I love to create quiet, serene spaces because it feels like our lives tip towards the opposite: loud and chaotic. I want a home I design to be a calm haven, a peaceful oasis that embodies a more balanced life.
Within the walls of my company, I am principal and lead designer, aka: chief cook, head bottle washer. Within the walls of my home, I am a mother of 4 kids, a wife to an exceedingly tolerant husband, aka: chief cook, head bottle washer. (You can probably tell the balance and symmetry are concepts I embrace.)
Growing up with a mother who was a designer, I spent my formative years running around auction houses, remodels and new builds. Field trips included antique showrooms, fine art houses and the power tool section of Home Depot. To this day, I am most happy at a workbench building and creating projects or painting abstract landscapes. I went to NYU for college where I excelled at re-arranging dorm room furniture, and that led me to NYC’s Parsons School of Design, and I have never looked back.
I am inspired by architecture and people and I believe that Interior Design connects the two. It’s the canvas on which we can paint our experiences; it’s the map of moments of our memories. What I love is taking it all and creating a home — a family’s intangible story turned into the very tangible reminders of who they are and what holds meaning, and it’s there for them to see every time they walk in the door. That’s the rush for me.
My job is to make spaces functional in their layout, comfortable in their use, inspirational in their style and luxurious in their appointment. And for that one moment after installation, the pictures are perfect, the house is immaculate. Then, life happens, with all its amazing, big, and messy lived-in moments, balanced by its equally amazing quiet and intimate beauty. That’s what a house is for, and that’s what I believe interior design helps create.
Meet Julie. She is our logistics manager, check writer and detail wrangler extraordinaire. She runs point for all orders, vendor relations, client relations and tactical missions. She oversees the nuts and bolts so I can oversee the creative.
Julie also grew up with a mother who was a designer and spent her formative years at drapery workrooms and in client houses. Maybe that’s why, of all her many tasks, she is most fond of meeting new clients and talking, with great enthusiasm, about how we transform uninspired spaces into retreats they may never want to leave. She’s a co-worker extraordinaire, that’s why it’s written into her contract that she can never leave. She’s also a wife and mother, and runs her family with the passion and determination of a Field Marshall rolling out a campaign — the same way she runs Courtney Thomas Design.
