Where it all began

My love of design started when I was in elementary school. I spent endless hours playing with my Crayola Interior Design Kit, drawing up and rendering perspectives for make-believe clients. I also loved creating binders of inspirational images from my moms’ JC Penny and Sears Catalogus, and finally much to my mother’s chagrin rather than cleaning my room I would spend time re-arranging all my furniture. Design was in my DNA right from the start. Fast forward many, many years, 3 college degrees, 20+ years of working as a commercial designer, 1 amazing marriage, 2 beautiful kids, and I was struck with the inspiration for Growing Up With Design.

I was working on giving my daughter the pink bedroom of her and maybe my dreams. I didn’t just throw pink paint on the walls and call it a day though, what would be the fun in that? I was willing to put lots of time and personal sweat into making her room unforgettable but I didn’t want to spend a ton of cash. She was 4 years old, her tastes would change, and let’s face it she was a bit of a wild child and I knew her room would take a beating. So I measured out her room, drew it up in sketch up, a 3-D modeling program, and ran through multiple options for how to arrange her small urban room. I spent countless hours looking at how to create drama and interest in her room with the furniture that we already had and do it in a way that would stick with her longer than a couple of years. I ordered paint sample after paint sample and matched my chalk paint with my wall colors. I ordered items and then returned them when the color or style wasn’t just right. I searched Etsy, and grandmas basement for unique accent pieces, and her room came together.

When I started to show her room off to family and friends, I realized that I had stumbled upon a great idea for a new genre of design business. I knew a lot of people who wanted to give their kids a special place to call their own but didn’t have the funds or desire to hire a traditional Interior Designer and didn’t really have the time to do all the leg work that I had done. Thus the birth of the Growing Up With Design model. We do the creative legwork developing fun and inspired design packages that will provide you with all the tools needed to implement that particular design in your unique space, on your timeline, and on your budget. Because we are creating standardized packages we can offer our designs at a fraction of the cost that you would pay for a one-off design.