My Very First Post

After agonizing for a week, I finally decided what to write for my first blog. Its going to be a story...I like stories....hope you do to. This is how I became a decorator and why. Like most of you I was home raising my kids, who were now in school full time, wondering if I should return back to work. My former profession as a retail manager and visual merchandiser was not an option. The hours are too demanding and I wanted to be home with my kids. I've always love decorating the homes of friends and family. I looked into formal education several times and the cost and time associated with college seemed unattainable so I continued on the course of decorating for free for friends, family and family friends. "OK," my sister said. "It's time to start charging people." I did. I couldn't believe it! People were actually paying me! I would get referrals from happy customers and it was wonderful. I learned really fast though, that there were a lot of things I didn't know. People in "the business" would call us "just housewife decorators." Then the time came. We all have those pivotal moments in out lives that changes us forever. For me it was losing my mom. She passed away from a very brief and unexpected illness with cancer. It was then that I decided that this life was too short to stand on the sidelines and watch all of your dreams and passions pass you buy. I mad the decision to finally go back to school. I was in my mid forties and going back to school. I wanted to formally call myself an "Interior Designer"- a professional! Finally no longer a housewife decorator. How did I pay for it? My clients actually did. All of the money I eventually charged went directly toward tuition and books. No loans, no grants, nothing. My clients and I did it together...and a really good bookkeeper - my sister. I graduated on the deans list with so much more knowledge, confidence and best of all, zero debt. The only debt I have is to my clients or

people like me who love to decorate but just needed a little bit of help along the way. Most with small decorating budgets just like me and a yearning for the room from the magazine.

So I'll be writing to not only teach you what I've learned but to to be your decorator. I'd like to take your ideas and make them work. If you don't have the ideas, I'll give them to you. I found throughout my experiences that all of us are creative in some way, we just need a little guidance sometimes. We all want to make an Impression.

Ann