Hey there, it's Rebecca. Before we dive in today's
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show notes. All right, let's get into
today's episode. You're now listening to Design
Curious, a place where you, creative one, are here to learn
about what it really is like to be an interior designer.
And I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
If you're worried about how to succeed in a creative career, if
you're ready to learn your next steps to become an interior
designer, and if you want the satisfaction of doing something
you love every day, you are in the right place.
Grab a coffee, a notebook, and let's dig into today's episode.
Hello, and welcome to episode 168 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Today on the podcast, I have guest Katie Malik.
Katie is an award-winning interior designer and founder of
Interior Design Deconstructed with a Master's in Philosophy
from Cambridge University and training in house whispering, a
unique psychotherapy of space combined with advanced Feng
Shui, Katie transforms both homes and businesses.
She's a triple winner at the UK Property Awards with 13 plus
industry accolades, named among the top 100 architects and
designers worldwide, and featured in Architectural
Digest, Grand Designs magazines and The Times.
As a BIID mentor and educator with over five years of teaching
experience, Katie empowers emerging designers while
creating harmonious spaces that prioritize health, happiness,
ethics and aesthetics. So listen in.
I think you will enjoy what Katie has to say.
We were very much aligned in our passion for mentorship of up and
coming designers. So I think you'll enjoy this
conversation today. Hi Katie, welcome to Design
Curious podcast. It's great to have you here
today. Hi, Rebecca.
Thank you so much for having me. It's a great pleasure to be one
of your guests. Yeah, I'm looking forward to our
conversation and I would love to just learn a little bit more
about you. So why don't you tell us how you
found a path into interior design?
I think it's a great question. There are so many interior
designers who came from a different background, which is
always so interesting and inspiring to hear for aspiring
interior designers who are looking to change their careers
and pivot into interior design. So before I became an interior
designer, I was a teacher. I taught mainly English for
academic purposes. My job was primarily in
education and private education and higher education.
And at some point I realized that if I continued on this
path, if I continued in academia, if I continued with my
PHDI would end up being miserable.
And I hope something was missing and I didn't quite know what it
was. So just to give a little bit of
a background, before I studied linguistics and education and
teaching, I actually wanted to study architecture.
So it was always there with me. And during one of our dinners
with my friend, she kind of opened me up to this whole idea
of why don't you just do something that you always wanted
but never had a chance to for whatever reason, You know, you
kind of took a different path. And that's when I thought, OK,
I'm going to see if interior design is for me.
So I signed up to a course, like an 8 weeks course initially just
to see if that was suitable. And I think it's a great way to
kind of test it if especially if someone is thinking of changing
their careers into interior design, it's a great, great way
to test. It was a clear yes.
So I continued my education, went to Chelsea College of Art,
which is amazing, and also National Design Academy here.
Now getting into the business measure design is a whole other
thing. I had worked for studios in
London where I learned so much. But the transition was, well, I
would say taking into consideration the time, it was
very short, but what I then had to deal with that what came with
running your own business is, is another story that we can of
course explore, but that's kind of a story in a nutshell.
OK, very interesting. Yeah.
And I think that education, the career of education is very
different from entrepreneurship. So then let's go there with like
learning to do business in interior design.
I mean, because it's a lot of people are like, yes, I'm
following my passion. I want to be a designer, but
most of the time that also requires you to be an
entrepreneur. And so that doesn't always come
like that's not the same passion, you know, like people
are not always passionate about building a business and there's
a lot of things to learn along the way.
So why don't you talk a little bit about that path that are a
struggle, OK? Yeah, it's a very good question.
And yeah, definitely, I think we need to talk more about this
because, yeah, following your passion is one thing.
Building a business is completely different.
So I went into this with my eyes completely closed, completely
blinded by my passion, right? All I wanted to do was enter
your design, and I wanted to do it my way.
And I had these visions about how it's going to look like, but
then it just hit me like a ton of bricks that I was completely
unprepared and unequipped to run a business.
So I needed to learn how to do it really, really fast.
I remember this was like well over 10 years ago.
There weren't that many resources on running a business
and interior design, at least here in the UK.
And I remember I used to actually do a lot of research
and try to contact more interior designers from the States
because it seemed like people were a little bit more open to
talk about this, whereas in the UK was still a little bit more
closed up. So it was a lot more difficult.
But what I've done, because I realized very quickly, OK, I
have no business skills. I can read books, I can ask
people, but I don't have them. So what I started doing, I
invested in coaching, I invested in business networking.
