Where it all started…
Born and raised in San Diego, I live in Carlsbad with my husband, 3 kids and 3 dogs. Home is and always will be my happy place and not only because I can stay in sweats all day (but let’s face it, that is a big part of it!)
When my kids were little, I always managed to squeeze in some sort of project…whether it was painting rooms, remodeling our home, landscaping our backyard or creating any Pinterest project. Often I would do these things after I put the kids to bed and would frequently stay up until 3 in the morning! These weren’t the best choices for my body and mind but learning new skills and completing any project was such a satisfying feeling.
After purchasing our forever home, we amped up the house projects on our 1960’s beach bungalow that hadn’t been remodeled since the 80’s. Thankfully my husband humors me with it all and together we’ve remodeled our home, bit by bit. Because he doesn’t mind giving me the control, I get to plan all the designs and then we work together to execute them, turning our mid century modern house into our dream home.
Before and after of kitchen remodel
Once my kids were all in elementary school, I taught preschool part-time for 5 years, even though my degree is in Interior Design. I loved teaching but knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to do full-time or long term.
Over the course of a few years, I toyed with the ideas of an organizing business, a staging company or some other design-based line of work. The idea of being my own boss did of course have some appealing aspects but mostly it made me hesitant to be in charge of everything all the time!
A couple of years ago I finally decided to take the leap and turn my organizational and design skills into a business. I was aware that I knew nothing about starting and running my own business but I still underestimated the amount of roles I would have to play and time I would have to dedicate just to get it up and running. Google became my best friend along with dummy books on building a website and starting a business.
Willing friends and family let me organize a space for them so I could get practice and figure out what I was actually doing! My camera roll was overtaken with before and after photos and videos while my garage started filling up with purchases from The Container Store, Amazon and Target.
The part my husband probably appreciated the most was that having projects going on in my clients’ homes meant little time for me to come up with new plans for our house (but I still manage to constantly brainstorm ideas.)
After a year and a half, I am still trying to find a balance between work and family time while simultaneously growing my business and my team.
Here’s some lessons I learned over the past 2 years:
Everyone has their reasons (good or bad) for living the way they do and it’s never one size fits all!
Marketing is so time consuming and a pain in the a**!!!
Even without overhead, I still spend waaayyyyy more than I expected on monthly expenses!
Owning a business is all consuming!
I truly do love organizing and the satisfaction of a completed project and happy client!
