Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Bundy.
Hi Brooke, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
Thank you so much for having me! Mixed in with my earliest memories are the stories I was told of people in my family. The places they had lived and the people they had met, the things they had accomplished, even the books they had read. I loved being in their homes and looking at the things they had collected over years of living vastly different lives from each other- some all over the world, and others in the same house they had raised their children in decades before. All of those places held a feeling of nostalgia to me, and even when I was very young, I would find myself coming up with ways to recreate that feeling when I got back home.
Decorating was my favorite way to spend both my time and my money as a child, but I never told anyone about it because it didn’t seem very cool to spend my allowance on something like a tablecloth. The only person who really knew how I felt was my twin sister Joan, and even though she didn’t share my passion enough to feel enthusiastic about pooling our allowance so I would have enough money to buy the rug I wanted, she was always there supporting my ideas.
In my 20’s I wrote about interior design both on my own blog, and for several other online publications. It gave me an outlet for my passion and creativity and also resulted in requests to help followers of my blog with their homes. It is where I learned how to design for clients who lived too far away for me to physically visit their homes.
During that time, Joan worked as an office manager to a general contracting company and has over a decade of experience in that field. When I finally felt brave enough to officially start an interior decorating business, I knew my sister’s understanding of the construction industry would bring a lot of value to the business I hoped to grow, so I asked her to join me. It’s the best thing I could have done to help bring my business ideas to life. I can’t describe the feeling I have when I think back on being kids together and dragging her around a flea market to look for things to decorate our bedroom with, to now being partners in an interior decorating business. It’s the best full-circle feeling.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road- I didn’t know how much I didn’t know about starting a small business until I decided to. Before Joan came on with me, I would find myself googling things like “What’s a P&L sheet?” or “How to create an invoice” or “What happens if you aren’t paying your taxes correctly?”. Luckily Joan LOVES that stuff so these days those kinds of things aren’t the worry. Our real struggle from a business standpoint has just been getting people to know we exist. It’s easy to feel like our business is a very tiny fish in a very big ocean. But the struggle that I am the most passionate about overcoming has to do with design itself. It is getting more clients to buy into the process of designing their home around their life experiences, rather than picking a popular trend and going all-in on that one specific look. The clients who let me explore ways to bring reminders of their talents, accomplishments, and happiest memories into their interiors are always the most excited about the end results. I want to get to a place where I am designing that way for everyone we work for.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The time I spent as a child noticing and appreciating the things in my family member’s homes that represented their favorite experiences, shaped the way I like to design for clients now. One of people’s biggest fears when making purchases for their homes is that everything they are buying will be out of style in a short time, but when you buy something specifically because it has a connection to a special memory, you will never care if it’s in style or not. I have the people in my life who influenced me as a child to thank for helping me to come to that realization, and it’s that focus that Joan and I feel the most proud of.
We are also really happy with the way we have structured our interior decorating services. We have purposely broken them into small chunks to make it easy for our clients to get the amount of help that is right for their project and budget. Not everyone wants or needs full-service design, and we have created our initial service to give an easy-to-follow design plan so that clients who want to do the rest of the work themselves can take that plan and execute its ideas at their own pace. That freedom allows our clients to save for higher quality pieces that they feel better about owning. It also allows those who love the process of decorating themselves the ability to do that while still having a solid plan. Our process also helps people to see the value in the things they already own, because I help them find new ways to use things that may have a lot of sentimental value but that haven’t necessarily been displayed in the best way.
All these things create interiors that are more sustainable because when we purchase with intention we don’t tire of things and throw them out as quickly.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Follow us on Instagram and send us an email to work together or collaborate! We love discovering other small businesses in our area to support and introduce our clients to. There is so much talent here!
Contact Info:
- Email: brookebundydesigns@gmail.com
- Website: www.brookebundydesigns.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brookebundydesigns/
Image Credits
Chad Holder Photography
Brooke Bundy