I invested in learning the business skills from others as
quickly as I could so I would make fewer mistakes possible.
But I always had this in poster syndrome.
Love it. Oh my God, I didn't go to
Business School. I don't have the business
skills. It's my first place.
What is this like? I just wanted to be an interior
designer. I didn't sign up for this.
Yeah, it was like I didn't sign up for that.
Hold on a second. No, I just wanted to design why?
Why this? Why that?
But I did start with a business, foreign Tier Designers, which
was an additional course at Chelsea College of Art organized
years ago, which was a great like a top up course, but it was
just an introduction. What really helped me gain those
business skills was coaching. That was one thing, business
networking and then specifically business training with more
private coaches and private training rather than going back
to the Business School and learning all these things, Yeah.
Okay. And in your bio you talk about
house whispering like a psychotherapy of phase combined
with advanced Fung shui. So tell us about that kind of
training. And I, I think that's a niche
that not a lot of people are in. So it's definitely something
that you specialize in. So explain a little more about
what that is. Right.
So yeah, it's a fascinating topic and a fascinating
discipline. So house whispering, as it
stands, was coined by a former architect, Christian Kiriakou.
So he resides here in the UK and he runs the Academy where he
trains others in house whispering.
And I fell into this because I was always interested in energy
work and soft development. I'm not even sure how I heard of
him. I have no idea how it happened,
but it happened. Yeah.
And this was kind of around Kovid.
So I thought, what a great way to gain more skills and fill my
time. Right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So that was absolutely brilliant.
So house whispering is a very deep psychotherapy of space.
So what a train house whisperer would do is basically work with
the energy of the space, the energy of a client as well to
underpin the reasons why things don't work harmoniously in their
home. And this could range from all
sorts of things such as ghosts as things that break constantly.
It will also look at like sleep, maybe disruptions or any
disruptions are happening within the space.
Also can help with when people are applying for planning
permissions that are constantly being rejected for no reason or
struggling to sell their home or move out or even move in.
I mean, you name it. Or they bought a plot, they want
to build a house and things just start going wrong.
And we've heard of these things. So house whispering tackles
these challenges, but in my course I was the only interior
designer. A lot of the other participants
and students were actually therapists.
OK. So they do that as a
supplementary course to their practice because they recognize
that a lot of what their clients struggle with it is kind of
attached to their home. Whereas I thought, Oh my God,
what a great skill to have as an interior designer if someone is
particularly struggling with certain aspects.
And I've actually managed to of course, practice the skills with
actually one of the current projects.
At that time, we were struggling to obtain actually planning
permission for certain alterations and a graded listed
building. So I run a session with my
client. Her husband was extremely
negative about it. It's like, I don't believe this,
OK, you do this. I don't care.
I don't believe in that. This is some woo woo stuff.
And actually once we did the session and we've done all the
clearing and we've found the root cause of a problem, 2 weeks
later the planning permission did come.
So it is quite a powerful thing to do.
It's very complex so I'm not going to go.
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Depending on depending on what the challenge might be, we might
be getting different techniques to work with the energy of the
space and with the energetic architecture of the space.
But it always boils down to the house mirrors us.
Wow, what a unique niche to have and I'm sure I don't know anyone
with that skill here in California.
So yeah, really gives you an edge on that and I think that
would be really interesting Ave. to explore.
So how long have you had your business then?
Have you been on? Yeah.
Yeah, I started in 2014, OK, So yeah, 11 years for my first
projects because I was still quite an experience.
I felt like I didn't have enough experience.
I teamed up with designers who I met in the studio where I worked
because they were freelancers there for just basically
subcontracted for specific projects and I asked them for
help and that was the best decision.
So I also always encourage designers who are basically
transitioning from something or they don't have a lot of
experience, but they land a big renovation project to just team
up with more experienced designers just to ensure that
they won't make big mistakes in the process and the project goes
smoothly. So that's what I did.
And then I grew very slowly. I was actually listening to your
previous episode that September and this whole beard until
December. But it was really interesting to
hear. I can't remember the name of the
designer, but she was talking about how she grew so fast and
then she became this manager and, and it was so overwhelming.
And, and I think that I always wanted to keep my practice very
small because at some point I had a few people and it was
really overwhelming. So now I keep it to the bare
minimum of like four of us. Like overall, I can't cope with
more. And I do admire people who have
20 plus and 40 plus designers under them.
