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Ivy today launched its first-ever app for interior designers and other design business professionals. With features like task management, real-time expense and time tracking, talk-to-text note taking and more, design pros can manage multiple projects in one place and on the go.

The new Ivy app enables designers to:

Find up-to-date information on the status of all products -- from proposal to payment to installation.

Take photos of products while sourcing in-person at showrooms, or at trade shows, and enter all the relevant product information right in the app. View or assign products to a project from your complete product library.

Track current project spend, making meetings more productive and helping clients and projects stay on budget.

Capture and store accurate project dimensions to reference when selecting products for the space, using the built-in augmented reality room measurement tool.

You may have spotted designer Jenny Rausch from Karr Bick Kitchen and Bath in the “My Houzz” Season 1 episode with Jenna Fischer. We caught up with her to learn more about Jenny’s approach to design and what inspires her.

What got you started in your career? My mom, who never really meddled in my life, sent a letter to a local kitchen and bath showroom and told them I was really talented and could design kitchens. At the time, I could not, but I learned really fast!

Growing up, my parents had a construction company where my mom designed spaces and my dad installed them, so she thought I would be a natural. I guess moms really do know best!

What is your design philosophy? If it feels like home, follow the path. Everything we do is focused on family, from the way we design to the way we treat our people, our clients and our designs. We want everyone to feel something when they enter a space and typically that feeling is warmth and comfort. We try to create a place they can enjoy with family and friends.

Where’s the most unexpected place you’ve found design inspiration? My dreams. I process design problems quite vividly when I sleep. I see beautiful things in my dreams that seem way beyond my capabilities as a designer. I think it’s proof that we really only use a tiny percentage of our brain’s capacity.

What trend are you most excited about right now? Green! It’s finally coming back! It’s my favorite color to use inside because it’s so warm and comforting. It left us for a while and I have been very disgruntled about it.

What do you geek out on when it comes to design? Anything old in terms of architecture, especially the Biltmore in Asheville, NC. I can walk around the Biltmore for hours and just soak in the greatness of its bones. I pretty much cry every time I go. It tugs on my soul and plays with my emotions in a very profound way.

What excites you the most about going to work every day? I love to problem solve. It’s in my blood. Everything we do is solving a problem, whether it’s space planning, color selections, a client compromising with their spouse or a hidden pipe in the wrong place. It’s all about finding the best possible solution that works for everyone.

What is your favorite part of the design process? I love to space plan - sitting down with my paper and figuring out the puzzle of the space. It’s very rewarding to dynamically change the function of a space, to make something that was not useful for a family into something that makes their lives better.

Liadesign is an Italy-based interior design firm that focuses on everything from decor and space planning to kitchen and bathroom renovations. Founder Lia Lovisolo shares her design style, where she finds inspiration, her favorite project, and more.

What is your design style? My style is linear and clean, not necessarily minimal, but based on simple elements, geometric graphics and pure colors. I always try to play with the unexpected and create a connection between aesthetic and practical purposes.

How did you get started in your career? I started my career when I was renovating my own house. I had a degree in architecture, but was working in another profession. While taking care of my home, from the construction phase to the more detailed interior design phase, a love for the work and the determination to carry it forward was born.

Where is the most unexpected place you’ve found design inspiration? I find a lot of inspiration while observing urban landscapes and nature in general, but the most unexpected inspirations derive from the study of small details that are noticed only by observing things closely. Photography often helps me to capture these details.

What trend are you most excited about right now? The trend that most excites me now is the use of color and geometric shapes in interior decoration. I am fascinated by the unusual color combinations and uncommon patterns, the composition of shapes and colors, the mixture of curved lines and broken lines, and the ability to create harmony through decoration without necessarily having to do demolition and reconstruction.

What was a challenge you encountered during a project and how did you solve it? The most compelling challenges often concern small houses and the solution of problems, practical or aesthetic, related to small rooms or disadvantageous proportions. One of the most beautiful challenges I recently faced was the creation of a kitchen with a peninsula in a really small and especially narrow room. The clients did not want to eat on a table leaning against the wall. So, I invented an hexagonal sliding peninsula, which had both a worktop and a dining table function (photo here).

