the "what" in what we do

Early in the year, a small group of students marched their way to the House of Representatives to defend the law in which gives them a bright and promising future in Interior Design. I got to be one of the lucky ones there that day to listen to the professionals in the industry and to stand up with all students in the fight back of this crazy deregulation that was taking place. Sadly most of the Representatives did not understand what Interior Designers do!! This to me was the hardest to understand, and the fact that any person off the street who feels he or her could design an interior space for nonresidential spaces, is out of this world. That's like having any person who FEELS like doing whatever profession, just doing it without the education. Yes, I admit that I FEEL I could design a hospitals interiors for patients and their family's, but would I do it without eduction, or better yet, SHOULD I be allowed to do so without education...heck no!! What we do as Interior Designers is making sure that every little or big anything  that gets put in that space, is safe for the people who will be occupying it. We research research research evidence of past designs that have been successful or that have failed. We do studies, interview's, some more research, before we even put a pencil down to draw. This is serious folks, it's not something that you can do just because you FEEL you can.
And why is it that so many don't know that Interior Design is serious?? Is it because of this fun and entertaining concept that TV has put out there, or the..."do it yourself" attitude that everyone feels they have down deep in their minds. Yes, you can paint that room your self, even pick out the color...good job, but do you know what effects that color is going to do to the person sitting in it?? Let's give another example shall we. Yes, you can construct a wall and, great,  hopefully you know what is even in a wall to do so, but that's beside the point. So you put up a wall in a space, just a few questions. Is it ADA compliant, does it have meaning, will it be utilized in it's best ability, will it help direct natural light, will it be used to direct a path, will it be used at all??? I can keep going on one single wall. My point, it's not just a wall to Interior Designers! It much much more.

the better life

Before registering to The Art Institute of Tampa of Interior Design, I had tried a number of time consuming professions, and in the way lost my true self. First, I worked for a real estate company after receiving my state license, and soon after, Lee County became the number one county in the entire U.S. for foreclosures. So that didn't last long.

I knew I wanted to help people live a better life, "including myself" so my next journey came to me from my boyfriend at the time, and that was to learn how to build a good future investment plan, and by that I mean, learning and studing life insurance and annuities. Create an investment for my future family to take with them, was the goal. With that came the opportunity to also teach other families how to create "family wealth". I took the state test, and received my license to go sell life insurance and feel good about myself, right...wrong! I was bored out of my mind.

So here I was with all this money invested into our state and I was still broke! Life then took a turn after that. I decided I needed to create, and invest my time into something more hands on, something that I can still do to make people live a better life, but be more involved at the same time. After talking to my best friend, "a.k.a my sister" she pushed me to follow my true love...creating a piece of art. I already had my two year degree in art, so why not invest more in myself and sign up for another two years of college, at the age of 28??

Now, moving on the way up to my 30's, I can proudly say, when looking at my rendered drawings of a space I created, I see a piece of art that is evidenced based to help people enjoy their lives. We spend most of out time in buildings, so why not make them worth walking into, why not design to live a better life.