From interior design to lifestyle design, architecture to DIY projects, my decade in design blogging embraced a kaleidoscope of styles and ideas. I emerged as an influential voice, recognized by industry and peers, offering not just great visual content but thoughtful commentary on the intersection of design, culture, and technology. From Scandinavian minimalism to maximalist…
Category: Coaching
How to design, shop, renovate and decorate like a PRO. Do you want to become an interior designer? Here is what you need to know!
The Power of Learning – Coaching Retrospective 2023
As designers one of the biggest parts of our jobs is collaboration, not only with our internal teams, we collaborate with clients, trades, suppliers and other industry professionals. This collaborative environment encourages constant learning and sharing of ideas with our peers. Through the blog we’ve been able to share some of the key tips and…
The administrative part of a reno, how to do it right and why it wins you 75% of the battle
So, what is the administrative part? documenting what you do figuring out which is the latest decision in relationship to a particular item do you know the impact of a framing decision later on in the process? budgeting scheduling tracking tax deductions, if any record-keeping for maintenance or, for instance, getting that paint for touch-ups…
Why leading a design firm should not be all that different than leading a factory
How many factory owners go and work the floor covering all the tasks? Yet most clients expect the leader of a design or architecture firm to be involved in absolutely all the work. In a way, this is quite obvious why it is so: unlike in a factory, they do not hire you for the…
The Big Easy, part 2 – When does it get easy? Does it ever?
The one question that we all ask – mostly of ourselves. Having it easy seems to always be of the past or some distant future. A distant future where we assume that after we perform many tribes and tribulations and do them properly, things will eventually pay off, and the easy time will come. But…
The Big Easy, part 1 – Since I gave up doing my to do list, things got easy
The amount of books that promote the value of lists is unsurmountable, and they still pile up one writer after another, telling you how to take the time to put it down and then follow through. What time? You say. I barely have time to shower, when can I make a list and then also…
What interior design really is and the value of great advice – part 2
Why does everyone think they can do this profession of ours? Why is it that, to the public, it appears so easy to practice that almost anyone with a bit of aesthetic eye can do it? That all interior designers do is nudge a few things just a bit better than the able amateurs? And…
What interior design really is and the value of great advice
One of the difficult things to pay for is intangible, hard-to-understand, hidden-value advice. Why would you? When you go and buy something, you have it in your hand. When you go and rent that holiday villa, you’re in it, living the life. When you have kidney stones, and the doctor tells you how to get…
Retrospective Best Of ‘Coaching’
With an average growth rate of 3.4% per year between 2017 and 2022 the Interior Design industry doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Although the field was met with many challenges over the last few years, including finding new ways to work remotely and getting creative to deal with the never ending project and…
Staffing the new way: what app to get instead of a person to do what you need?
A design practice is multi-faceted, unlike others. It’s at the cusp of four very different sets of skills that need to be mastered equally: highly trained professional knowledge, a tremendous amount of soft skills, especially people-pleasing skills, the capacity to communicate verbally and visually and last by definitely not least, be a masterful time-manager with…
Do you own your interior design practice? Where do you focus your attention and what do you prioritize? part 2
If you have the will to succeed, by far the most important skills to build are those related to how to recognize, attract and leverage talent for your firm. This is the only skill that will free up the time required for you to focus on the growth of the business, which is the absolute,…
Do you own your interior design practice? Where do you focus your attention and what do you prioritize? part 1
Being your own boss in interior design is not as easy as you think. If you work by yourself and generate enough income to support your basic self, live the life you want, save for a rainy day and, yes, save for that retirement that willy-nilly will come, then you’re good. If you have what…