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INTERIOR DESIGNER’S GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

HOW MY CAREER EVOLVED

HOW THE PODCAST CAME TO LIFE

HOW I PIVOTED THE PODCAST TO SUPPORT DESIGNERS AND HOW THIS OPENED UP THE DOOR TO BUILDING MY COURSE

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No one’s mind is more blown than mine that this is my 200th episode!

This podcast started out as a Covid adventure, and if you had asked me at the time, would I be 200 episodes in? I honestly would have laughed at you if you’d told me that I would have started a podcast, first of all, and secondly, that I’d still be doing it 200 episodes later. This is something I never, ever, ever dreamed of doing. 

So many of you are new listeners, so I wanted to introduce myself, who I am, why I am here talking about construction management, and why I think it’s so important for each of you. And to all of you who haven’t been along for the ride, I can’t thank you enough. It’s because of all of you, your DMs, emails, and encouragement that I am 200 episodes in with no end in sight. 

Where it all began

My first love of the industry started in high school. I was really blessed to have parents who let me rearrange my room, which, by the way, I shared with my sister from the age of 7 to 15. 

The last two years I lived at home while my sister was in college were the best because my parents let me take over the room. And boy, did they indulge me. I did all sorts of crazy things. My first job in high school was at a local interior design firm. 

For those of you who have been listening for a while, you may know the story of how I wanted to go to the New York School of Interior Design as an undergraduate until my father caught wind of it and said, “Oh hell no.” To quote him, he said, “I’m not going to pay for some artsy, fartsy degree only for you to change your mind either halfway through or after graduation and then have it be meaningless.” 

And so I said ok. My parents supported me endlessly, so there must have been some logic in what he was saying. So we struck a deal. I agreed to go get an undergraduate degree in sociology, and then my father, true to his word, paid for my graduate program in the New York School of Interior Design. So off I went at 22 to live in a studio apartment. 

I took in everything I could. I learned so much about construction, codes, building, perspective and volume lighting, and everything one could possibly need, in addition to color theory, renderings, and perspective. It really was so incredibly informative and inspiring. 

I graduated with honors, I loved my program, and I started working for incredibly fancy firms in New York City. The beauty of going to a school like NYCID is that most of the top designers you see in Shelter magazines either went to NYCID or were given honorary degrees. And so when you come out of there with that diploma in hand, you are automatically one level ahead in the hiring process. 

So, I was able to work on insane projects in the late 90s. Every designer I worked with did construction. It seemed normal to me. My three best friends were doing it. Everybody I knew was doing decorating and construction. And we were also incredibly respected by our industry partners—the architects, the builders, hell, even the landscape designers. We would all start together, and we’d partner up as a team. 

When my entire career changed

The woman I was working for took me out to lunch, which was unusual, but she wanted to let me know she was going to begin the process of retiring, and she wanted me to start taking over her business. I was flabbergasted. I never saw it coming, and I was absolutely drowning in imposter syndrome during that lunch. 

I then started to get used to the idea and was really excited, and she started giving me strategies she used and how we would segway– all of the things. 

And then suddenly, everything changed. Tragically, her beloved husband had a tragic accident, and within a couple of weeks, he died, and she learned that she was not going to be able to afford to retire anymore. 

That was really hard to process. In my head, I was planning for the future, figuring out the next moves, how to reposition, how to even start attracting a younger client base, all the things. So, to feel like I was essentially being demoted back to senior designer was something I was processing. On the other hand, I wanted to stay and support and protect Barbara and the business that she had built and was going to entrust to me. 

So I did stay for about another year. 

I had started spreading the word that I was looking to build a younger client base, and so people were trying to hire me. After about a year of trying to balance it all, I decided to go out on my own. 

Then word got out in my hometown of Deleware, and I was starting to get work in Delaware as well as New York. So, I commuted for about a year. 

Recognizing I had no life in either town, I decided it was a lot cheaper to live in Deleware than in New York City, and so I did the reverse commute. I moved back to my hometown in Delaware and commuted to New York for a couple of years until that, too, just became tiresome. 

New York vs. Delaware

My business was booming in Delaware, except for the construction part. In New York City, remember, I was all in, doing construction and decorating non-stop,  seen as an equal, and treated with respect. I came back to Delaware and, naively enough, thought that’s how everyone in our industry was viewed, and boy, was I wrong. I was met with confusion, disdain, and belittlement. 

It took about a decade to really feel that same professional level of respect in Delaware that I had obtained immediately in New York City. But I did it. I rebuilt it and learned a whole, whole lot in that process. In New York, respect was just handed to me, and I didn’t, honestly, have to do anything to receive it. I did have to maintain it, but in Delaware, I was always questioned, nitpicked, and always under a magnifying glass, and I had to prove myself each and every time. 

I learned how to do that and the best way to manage the individual trades that I had to build relationships with in order to continue getting referrals for work.

The value of having a network of support

So, this entire time, my three best friends from design school and I stayed in touch. We were scattered all over the country. We would call each other and see who was having a problem and how to resolve it. So, I had my network of support. 

So fast forward, and my business was swimming along. I even opened a retail store for 4 years with design services out of the back—all the itches I had to scratch. By the time Covid hit, I was humming along. I knew how to market myself. I had dialed in all my processes. I had the client roster I had always dreamed of. Everything was great. Except, I had done it all.  As well as my three best friends, I really, truly felt that now what feeling. 

Just before Covid, we were 25, 26 years into our careers, and we got together on a call and we asked if there was anything else we could do. And one of the things that kept coming up was how lucky we were to have each other over all of those years. We realized not only how fortunate we were to have each other but how unusual it was to have each other. 

The Mastermind

During Covid, I joined a mastermind, and it was just for fun. This mastermind was talking all about presence and online content, and one of the designers shared that she had a new podcast. So I thought, ok, I’m going to listen. I’d love to hear about an interior design podcast. I don’t think I’d listened to a single podcast before that. I went to the first episode, and she was sharing why she started her podcast. And that is where I had my lightbulb moment. 

I had originally started the podcast talking to homeowners. The reason was because of Covid. I had so many clients that were so frustrated that I couldn’t get to them personally. And this one woman was very upset that I couldn’t be there to hold her hand, but I did what I could from afar. And one day, I’ll never forget it, she said to me, “Renee, I don’t understand why there’s not a manual on how to run a construction project.”

That comment never left me, and then one day, it just clicked, and I thought, “I’ll just do a podcast for homeowners.”  

The funny thing is, after I started the podcast, designers started showing up. I thought, truth be told, they were just checking me out. But then the emails and DMs came: “Renee, I’m on this site. This has gone wrong, and I don’t know what to do.” I was thinking, why don’t they know this? But you see, I’d only been around my best friends and New York designers who had always done construction. It just never occurred to me that designers hadn’t been taught this. I was too in my own world and business to really know what was going on outside. How wrong I was.

I am all about lifting up other designers because I have been lifted up by countless designs. So I pivoted the entire podcast to talk to each of you. 

What I also learned through this podcast was that designers wanted that manual that the homeowner had asked me for. 

So, I sat down and sketched it all out. And I’m happy to say we are many iterations into The Interior Designers Guide to Construction Management. I am incredibly proud of the knowledge it holds and to share it with the designers who need that guidance. 

I am so excited to keep going with this podcast, and have exciting plans for 2025!