Interview with Julie Meyers

Julie Meyers sat down to talk about her life as an interior designer with web marketer Sue Thomson.

 

Tell me about your career before Decorating Den.

Prior to purchasing my Decorating Den Interiors franchise in 1998, I had spent 20 years in health care, primarily as a critical care and ER nurse, but also part of that time managing an ambulance service and being an educator for EMTs and Paramedics.  I absolutely loved my calling to nursing, but after many moves as we followed my husband’s jobs and with the demands of four small children, I realized that I needed to make a change to something with more flexibility and family-friendly hours.

 

Have you always had the design bug?

Yes, I have!  My earliest memory of the design bug comes from a move that we made because of my father’s job transfer when I was 13.  I suppose I was the stereotypical surly teenager, resentful of my life being uprooted by this move, and my mother pacified me by telling me I could decorate my new room however I wanted.  White eyelet bedding, red and white awning striped curtains and plenty of macramé resulted, but I was in heaven, and from that time on fancied myself quite the decorator.  As an adult, I absolutely loved designing each of the many homes we moved to, and frequently helped family and friends with theirs, but didn’t actually think I could make a living out of my passion until faced with the need for a career change from health care.

 

What are your favorite styles and why?

Oh, I really don’t think I have a favorite……one of the best things about being in this business is that we get to do so many different styles, and I love each one for different reasons!  Here in the Midwest, our clients are generally very conservative and pragmatic, so most often we are called upon to provide results that are updated and unique, while also being enduring and practical.  We’ve really built our reputation on figuring out the very best way to serve each client’s needs, and oftentimes that means keeping a fair amount of what they have and working it into a new look for their space.  It’s kind of a special challenge to give them a new look, especially if they’re going for an entirely new style, without ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’, but we can and do do just that, quite often.  Of course, we also love it when we do get a completely ‘clean slate’ to work with, and also when our clients choose to step outside of their style and embrace something new.

 

What styles do your clients prefer?

Is there one that stands out? What we see the most of is transitional style which leans a bit towards traditional, although much of the new construction occurring does go a lot more toward soft contemporary.  Farmhouse Industrial is also pretty strong right now, especially among our younger clients.

 

How long do you tell a client a typical one-room project will take?

For the design process, we tell our clients that we will return for our presentation appointment within 1-2 weeks of the initial consultation, and that we will be coming fully prepared with all information, renderings, and samples so that they can make decisions that day, if they are prepared to do so (truth be told, almost all of our clients take at least 2-3 follow-up appointments to get to decision, but we try to nudge them along more quickly than that, to mixed success).  Once decisions are made and contract is signed, it typically takes 8-10 weeks for full-room projects, 2-6 weeks for window treatments, and anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 months for remodels.  Full kitchen remodels can take up to 6 months, if major structural work is being done.  For those larger, long-term projects, we emphasize to our clients that we always make sure all contractors are lined up and ready to go, and that all products have been received in our warehouse, before we start demolition and ‘the mess of the process’ in order to keep mess and chaos to a minimum as much as possible.

 

 

What do you like about the design process?

I love the creativity!!!  But in addition to the importance of a creative design is the necessity that we address our clients’ needs and challenges.  We’ve really built our reputation upon creating design solutions for our clients, which not only result in aesthetic beauty for their homes, but which also solve whatever challenges are present, in terms of space, architecture, budget and lifestyle, and do so in creative ways that reflect their tastes and personalities.

 

How could clients make a project go easier for you?

By being well-prepared for the process, which includes having an established budget and an understanding of their own personal decision-making styles, so that we can tailor our services and our design to be something that’s exactly right for them.

 

 

Why should a client work with Design 360?

We develop a collaborative relationship with every client, we listen to what they tell us and are perceptive to even the little things that go unsaid, we approach their project with absolute respect for what they’ve told us they want to accomplish, and for their budget, and then we stir all of that together and bake it up into a beautiful, creative design plan which will accomplish for them what they’ve been unable to do on their own.

 

What do clients like about working with you?

Over and over, they tell us that we’ve been a joy to work with, and that we helped them accomplish exactly what they wanted and needed, oftentimes without really being able to identify what that was on their own.  They also truly appreciate the value that we bring to their projects, in the form of the highest quality products within the budget that they’ve allocated.

 

 

Tell me about the best project you’ve worked on, and why.

One of my most meaningful projects was actually one of my very earliest, and one which had a very modest budget.  A client contacted me to request that I help her with a kitchen facelift in a home that was much, much more modest than their previous one, resulting from a move necessitated by a job loss.  She expressed that she didn’t have a very big budget, but just needed to do something to make this home seem more like ‘hers’, and that might help her love this space a fraction as much as she’d loved her past homes.  We painted cabinets, changed out the flooring, added some small pieces of furniture and a few accessories, and dressed a window with a cheery valance.  She wasn’t home when we installed, but called me the next day in tears to tell me that she absolutely loved it, and then said something that has stuck with me ever since: “Julie, you understood that this project was about so much more than just my kitchen, it was about helping me to love where I am in life right now.”  I have never forgotten the lesson I learned from that project, and insist that my staff and I always keep it in mind for every project we work on.

Interpreting that question in a much less philosophical manner, probably the most FUN project I’ve worked on was a total kitchen remodel for a widowed gentleman who, although he’d loved his wife dearly, had only tolerated her decorating style for all of their married years.  Several years after she passed away, he was finally ready to really make his house over again in his own style.  Although he also had a relatively modest budget for all that he wanted to accomplish, he really let me have free rein and was willing to think outside of the box, so we were able to be very creative with what we did for his space, and it was really fun to oversee such a dramatic change.

 

Tell me about your family.

I’ve been married for 38 years, have four grown children and 8 grandchildren!  My kids are spread out from Waterloo, IA to Holland, MI, and their careers vary from health care, to teaching, to arts management.

 

What do you do in your spare time?

I love to read, garden, bike and travel.  Recently, I achieved one of my long-time goals of skydiving!