Not your mama's furniture

BOBBE MONK , For the Daily Facts
A trip to Spain by a client, who came back with pictures of children’s furniture, sparked design ideas for Karen Derfer Andrea.
Those ideas have resulted in a line of colorful furniture, called Room Magic, by the third-generation Redlander who now lives in Santa Barbara.


Some of that furniture can be found in the children’s store My Room, My Way on Citrus Avenue, run by another Redlander whose family has been here a long time – Michelle Adair and her and business partner Debbie Flores. It is the first Southern California store to carry Derfer’s designs.
“I’ve been wanting to get my designs into Southern California retail stores for a long time, so when our new rep called me with her first order for Southern California, I was shocked when – of all possible cities – it was from my hometown of Redlands. It felt like such a wonderful sign of serendipity and support,” she said.
Derfer is a 1982 graduate of Redlands High School, where she studied art with Bernard Lowry.
“He was wonderful,” she said.
She won a Kiwanis scholarship to attend the University of California Santa Barbara and majored in art, graduating with honors in 1986. After graduation she worked as an art director at ad agencies there.
Derfer’s parents,