She hauls furniture in and out of rooms, reconfigures display windows, fills built-ins, buffets and farm tables with new fall items and vintage-looking Halloween pieces, and whips up wall presentations.

All to keep her South Main Street store, Black-eyed Susan, looking fresh.

Like the shops operated by other interior designers in and around Philadelphia, Black-eyed Susan has been a 3-D illustration of her work since Taylor opened it in 1994.

Its artful marketing of traditional and antique, new and trendy, turns customers into clients, and vice versa.

Yet the buzz she gets from creating her glittering retail space can't be matched, Taylor says: "I can do what I want. . . . It is the truest reflection of me."

Given the demands of the design trade, why did she take on a second labor-intensive endeavor?

"There is a creative expression that the store lets me have, and that sets me apart from the masses," Taylor says. "I give my design ideas to customers while they shop. Our clients get inspired and always anticipate new ideas."

On a recent evening, for example, Taylor fashioned a vignette of vintage frames with organic-fern plates inside. A day or two later, a customer bought them all, though Taylor had made them just for a store display.

Black-eyed Susan's clientele - like that of Taylor's interior-design business - comes from Center City, Princeton and points in between. Some snap up her accessories; some hire her to consult on wall colors; still others want help with furniture placement or a full-scale project.

And then there are the clients, like Elizabeth Hibbs, who are designing their third home with Taylor.

A couple of weeks ago, Hibbs called Taylor from vacation and placed her Christmas order: a custom-designed tree and interior decorations for her newly finished penthouse at 1830 Rittenhouse Square. Taylor will select the palette for the seasonal decor, buy it, and install it in time for holiday festivities, then take it all down in January.

Hibbs, who shares the penthouse with William O'Brien, was raised in Yardley and had shopped at Black-eyed Susan for years. But she got to see more of Taylor's design talents in her transformations of the Yardley Inn.

Most recently, Taylor worked with inn owner Robert Freed, for whom she had designed two homes in the area, to attract a younger crowd to the historic restaurant on the Delaware. The decor went from Martha Washington/Colonial to cozy/eclectic, with mohair and leather settees, Taylor's signature black woodwork, and walls of vintage mirrors next to city-sleek sconces.

"Through three floods and three designs, I liked all of the changes," Hibbs says.

First, Hibbs and Taylor collaborated on a house in Newtown that ultimately had the feel of French Quarter New Orleans.

Next, it was a beach house on Long Beach Island that needed Taylor's touch. "I hired her just to help with paint colors," Hibbs says, though Taylor also suggested surfaces for the house.

Last year, Hibbs and O'Brien bought their penthouse. Of course, by then, Taylor's number was on speed dial. The project this time: Take an apartment that looked like a Nantucket beach house and make it sophisticated yet homey - in just three months

Work started in early February. Taylor finished May 1, bringing in fresh flowers from Europe and creating 20 arrangements for a fete for 150 people - a coming-out party, if you will, for the penthouse.

Taylor put in all new floors and woodwork, painted and papered, designed luxe silk draperies, installed built-ins, art and accessories, and created custom furniture that could fit up two flights of stairs from the elevator to what once had been servants' quarters.

"I told Susan I wanted this to look 'Old Philadelphia.' I said, 'Think the Bellevue,' " Hibbs says. But she also wanted the penthouse to look fresh and new.

Taylor brought in Newtown custom painter Bob Gore to do Venetian-plaster finishes on the dramatic 12-foot living room walls.

"My MO was to give drama without taking away from the beautiful views," Taylor says.

Because she likes antiques, Hibbs says, she had many pieces that needed to work into the design - and Taylor made them fit perfectly.

"I trust her completely," Hibbs says of Taylor. "She gives her opinion but doesn't force you into anything. She is patient and will get right down on her hands and knees with contractors, so the job is done the way she wants it."

Many designers like to install draperies and furniture and call it a day. Taylor doesn't mind tweaking a space someone else has done.

"We will come in even after another designer has worked on a house and just do accessories. It is a big part of our consulting business," she says.

Black-eyed Susan's current location is in a quaint Victorian near Yardley's only traffic light. The store is filled with art, vintage and new; furniture and accessories; European reproduction florals, lighting, candles and soaps; and an array of just-right hostess gifts.

Taylor and her staff shop no fewer than six designer shows and home markets each year to find pieces for customers and clients - among them owners of second homes in places like Sullivan's Island, S.C., Nantucket, and Denver.

Initially, Taylor trained as an artist, but she favored design over drawing in college and began her career as a visual-display director for Macy's California. (Today, Black-eyed Susan's shop windows are a Yardley hallmark.)

Taylor started in interior design 25 years ago, while still living in California. But she slowly moved East, running a design business in Denver for 11 years before moving to Yardley, building her portfolio on the way.

After landing here, Taylor opened her first retail space, much smaller than her current digs, to stock the accessories clients admired so much. Black-eyed Susan now employs six people; Taylor's design studio has grown to five.

Though interior design is trending modern, as is evident in popular decorating magazines, Taylor keeps her feet grounded in traditional style.

"As a designer, you are inundated with the newest and the latest," she says. "It is hard not to respond to trends, but our area is more traditional, and the challenge is to redefine our traditional roots while giving customers modern pieces as well."

Her recipe for making a modern statement without a giant investment: Add drum-shade lamps, pop the walls with a great new color, or add accessories with a modern twist or a bit of whimsy.

Design Details

Black-eyed Susan is located at 1 S. Main St. in Yardley; 215-321-4104. Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; till 7 p.m. Thursday; till 5 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday.

Contact Susan Taylor Interior Design at 267-503-0350.

For more information, go to www.besusan.com.