Napa designer furnishing home for homeless female veteran

Ask any interior designer, and theyll tell you its easy to spend $4,000 on a single piece of furniture. Designer Beth Mattei has $4,000 to furnish and design an entire two-bedroom home, and one that doesnt even belong to her.

This Napa woman recently teamed up with a nonprofit called Designed from the Heart. Matteis task is to fully furnish one of 76 townhomes on a former naval base in the Long Beach area for a homeless female veteran and her children to live in. The project is called the Blue Butterfly Village, named after a blue butterfly preserve nearby.

Its such a privilege to be able to work directly with these female vets, she said.

Mattei admitted that when she first considered joining the project, I was kind of afraid to take on such a challenge.

But then she became determined. Somehow this will work out. Im sure it will. Thats the fun part, to see how things get connected, she said.

After hearing about the project from her sister-in-law, Mattei decided to lend a hand. Its a good fit for her skills, she said. For a number of years, she worked as an interior designer, at one point working for Thomas Bartlett.

With just $4,000, she needs to outfit the whole townhouse from top to bottom, she said.

That includes all furniture, furnishings, kitchen, bath and other daily living items for a two bedroom home.

The budget wont go very far at all, she said. That means the designers have to use their resources such as asking for donations, hunting for bargains and scouting out sources.

So far, weve been able to find a few things, but, its very challenging.

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Napa designer furnishing home for homeless female veteran