My dream of becoming an interior designer started young. When I was 8, I told everyone that when I grew up, I would be an interior designer and buy the Biltmore House. I’ve since realized that owning Biltmore isn’t exactly practical. The utility bills alone would be astronomical. I did accomplish the interior designer part.
Over the years, I’ve realized my design philosophy always circles back to three things: fabric, floor plans, and furniture. These are the same three things that first pulled me into this world. They’re also the three things I’d tell you to think about, whether you’re refreshing one room or starting from scratch.
Fabric: Your Fastest Path to a Room That Feels Pulled Together
If you only change one thing in a room, make it the color story, and fabric is the easiest way to build one. A great fabric doesn’t just cover a chair or dress a window, it hands you a palette. Pull the colors from a single pillow or drapery panel, and you’ve got a built-in guide for walls, accents, and everything else in the room.
I learned this from my mother, a weaver with a sharp eye for textiles. We’d spend weekends wandering fabric stores, collecting swatches, then come home and lay them out into color schemes on the living room floor. It’s why I still start every project with fabric and color. Next time you’re stuck on a room, start with a fabric you love and let it do the color work for you.
Floor Plans: The Invisible Reason a Room Feels “Off”
You can have beautiful furniture and gorgeous color, and still feel like something’s wrong in a room. Frequently, it’s the layout, not the decor. A room that fights the way you actually move through it will never feel right, no matter how great the decor is.
I learned this before I could even articulate it. While my friends were playing with dolls, I was drawing floor plans and elevations, inspired by my uncle, an interior designer who’d rearrange my grandmother’s rooms every time he came home for the holidays. The furniture never changed but the room felt entirely different each time. That’s the lesson worth stealing: before you buy anything new, try rearranging what you already have. You might solve the problem for free.
Furniture: The Pieces That Tell Your Story
Furniture isn’t just function, it’s a story. I grew up around pieces that carried memories: my grandmother’s vanity, the mirror passed down through generations, my grandfather’s wing-back chair. None of it was particularly valuable, but all of it meant something. That taught me early that furniture does more than fill a room. It tells the story of the people living in it.
Later, working at a furniture store in High Point, NC — the self-proclaimed Furniture Capital of the World — deepened that passion into real knowledge of construction, quality, and design. But, the lesson from childhood still holds the most weight for me, and it’s the one I’d pass to you: don’t overlook the pieces with history in your own home. A well-placed heirloom often does more for a room than something brand new ever could.
Bringing It Together
When I walk into a home – empty or lived-in – fabric, floor plan, and furniture are the first three things I look at. They’re a simple framework, and you don’t need a designer to start applying them. Pick a fabric you love, rethink your layout before you shop, and hold onto the pieces that mean something. That’s where good design actually starts