EPISODE 1: Welcome to On the Move: The Art of Installation

In our first episode; step behind the scenes with Kelly and Caralee Caudelle as they pull back the velvet rope on what really goes into luxury interior installations. From straightening art in a doctor’s office to rescuing a broken antique mirror during a high-stakes reveal, this episode dives into the funny, stressful, and surprisingly artistic side of the white glove world.

You’ll learn:

• What white glove service really means (hint: it’s a lot more than gloves).
• Why flawless installations require as much choreography as creativity.
• How the Caudelle team turns blank spaces into masterpieces—while keeping clients calm, designers confident, and every detail polished.

Whether you’re an interior designer, art consultant, or just a fan of design drama, this debut episode sets the stage for the stories, strategies, and insider wisdom that make Caudelle Interior Installations a true secret weapon in the design world.

 Subscribe now to On the Move: The Art of Installation and join us for a witty, professional, and always service-first look at the industry’s most unsung heroes.

Thank you for tuning in to On the Move – The Art of Installation. If you’re as passionate about details as we are, hit “subscribe,” and join us for insights, stories, and strategy from the field. If you’re ready to work with a team that moves with purpose, professionalism, and polish. Reach out to us at www.caudelle.com or follow us on, Instagram @caudelle_installation. Check out our BLOG, The “WHITE GLOVE JOURNAL”, where you can find our show notes and updates.

Transcript

CARALEE: Welcome to our first episode where we aim to take you behind the velvet rope of what's actually done as an interior installation team and why you absolutely need one on your project.

Because yes, there's absolutely an art to placing a rug, and I don't mean abstract. I'm one of your hosts CARALEE, and I have over 20 years of experience in the art industry on both sides of the fence. [00:01:00] As a professional artist, I've worked in galleries as a luxury commercial art consultant and interior design firms, but now I'm a professor of art history at Auburn University.

The most hands-on I've learned about the installation world comes from the visionary behind CAUDELLE Interior installations and who I also happen to share a name with Kelly Caddell. 

KELLY: A visionary. I'm not sure about the visionary part, but I do have issues with crooked pictures. 

CARALEE: I have been there and seen it with my own eyes.

KELLY: To prove that point to everyone, Leigh was small, she was playing softball. Slid into second base and broke her wrist. We go to the doctor, we're all sitting there in front of the doctor, and all I hear is Charlie Brown's parents. I said, hold on, hold on, hold on. Everybody's like, what are you doing?

I walked behind, the doctor straightened the piece of art, came and sat back down and said, okay, now you can start talking again. So, yeah, I have a real vendetta against crooked pictures. 

CARALEE: Why don't you, tell us a little bit more about [00:02:00] yourself, besides the grudges against anatomy and objects.

KELLY: My wife and I own CAUDELLE interior installations, a white glove full service installation company, we work closely with interior designers, art consultants, architects, purchasing agents, anyone who needs our help to receive, deliver, and install furniture, art, and accessories 

CARALEE: Talk about what is CAUDELLE interior installations, and you say white glove, but what does white glove mean and why does it matter? 

KELLY: Well, that's a great question because most people think of white glove service as just wearing gloves or. You know, they're, they're going to bring it into your house.

A lot of, seriously, a lot of people think bringing furniture into your house is called white glove, not curbside. It is absolutely not right. That's, different from curbside to in your house. But no white glove is so much more than that. You have just. Random people that all they do is deliver boxes.

They deliver to [00:03:00] the front door, inside your front door, but white glove delivery and installation is more about, taking care of, what you're doing. It's, putting things together. Building it, putting it in place. It's more services tailored directly for the design, trade.

Think designer furniture, custom millwork artwork, drapery, sculpture, chandeliers, all of that is part of what we do as a white glove installation service. It's not just wearing pretty white gloves. 

CARALEE: So how would you say that you decided to start CAUDELLE Interiors or, you know, really create it?

KELLY: Well, for me it started 40 plus years ago. Working for a company at the time I'd had no idea. It was basically just take furniture and set it in place and you were all good. Then you see the client's faces like, are you gonna put it where it needs to go?

Or, do [00:04:00] I need to do that? Plugging in lamps and stuff like that. I just started thinking there has to be a better way. The more I did it, the more drive I got to, actually give people what they want. I know what I would like if I wanted, somebody delivering furniture to my house.

