The women estimate it takes up to 80 hours to edit the photos taken inside customers’ homes so they can present an array of design options via 3D technology.

Tomlinson typically spends about two weeks looking for merchandise to complement the homeowners’ vision for their space.

“We want them to feel like this was what they wanted. We ask an extensive set of questions when we meet the client in their home, to find out their wants and needs, their color palettes, dogs or cats, kids and husbands. This service really is a custom home design, and I don’t know that anybody else can say that,” Melanie Pasco said.

The team takes detailed measurements and lays out the project on graph paper to confirm each item selected will work in the space.

“We have to keep in mind every single square on those grids because everything has to fit,” Melanie Pasco said. “They’re banking on us knowing that we know what we’re doing.”

Design fees are $100 per hour with a five-hour minimum and include a free consultation. “We’ve been doing this long enough that we can generally gauge how many hours are needed,” Tomlinson said.

Linda Pasco said she’s proud its prices haven’t gone up in seven years.

Bringing a vision to life

The design team tries to work within a client’s budget to create a new look and will include pieces the client would like to keep on display when presenting a final product with a range of options.

“Typically, people have overbought for their home,” Tomlinson said. “They feel they have to fill every space, section of wall, and that’s not the case if they have their proportion of scale and balance right. Then you don’t need all that you think you do, and things take care of themselves if they’re foundationally right.”

“We really want them to have a home they can love, and it can be affordable,” Melanie Pasco said. “Nine times out of 10, most people have great things and just don’t know how to pull it together.”

Tomlinson said most consultations are for updates to open-concept homes that incorporate a few living spaces into one.

“Because anywhere you stand, you can see something else in another area, right? So, it all has to work. We do things from the ideal point. It’s just an artistic approach. But in the end, it’s not our vision, it’s theirs. We bring their vision to life,” she said.

Diane Gessner of Richland hired the team to revamp a room at her house. She was so enthralled with the outcome, the one-room project quickly became a three-room contract.

“I had gone to the store to shop and change the look of my house, and they told me about the 3D program,” Gessner said. “It was huge because when you go in, they showed me three different styles to choose from in my current living room.” Gessner had her living room, dining room and primary bedroom redone.

Established business

Lemon Grass Gifts started in a corner spot next to the Village Bistro in Marineland Village on West Clearwater Avenue before growing and filling a larger space. When the plaza changed hands, Linda Pasco couldn’t come to an agreement on a lease with the new owner and was ready to throw in the towel after not finding a suitable space to relocate to.

Tomlinson suggested she tour the westernmost suite in the two-level building on West Tucannon Avenue and Linda Pasco – with a lot of help from family – moved the shop in November 2021.

“It was a scary thing to move a 21-year-old shop two months before Christmas, but it’s been a wonderful space for us,” Linda Pasco said. “The first Christmas we had here, the top floor wasn’t even open yet because the stairs weren’t done. But our customers were so good to us, and they came out and supported us, and we had the best Christmas.”

She expected to lose 10% of customers with the move and says some are still finding Lemon Grass in the new building.

Linda Pasco started in the late 1990s selling mainly soaps and lotions, recalling that she used to drive to the west side of the state to buy “fancy soap.” It was always her intention to sell only high-end products, similar to what’s found at Anthropologie or Nordstrom.

“Our customers can usually find it here for the same price,” Linda Pasco said.

She said many locally-owned gift shops have closed or been swallowed up by vendors or online retailers.

“You realize rents are terribly expensive. Everybody’s salaries have gone up, all the taxes have gone up, everything has increased. So, your business plan has to change with the times,” she said.

Those changes included offering more home decor and eventually the design service as a way to keep reinventing.

“If you somehow have that entrepreneurial spirit inside of you, you don’t give up,” Melanie Pasco said.

Lemon Grass Gifts: 8901 W. Tucannon Ave., Suite 165; 509-737-1994; Facebook; Instagram. Hours: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.