All of my work is at the lakes right now, which has been a huge change over the past five years. They’ve always been popular for weekend getaways, but we are finding more and more people are buying lake properties for primary residences, especially now that they can work remotely.
Lake homes have been a really hot market, especially here in the Midwest, because it’s really hot. I’m currently working on quite a few lake properties-a lot of them are in Minnesota. How many projects are you working on right now? Here, we have a lot of builders that are just building the same house over and over, and it’s very repetitive. I really try to talk through creating spaces that are intentional, and I take the time to find out what the client wants in each and every space. They’re looking for someone to create a unique space for them, not just say, “Pick model A, B, C or D.” Clients talk about the process when they build a home with me. I would say a lot of my clients are seeking midcentury modern or something just outside of the traditional farmhouse-style home that you commonly see around us.
We’re pretty conservative here in the Midwest, so just to step outside of a wood species was a pretty big deal. Putting walnut cabinetry in a kitchen was totally stepping outside the box. What were the prevailing options that you were rebelling against? You said that what you were creating was unique for the area. So I haven’t done any marketing-it’s been word of mouth. It was a totally different look than Fargo-Moorhead was ready for at the time, and from there, just took off-I had clients that reached out to me just because of seeing that work. I had a great referral from a real estate agent to a local custom builder, and he gave me a shot at doing a spec home with him. Where did your early clientele come from?įargo-Moorhead is a very small community, and being around for a long time in the industry meant working with different builders and a lot of real estate agents. That’s what kept on pulling my heartstrings.Ī wood-paneled library in a farmhouse renovation offers a quiet respite. It didn’t matter where I looked, everything always came back to: What am I best at, and how can I really help people? Being an interior designer isn’t just picking out a sofa you are building spaces that are giving families memories for generations to come. I think the writing on the wall was that I couldn’t find anything else that fit who I was. What made you realize that the risk of running your own firm was worth it? It wasn’t ideal, but it definitely worked out in the end, and it was a push that I needed. They felt like they couldn’t give me that, and that’s what pushed me to start my own business. I was trying to push myself and my ability within the company, and there were definitely constraints-there just wasn’t more growth that they could see for me. It was 2017, and honestly, at the time, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I was fired from my job working for a builder. How did you know you were ready to start your own firm? That led to designing cabinetry, flooring and countertops, and I worked in that industry alongside builders for about 15 years before I broke off on my own.
I liked getting my hands into designing everything from the logo to the custom carpet to the light fixtures. My first out-of-college experience was working in a corporate retail environment, where I got involved in setting up a prototype of a store. What did your career look like at the beginning? I’ve been working in the home interior industry since I graduated in 2001. That’s where my path led me, and I found my niche in my major. That’s where my journey started, and I was intrigued by the combination of being hands-on within the construction aspect of it, but also getting involved in the fine finishes of the interior work. I went to college at NDSU in 1998 and studied facility management, which is a blend of architecture, interior design and drafting construction. I feel like my whole life I’ve always been surrounded by drafting, color, textures and textiles-probably in a more masculine way. He went to school for auto body so he refurbished old cars, and we would go to car shows. My dad was a draftsman, and as a kid I would watch him draw.
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