Dzine Firm

If you have ridden the curved escalator at River Rock Casino, you have already seen Deanna Kilt’s work. She was the lead designer on that project, and the escalator is still her design today. These days she runs Dzine Firm, a boutique interior design studio in South Surrey, bringing the same technical skill from casinos, clubs and hospitality spaces to family homes, renovations and buildings that need to work for everyone.

Interior Design Built on Technical Detail

Deanna wishes more people knew how much engineering hides inside a beautiful room. A long linear fireplace flanked by sculpted, backlit stone looks effortless, but it takes a backlighting detail, an edge detail and a stacking plan for the stone before anyone picks up a tool. That escalator was the same story on a bigger scale: cladding it in glass meant faceting panels around a compound curve while respecting how much weight the carriage could carry, and she remembers emailing an architect friend at two in the morning to solve it.

She draws those details herself, then works side by side with a good contractor to adjust anything the site conditions demand. Reviewers notice the result. One homeowner wrote that she is great at important details while keeping the big picture in mind.

Accessible Design With the Rick Hansen Foundation Certification

In 2024 Deanna earned the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification, which trains her to assess commercial buildings, multi unit residential buildings and exterior pathways for people with disabilities. That covers people who use wheelchairs, people who are blind or have low vision, people with hearing disabilities and people who are neurodivergent, among many others. It means thinking about how you move through a space, where tripping hazards hide, how level changes are marked with visual and tactile cues, and how signage works for everyone.

The same thinking applies at home. Stairs and steps between rooms are a real hazard, and handrails, contrast strips and lifts are some of the tools she can bring into a design to make a home safer for the people who live in it.

Certifications and 25 Years Teaching at BCIT

Deanna is a certified interior designer, qualified to practise on both commercial and residential projects. Anyone can call themselves an interior designer, but certification means passing rigorous exams on safety, wellness and building code, and that makes a real difference once walls, stairs or plumbing are involved.

Her credentials read like a short alphabet: D.I.D., NCIDQ, LEED AP for green building, WELL AP for spaces that support the health of the people inside them, and RHFAC for accessibility. She is currently taking an Illuminating Engineering Society course toward a lighting certification. On top of her own practice, she has taught interior design at BCIT for 25 years and writes design articles for her local newspaper a few times a year.

On the City of White Rock Design Advisory Panel

Deanna also sits on the City of White Rock Design Advisory Panel. The panel reviews proposed developments against the bylaws, accessibility, lighting and safety, then recommends to council whether to approve them, reject them or approve them with amendments.

From Visual Merchandising to Valedictorian

As a little girl, Deanna collected house plan books and drew out her own layouts, and her dad was a builder at heart. After high school she worked in cosmetics, where she was drawn to the visual merchandising side and eventually became a store visual merchandiser, designing planograms and tracking how placement affected sales. That is when she decided to go back to school for interior design.

Hand drafting did not come naturally at first, so she practised until it did, and she graduated as valedictorian, the top student of her year. One of her teachers hired her straight out of school, and from there she went on to work with top commercial and hospitality firms.

Award Winning Commercial and Hospitality Design

Beyond River Rock, she has been part of teams that won IDIBC awards for Terminal City Club and Red Bull projects. Her studio lists IDI gold, silver and bronze awards along with Adera Partner and TTMAC awards, and in 2018 she was nominated for a Georgie Award. Closer to home, she placed in the top three of the local Reader’s Choice Awards last year, and this year she is nominated in two categories, home renovations and interior design.

What Working With Deanna Is Like

For all the technical depth, clients describe her as easy to work with. Deanna says good design is less about her own taste and more about hearing what you need, and reviewers agree: one wrote that she asks the right questions and quickly captured their taste, another that she turned a single concept photo into a beautiful new living space and carried her ideas through the rest of the house. They also call her knowledgeable, organized, responsive and cost conscious.

Expect her to be all in once your project starts. She immerses herself in the work and is happy to meet in the evenings or on weekends if that makes things easier for you. Above and beyond is the phrase she hopes clients use.

Homes, Renovations and Projects That Help People

Her work in over five countries spans hospitality, retail, corporate offices, seniors living, multi unit buildings and single family homes, with services from space planning and feasibility studies to construction documents, colour consultation and project management. Right now she has a penthouse renovation and a mental health group home under construction, and the group home is especially meaningful to her because it creates a space where people can feel confident and comfortable.

Ask Deanna About the Details

Deanna handles bookings herself by phone, and her first consultation is half an hour and free. Bring the room that frustrates you and ask what it would take to make it work for everyone who lives there, including a parent who finds the stairs harder every year. That kind of question is where her training in accessibility, lighting and construction detail really shows.