What is one of your designer secrets/tricks? In my opinion the most important secret or trick for a designer is the ability to listen and know how to wait. Knowing how to listen helps with understanding the client’s needs and their psychology. Understanding the customer is essential for carrying out the work in an optimal manner, and saves time and resources. Patience is also important because often the best decisions are those made with no hurry.

What’s one of your favorite all-time projects? What made it stand out? One of my favorite projects of all time is a Milan apartment where I used a lot of colors to define spaces and create harmony (photo here). What makes it outstanding, above my other projects, is the color range, the relationship between cold and warm shades, and the dialogue between colors and rooms.

If you were a house, what kind of home would you be? If I were a house, I would certainly be a period villa, full of design and art pieces from the great masters of the 20th Century - something like Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan or Villa Borsani in Varedo.

What’s your favorite building or space in the world? I have many: ancient, modern and contemporary architecture. I am particularly fond of the work of Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye.

What’s your favorite room in your home? The room I love the most in my house is the living room, with a large bright bow window overlooking the garden (photo here).

What’s your favorite part of Houzz? What I enjoy most about Houzz is that it’s international and cosmopolitan, a place where different attitudes and design cultures meet and mutually enrich each other. It draws on projects from around the world and helps both designers and homeowners to broaden their views.

As part of our educational program for pros, we recently hosted two webinars with experts from the lighting and bathroom furniture industries. These webinars are an integral part of our Houzz Trade Program, in which our team works to provide the best products, prices and resources for our professional community.

Thomas Wright, an award-winning lighting designer who designs collections for Savoy House, joined us to discuss industry trends and best practices for selecting and installing all types of lights and ceiling fans. Pros loved the very specific guidelines he shared for the size and placement of fixtures in the home. For example, the size of a ceiling fan should correlate directly to the square footage of the room you’re placing it in. A room that’s more than 400 square feet should incorporate a fan 60 inches in diameter, or two smaller fans should be used instead. A 100-square-foot room should have a fan 42 inches in diameter. Watch our lighting webinar for more best practices on installing chandeliers, pendants, vanity and outdoor lights.

Ben Alliker, an expert in the decorative plumbing and hardware industry, joined us to discuss bathroom vanity trends and installation tips. Most recently director of national sales at Ronbow, he has firsthand knowledge of the innovation taking place in bathroom furniture. For example, vanities are now being built with enhanced features such as USB ports and charging stations. They include storage for specific bathroom products like shampoos and hair dryers, and some even come with a built-in toilet. For more trends and vanity installation tips, watch our vanity trends webinar.

You may have caught Dave Spetrino, president of PBC Design+Build, in the latest episode of “My Houzz,” when skateboarder Tony Hawk enlists his help for a special renovation. We talked with Dave to learn more about his building philosophy, where he finds inspiration and his favorite parts of the My Houzz renovation - check out what he had to say below.

What is your building philosophy? Some days it feels like the world is against you when you’re designing, budgeting and then constructing a home. I know it’s not rocket science or brain surgery but for most clients, what we do for them is about the most money and effort they’ll ever expend. It’s a worthy challenge.

With any project you’re committed to delivering on quality, schedule and budget – all equally important components to a successful project, but never willing to cooperate with one another in reality.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself: Is this “place” better because of our hard work? Does it feel good? Are our clients smiling? Am I smiling? Do I deserve a milkshake? As long as the answer continues to be yes, I’ll continue to show up the next day.

Where’s the most unexpected place you’ve found inspiration? Travel has been a tremendous benefit. I can’t go anywhere without seeing something within the built environment – from any country or century – that doesn’t have an effect on me.

What trend are you most excited about right now? I’m not much of a ‘gadget guy’ but I am continually impressed with what technology, mobile apps and intuitive features are doing for home building right now. The benefits of technology and the speed with which they are being implemented into construction will continue to benefit our clients, and it’s only getting better and better with time.

What are clients asking you for? The whole point of custom home building is to allow your client to set their dreams in your hands and then trust you to deliver. It’s a serious role to take on and the ability to translate that information into something tangible is an art.

It’s more than features or finishes, what our clients are really asking us for is to guide them, use our knowledge to help them make good decisions, and prevent them from missing an opportunity to do something great.

