I don't have formal training at all, but I did grow up around design. My parents both flipped homes. A typical weekend for us was walking through model home units. I loved walking through interesting floor plans and seeing different design aesthetics.
My design has always been a derivative of people I meet. I want to translate who they are and their personality into a room.
The beautiful gift of my husband is that he saw me the way I've always wanted to be seen and there's something really powerful to that. When you find true love I really believe that that's what it is at its core. He makes me want to be a better person, but then he also sees me and reminds me that I am a good person.
I think it's really important to bring your own personality to the space you're in.
When I first became really interested in building furniture, I went to Toys-R-Us, and spent $200 on Transformers toys. By taking the toys apart and studying how they moved, I was able to figure out how to hide a table leaf, what type of contraption I'd need to slide it under the table. I'm a really visual learner.
I have no life! People always ask me, "What time do you check in and out?" But, the truth is, you never really check out. I have an office at my house, so when I go home I am always pulling inspiration and putting ideas together.
I'm not a big fan of the tchotchkes. It always reminds me of a grandma's stuffy home with a million Santa dolls.
It's important to pull tons of pieces! If you have lots of options to choose from, you can play around and see that things that you wouldn't originally have expected to work together actually do! That applies to both clothing and decorating.
I have a philosophy that you've always got to honor the past, acknowledge the present and leave room in your space for the future... Talk to the person you are in love with that you're sharing with, understand what's important to them.
I've always had a fascination with interior design. As a kid, I used to go to real estate open houses with my parents on the weekends. Like a nerd! I would think of how I would piece rooms together at those open houses.
I became interested in building furniture, because I couldn't find pieces I really loved for myself and my clients. I picked stuff up from the street, and tweaked those pieces to make them what I really wanted. It became a career!
For interiors, if you have a basic sofa, you can add fun throw pillows, and cool lighting to make the space more interesting. In fashion, you make a little black dress really amazing with jewelry, shoes and an incredible bag. If you have those clean, basic, pieces you can really mix things up with the accessories and make the space, or the outfit, uniquely your own.
I really think that parenthood cracks you open, which sounds so vague, but it is a different type of vulnerability. That's the bottom line. There isn't a second that I'm with my daughter that I don't appreciate every moment we have. All you want to do is protect her and create the best bubble possible for her to view the world.
The concept of having staple pieces with clean, basic lines, and adding accessories to funk it all up is one that applies to both fashion and decorating. There are so many parallels.