I want you to bring it in like it's yours. I want you to take care of it. Plug the lamps in. Straighten the shades. Fluff the pillows on the sofa. It sounds corny, but when you spend as much as people are having to pay today on furniture. You want it treated like the money you've spent on.

CARALEE: Totally. Well, you know, 40 years later you've, traveled all over the world. We've seen you do installations in multiple countries. You've done hotel suites, you know, luxury leasing offices, million dollar homes, all kind of things. You know what, take us through you being on site and why, you know.

Or not really why, but take us about, take us you being on site and what to [00:05:00] expect. What do you face as soon as you show up? 

KELLY: Well, that's a wide variety of topics you know, everybody has anxiety. Everybody's nervous. Mm-hmm. Everybody's excited. Excited. Well, wait a minute. That's just us just, just kidding.

No, you know. You, you've waited months and months. Mm-hmm. And finally it comes in and the client is so excited, to see it all come in. Of course, they wanna stand right there in the doorway. They're like, you're like, please give us space. But to me, and what I hope that I share with all the other members of the team is put yourself in their position.

You've spent $200, 2000, 20,000. It doesn't matter. It's the same excitement. And you've waited so long. We're such a society of instant gratification that when you have to wait on something that. Anxiety builds, excitement builds, and then when it finally gets there, you wanna see it [00:06:00] come off a truck, you wanna see it come in the door.

CARALEE: You just want, people to be as excited and, respect that as much as you do. 

KELLY: And that's the thing we have a credo or a vibe but everyone understands. What the end user, the client the designer, what they're all expecting.

I look at it this way. Do you want someone bringing in furniture that's mad? They're angry, they're, they don't care if they bump the walls. Absolutely not. Nobody wants that. So, it all boils down to having the right people, having the right attitude when you go in there and you know it.

People are going to think I'm crazy for saying this, but don't speak unless you're spoken to. Growing up in the south, that's what your mama always said, don't speak to, you're spoken to. It's not in an ugly sense, it's just you're giving them the respect of their home.

And you're treating their home with the same respect they are. Of [00:07:00] course the clients definitely always talk to the guys and the guys talk back and, carry on a conversation. It's being in a good mood. Happy about what you're doing, and it all goes back to white glove.

It's, a combination of all of it. Because you can have the skills to do it, but if you can't talk to people the right way, they don't know you have that skillset. If you talk to people but don't know how to put something together, then that's another situation For sure.

So it, it all kinda culminates into, caring about what you do, caring about how you treat things, caring about the people you're working for. Not everybody's gonna be nice to you. You have to get over that, right? And you have to just. Keep on keeping on it and being yourself and go, Hey, I'm gonna be happy.

They're probably having a horrible day, but I'm gonna stay happy. 

CARALEE: Right. 

KELLY: So, 

CARALEE: well, speaking of horrible days, I really think you should tell the Broken Mirror story because it's a great example of why having cael and, CAEL being a white glove [00:08:00] installation company, the importance of having that on your project.

KELLY: We were out in Utah. You know, we were, we're there, we're going to be there probably a week. And of course, you know, we, you bring in the rugs first. You get your rugs done, then you're bringing in your big furniture, and then you're bringing in the smaller furniture and.

And we're on the second day, the designer says to me, Hey, Kelly, let's make a splash. The, the clients are coming over today. They're wanting to, to see everything, and I want to give 'em something to, to smile when they come through the door. I'm like, okay, anything you want, you got, so we have this big, huge antique mirror.

It's on the floor. We're, getting our measurements getting ready for it to be spotted, and he turns around not paying attention, steps on the top of the mirror and breaks it. And it is like, oh my gosh, we're in trouble now. But again, it goes back to white glove.

You have to have knowledge and [00:09:00] experience in things. I don't want him looking bad. I don't want us looking bad. So it's like, buddy, we jump in there and, we had the tools, the equipment where we could get it fixed. Got it up on the stone wall. By the time we were climbing off the ladder, client comes through the door and of course he acts like absolutely nothing's ever happened.

And you know, we're all sweating bullets, 

CARALEE: all. And mom comes home. 

KELLY: We're standing like, we still got our hand stuck in the cookie jar. But he just acted like nothing ever happened and they were excited. They were so glad to see it. That kind of goes back to what I was talking to, anxiety, excitement, freaking out, all in probably a 30 minute timeframe there.

