I’ve had a life-long affair with interior design. I used to drive my mother crazy rearranging my bedroom, or digging through her linen closet looking for a new bedspread, or asking her to repaint my room. I didn’t know it was called interior design I just knew I could make my space function, and look, better.
Whenever my parents decided it was time to move I loved going to look at potential homes. Besides the fun of choosing my prospective bedroom and imaging what color I would paint, and imagining how I would arrange my furniture I was always interested to see how other people had decorated and arranged their homes.
I spent my formative years growing up in Southern California, the land of swimming pools, palm trees, sunny beaches, and indoor/outdoor living. My hometown was full of interesting homes but my favorites were the ranch style (I do love a good California ranch house), the small bungalow, and the older, statelier homes. This is where my affinity for traditional style was sparked.
As an adult one of my favorite places in Los Angeles was the iconic Handcock Park. It was always a treat to drive through the neighborhood admiring the lovely traditional homes with their stunning architecture. I would try to envision the floorplan of each home, what each room looked like and what interesting details lay hidden behind the grand front entry doors and how I would design and decorate it if I had the chance.
So, after years of designing and decorating my own homes and helping friends and family with their homes I embraced my life-long affair with interior design and enrolled in design school. Seeing that the design principals I was learning in school were the very ideas that I had been innately employing over the years, I knew I was on the path to my new profession.
Accepting a position with a local interior designer gave me the chance to continue honing my design aesthetic under her experienced eye. More importantly, it gave me the opportunity to learn the business of design in a real-world environment. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience to prepare me to launch my own design business.