What do you geek out on when it comes to design/construction? I am such a sucker for light fixtures. I think they’re the hardest detail to commit to – it’s probably why I push a lot of clients to concealed or can lights and then limit the number of decorative fixtures to the most compelling places within a home to keep them from feeling overwhelmed.

You can set the entire ‘vibe’ of a home with a sconce or chandelier – a light fixture can create a conversation or set the mood as soon as you walk into a space. Light is powerful, and that mode of delivery cannot be understated.

What is one of your design secrets/ tricks? There are always a couple of “cheats” where we seem to get more from a design without having to put too much of our budget toward a feature. This usually comes from our designer who will choose a special element within the design and celebrate it. Sometimes it’s well defined symmetry or an interior connection that extends to the exterior. Other times it’s just the use of a detail that has meaning to our owners.

Basically, the secret is just being thoughtful about how your client may better appreciate a space well after you’ve moved on to the next project. That’s really the best way to leave your ‘mark.’

What’s your favorite building or space in the world? Maybe it’s my lust for travel or a nostalgia of sorts but I love train stations. New, old, repurposed into a museum, I can’t get enough of these iconic buildings. The ceiling heights, ornamentation, the elegant organization of moving people from space to space within a building, I’m continually transported in both space and time!

Going to Omaha? Visit the Durham. Going to Paris? Don’t miss the Orsay!

What did you enjoy most about this particular project? We loved meeting the family. They were amazing in all the right ways.

They trusted this specific process (move out and don’t ask questions!) and they were genuinely grateful and truly overwhelmed at the reveal.

Kerry’s reaction was the best! It was the moment where “it all came together.” It is an amazing feeling to make a difference in someone’s life and the joy from Kerry permeated to everything. It really is unlike anything we’ve ever done before professionally and it felt good to be a part of that happiness.

But don’t get me wrong, meeting Tony Hawk was incredible! He is so cool. Did I mention Tony and I are friends?

What is your favorite element in the space from this project? There are some really cool features within Brad and Kerry’s home that became the ‘bookends’ for the renovation. In many ways the farm table became the centerpiece for the whole house – not just as a piece of furniture but in what it represented to the family as the centerpiece for the way they live.

Also, the ability to re-purpose some of the existing elements. The reclaimed wood and the sliding barn doors within the new living room. I love seeing ‘something old and something new’ in such a personal project like this.

Chrissy Bonney, our Interior Designer at PBC, was completely in tune with Kerry’s vibe. The family spends a lot of time together and the house was somewhat disjointed; an open concept was introduced to allow the main living area flow easily into the kitchen.

You may have noticed that we recently updated Houzz ideabooks, making them an even more powerful tool for pros and their clients. Here are some of the key new features and how to use them:

Based on community feedback, we added a universal Save button to every area of Houzz, so you can now save more than photos to your ideabooks.

Save specific discussions and articles so they’re easy to find and reference anytime. Discussions and articles are presented in the same “card” format as photos, with the title and topic prominently displayed.

Homeowners can now save specific pro profiles to ideabooks. At the top left of every pro profile, just below the profile photo, is a Save button that enables homeowners to save pro profiles directly into an ideabook, making it easy to find the pros they want to contact when they are ready to hire.

It’s easier than ever to order and reorder the content in ideabooks. Simply drag and drop any piece of content to the spot you want it. Use the Organize feature to move multiple pieces of content all at once within an ideabook, move items to a different ideabook or delete them.

You also can save files and documents into your ideabooks for easy access, including:

Project schedules. Add and delete your latest schedules for easy reference.

Receipts. If your clients purchase products on their own, they can upload them to ideabooks and make it easy for you to add to your budget tracking.

Photos you take with your smartphone. Use the Houzz mobile app to seamlessly add photos you take when you are out on job sites, visiting showrooms or at the clients’ home. Or upload photo files from your computer.

Save photos and products from around the web with the new Browser Extension for Chrome.

After installing, you’ll see the Houzz icon appear when you mouse over any photo on any website.

Click on the Houzz icon anytime you want to save something to Houzz. You’ll be prompted to choose the ideabook to save it to.

And of course you can use our Sketch tool to annotate any images in your ideabook, whether you uploaded them or found them on Houzz. Just click on the pencil icon to launch the tool.