CARALEE: I bring that up because I think there's something more, like you've talked about than just bringing it in, putting it up on the wall, like having that knowledge, having that respect and, you know, not necessarily anticipating problems, but having the, you know, experience whatever happens, we can figure it [00:10:00] out.

We'll fix it, make everybody happy because that makes us happy, the, shining moment of being at CAUDELLE? Well, 

KELLY: There's so many avenues I could go down on this and I'm hoping through this entire series that, that we can touch on 'em all. But, but what hits me most about that is,

it's a team mentality. We're all a team. The designer, the client, the client, not as much with us, but they're the ones receiving it all. The way I look at things is, alright, let's say, designer, just starting out.

Mm-hmm. Okay. The hardest thing in the world for me to do is seeing a new designer start out with, their brother and dad delivering their furniture, and it's just like, oh, look 

CARALEE: it's worth a little to go this route, 

KELLY: If you have the opportunity and you take them under your wing.

You can show them that, look, we look out for you. Mm-hmm. You know, you [00:11:00] get furniture that comes in. If it's something we can touch up with a marker or you know, something minimal. I mean, if things come in damaged, you know, that can't be fixed in five minutes, then of course we handle it from there.

You always have to look after each other. You know, when we're on a job site, we wanna make the designer look as best as possible because if they're happy, the client's happy, guess what? We get more work. 

CARALEE: Right. 

KELLY: I mean, its a very simple concept. 

CARALEE: Some survey. 

KELLY: Well of course it is. So how do you think goes?

But I guess what. I like doing is, I'm trying to think of the best way to say it, is how when a designer envisions everything in their head, they're picturing everything. They're boards that are presentations, all of this stuff. They have an idea of what it looks like.

And what they're doing is that they're handing that idea to [00:12:00] you and what you're doing is implementing it. You know, and I relate it to, I was gonna say like painting a picture. You know, artist has a blank canvas and then once he's done, there's a piece of art. Well, the same thing with the designer and with installation.

We have a blank canvas in a home or. You know, whatever commercial setting, residential, hospitality, what you have there is a blank canvas. And then when we are done, that masterpiece is completed. 

CARALEE: Mm-hmm. 

KELLY: And to me it's a masterpiece and I'm sure it's the designer. And surely the goodness hope that it is to the client because that's the end game right there is to make everybody happy.

CARALEE: Yeah. And I mean, that's a very poetic way of putting it, but I feel like that's really true. We're in a creative field and just because we are more of, the muscle aspects of that doesn't mean we don't care about those things and that we can't appreciate a hundred percent.

The work and the artistry hey, as we'll [00:13:00] probably learn in some later episodes. There's an art to carrying furniture, 

KELLY: so my, Mr. She, 

CARALEE: We are really excited about this series and wanted to give you an introduction and show you that this show is hopefully going to be a good peek behind the scenes of, what makes a really, great.

And successful installation. So we'll be giving you the real stories, the funny, frustrating, you know, all, all of them in between. And, you know, again, just really go over what it takes to bring a design to life. We'll also have some guests too, designers and, artists, some of our, you know, awesome coworkers who make the magic happen and, really understand that.

It's not only physical, but it's creative and strategic too. Hopefully our future episodes will really help you, in solving those last minute layout changes on install days or really finding out, what else you need. 

KELLY: Yeah. What I want to. Teach and learn to look. I've been this a really long [00:14:00] time, and I, trust me, I'm still learning.

You don't know, clients think I, but I, I'm, I'm a little more humble than that. We want to talk about on the podcast what it takes for receiving and installing Luxury Furniture Furnishings, how to plan a flawless install day. How to use the right installer as your secret weapon.

And the small things, like, placement protection, and professionalism in a bad situation. People get unhappy, sometimes, or they're mad they had to wait, 14 weeks for their sofa and how to diffuse that situation.

It's like, oh, you know. This is a wonderful piece of furniture you have. I'm sure you're so excited. Kind of turn it around a little bit and, make them feel like they're special. Because, I mean, granted, they are special. They're paying our salaries, 

CARALEE: Well, thank you for tuning into on the Move, the Art of Installation, and if you're passionate about details as much as we are, be sure to hit subscribe and join us for insights, stories, and [00:15:00] strategy from the field.

KELLY: And if you're ready to work with a theme that moves with purpose, professionalism, and polish. Reach out to us@CAUDELLE.com or follow us on Instagram at CAUDELLE Installation. And always remember, furnishings may be heavy, but energy moves design.