How I Developed My Eye for Design
It’s funny how the things we do as children—without even thinking—can whisper hints about our unique abilities and purpose. Looking back, I can see that my strong visual eye for bringing things together isn’t something I fell into. It’s something that’s always been with me.
As a child, I’d rearrange the furniture not out of necessity, but simply because I wanted to see if differently. I still remember planting my feet on the carpet, pushing my back into the edge of my wooden armoire, and slowly nudging it into a new corner of the room. I’d reinvent the space with items I had and it was like a whole new possibility.
My mom was-and still is-my biggest cheerleader, always nurturing my creative instincts. I vividly remember going to a wallpaper store with her when we moved into a new house. I was mesmerized by the giant tables filled with wallpaper sample books. I chose a bold daisy border—bright, cheerful, and perfect for my groovy era. We picked out fabric, and my mom sewed curtains and a matching bedspread. It was my first real experience in pulling together a cohesive look.
Later, she let me to paint my bathroom and I chose a bright coral pink and lime green paint. I taped off rectangular blocks and repeated a pattern using those vibrant colors-complete with a bright colored polka dot shower curtain.
In my teenage years, I upgraded my room and redecorated with a whole new style. I created my own art using oil pastels and filled my walls with magazine collages that expressed exactly who I was at the time.
I loved walking through places like Pier 1 during our mom and daughter shopping trips admiring all the different textures, furniture and art that I dreamed of having one day. It took me a while to trust my eye, I could walk past a dozen items and wait for the one that gave me the unmistakable yes feeling deep inside. Like the time we searched endlessly for a very specific black swimsuit I had in mind. I’ve always known what I’ve wanted and over the years, I’ve started to recognize my intuitive sense more.
That instinct to curate and create beauty has followed me through every chapter of life- to bring beauty out of nothing or to find beauty in the chaos.
From decorating my college townhouse, to styling my first apartment, to designing each home through the many phases of a military marriage, to building a tiny house to now creating a cozy new life post-divorce - every space became a blank canvas and a new beginning. A chance to make something beautiful from scratch.
And not just homes and spaces. That same eye has shaped every visual detail of my life - leading visual merchandising teams, building my photography brand in my twenties and even helping Etsy sellers style and shoot product photos before brand consistency was a buzzword.
For a while, my creativity went quiet or looked different than it once did. It seemed buried under hard seasons of “making it” but in my mid-thirties, I’ve felt it slowly coming back to life. I’ve had the opportunity to reignite my passion for photography after nearly eight years and naturally gravitated back to visual merchandising.
Creating a cozy home amongst grief has been my simple joy and I started sharing the journey online. What surprised me most was how many people resonated with it. Followers and friends started encouraging me to keep sharing—reminding me of the creative gifts I had hidden away for too long.