It’s story time. Today I’m feeling led to share why I decided to get into Interior Design. As I continue to grow in my career and in my life as a whole, I’ve come to a place where reflecting on what got me started really fuels my next moves. There are two main reason why I got into design, and while I’ve mentioned the journey here and there, I haven’t gone into depth about it before. So let’s get to it.

Trading Spaces anyone?: Yup. When I was in high school, around the summer before my junior year, Trading Spaces, was out here and captivating the hearts and minds of all it’s viewers. I was one of them, and I just loved the way they took space, with a small budget no less, and made magic in people’s homes. I watched that, While You Were Out, and eventually got into Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Before that time, I just wasn’t aware of how much you could do with a space. I was fascinated. Soon that fascination turned into a deep desire, and I told my mom and dad what I wanted to do. I applied to college, got in, and remember my parents taking me to the Home Show in Philly (where I’m from) in my senior year to meet Vern Yip. I was super excited, and I still have the pics and autograph, now pinned up for continued inspiration in my office.

There goes the neighborhood: HGTV wasn’t the only reason that made be want to start in Interior Design. The other reason was because of my community. Around that same time, there was a huge increase in abandoned and condemned buildings in North Philly. North Philly was where my church was, where my aunt lived, where my dad grew up. It was where my grandmother’s house still stood. We spent A LOT of time at grandmom’s house. Sunday dinners, holidays, Easter egg dying, clock parties, just because. When she was alive, my grandmother had transformed an empty lot at the corner of her block into a beautiful garden. She had a curved rock path lined with pavers, a white archway with a stone bench behind, and the most beautiful flowers. Every year, she’d take one of her creations to the Philadelphia Flower Show, and she placed each time that I can remember. The garden was so beautiful, the city created a mural behind it with trees and garden to set off its beauty.

She passed when I was twelve, and I watched as her home got boarded up and sat for years; all the memories we’d created as family completely gone except what we could recall in our minds. Her house added to another boarded up home on the block. Then there was another. Then more around the corner, and up Cecil B. Moore Ave. On our way to church, every year, more houses were shut up; more orange signs showed up on boarded up doors. And so, I just hated to see areas that meant so much to me and my childhood be taken away and left without care. I wanted to change that. I wanted to do something about it. Interior Design showed up then, and I knew that restoring and preserving and updating was something that I really needed and wanted to do. It was through that experience that I found my passion for design.

So then what?: Well, after all that, I went to school, then left for multiple reasons. Then I went back and got my degree. I did some small work while I studied, and then eventually decided to jump into the deep end of design. I worked the retail circuit while still building my own business, and now I’ve grown to not only building business but creating content around the very thing that brings me so much joy. It’s a pleasure sharing these things with you, because I know they help you find those pieces and that inspiration that you sometimes didn’t know you needed.

There’s no stopping that progress either. As always there’s more to come, and I don’t want you to miss it. So make sure to like the post, and subscribe to the blog. Feel free to share a comment as well. I always love connecting with what you have to say. Until we meet again!