The Best Part of Being a Designer Has Nothing to Do With Design For a profession that’s built on collaboration, we designers spend an awful lot of time trying to do everything ourselves. We learn to draw, we learn construction, we answer plumbing questions, solve electrical problems, manage schedules, source products, build presentations, run businesses, market ourselves… and somewhere along the way, it’s easy to believe our value comes from being the person with all

The Final Inch A few years ago, a custom sofa arrived at an install. It had a COM fabric, months of lead time, and was one of those pieces that kind of anchors the whole room. As the installer was unwrapping it, the box cutter went about a half inch too deep. Right through the fabric. I remember standing there thinking about how absurd it is that after months of decisions, emails, samples, approvals, production

BECOMING A BUSINESS PEOPLE WANT TO GROW WITH As my business grows, I’ve been thinking a lot about hiring, support, sustainability, and what it actually takes to build an enduring team. And honestly, one of the most humbling parts of building a team is realizing how much growth is also requires from me as the business owner. I think a lot of us imagine hiring as the moment things finally become easier. More help, less

The Step That Changed My Client Presentations Until recently, I’d walk into big client presentations as a bundle of nerves. I thought I had done everything right. Clients completed my questionnaire, reacted to inspiration images, and for larger projects, we’d meet to nail down the floor plan. But after weeks of pulling together a design and obsessing over the details, once I started presenting, I could feel it. I was still guessing. The direction was

Time Blocking isn’t sexy, but its LOWKEY saving my NERVOUS system I’ve been quietly experimenting with time blocking since January, not in a hyper-optimized, color-coded productivity influencer way, but in a “I cannot keep living like this” way. It was actually one of the goals I set coming out of a business retreat in January with Renee Bush and Brooke Stoll. At the time, I didn’t realize how much it would shift things. And I

Designing for the Hard Seasons Lately, I’ve been noticing a pattern in my studio, and it has nothing to do with trends or budgets and much more to do with major life events and how design moves through them. One client just had a baby and is now navigating life with two kids. More than one has lost a spouse and is figuring out how to honor both the past and whatever the future looks