But I kind of thought like this is not for me.
I don't want to manage the dynamics.
I don't want to be the manager. I still want to design.
I want to be involved in every single project.
I want to do a great job. So yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Now, that's an important thing
to know too, because it takes you to a whole nother level of
being a business owner is to manage a larger group and, and
to know that you're like, I, I love being in the smaller phase.
And that's great to like just be able to hone in on that aspect
of it and not have to build an empire necessarily.
So yeah. Yeah, I think it's a choice and
I think this is something that I also learned at the business
training course, one of the first ones that I took that was
specifically organized for interior designers.
And I always encourage designers like if you want to learn
business, learn from other interior designers.
Go find your coach, find a person you resonate with, take
their courses, take the coaching because they will know, they
will have had the experience of first hand of issues, challenges
and everything right. If you go to just a business
coach that deals with non designers, right, or helps just
businesses in general, yes, you will learn a lot, but they will
never quite understand understand you and your
challenges like another interior designer.
So, yeah, coming back to to what I just started saying, our
trainer said you have to decide how big you want to grow because
that will drive your business, that will drive your marketing,
that will drive your branding. And big businesses are not for
everybody, but small businesses are not enough for for everybody
either. So you have to kind of decide
how big you want to be and this will help you drive the
business, which I thought I remembered, which I thought was
such a valuable tip to give to aspiring designers.
Yes, yeah, no, that's really good.
So you are in the UK, Did you find a coach who is in the UK or
did you go like America or Canada?
Or did it matter to you when you were trying to learn?
No, it didn't matter what mattered more where the people
and what they could offer. So I actually had a number of
coaches and some of them were UK based and some of them were UK
based but not English. They had international
experience. They were immigrants like me.
Then I had a coach from the USI had a coach from Canada.
So I think actually having a a variety of people, everybody
will bring something else to the table and we'll have a slightly
different flavor. Things are maybe run differently
in the States or in Canada than here or to Europe, definitely.
But at the same time, everyone will bring something valuable
from from that sector or from that country.
So I think it's actually really good to train internationally
because it opens the mindset someone can know something that
this or something is done in a way in a in a country that
actually no one knows about it in in the UK.
And actually maybe they're doing things better, especially like I
mentioned the beginning of our chat, that initially when I
started, there were very, very few resources and no one really
wanted to share. In the UK.
I used to basically just ask designers from the States, and
again, they were very giving and very open about what I should
do, how they would approach it. So I really valued that and I
think there's no harm in asking and learning from people across
the pond. Yeah, yeah.
Because design is design, and I think getting that different
perspective is good as well. Like just to see how other
people are doing it outside of your circle is beneficial.
Yeah, for sure. Definitely yes.
Yeah. So over the past 1011 or so
years, what are some other maybe challenges or things that you've
learned that you'd love to share with someone who's just thinking
about starting out? That's a very, very good
question. A lot of challenges.
I would say definitely start with your eyes wide open.
So if you want to start your business, do go and learn some
business skills and get yourself a coach or at least enroll in
courses. If you can't afford a coach,
enroll in courses and Start learning about business because
it's not going to be just beautiful designs.
Then another step is scaling. So when you scale your business,
you need to have a very clear goal and you need to know when
to hire, but also what I've learned, you need to know when
to fire. And sometimes holding on to
again, people just because you like somebody because they were
maybe your first hire or you have that history with them is
not going to help you scaled your business.
So what I've learned is that, and, and I think it might happen
to a lot of creatives that first and foremost, if you run your
business, you're a business owner, you're an entrepreneur.
And as much as you love design, it doesn't really matter
unfortunately, because your business comes first, right?
So you might like people, design is important, of course, but
ultimately you run your business.
So I would say that's, that was like one of the biggest
challenges for me. And I think it's very important
to say that. And also if you do want to scale
up, yes, you can't be doing this on your own.
So you need to build team, you need to be surrounding yourself
with people who are suitable for your goals.
So, and this is again something that I've done.
And it's not necessarily always a bad thing, but I think when
you I made like kind of like a full circle because initially I
was working with more experienced senior designers and
then I kind of went to hire somebody who I thought I could
mold. And so I think both of those
avenues can work. But again, you need to be honest
with yourself. Like what is that I actually
need and build from that rather than, oh, I can afford to hire a
junior. I can't afford to buy to hire a
senior. So I'm going to, I'm going to go
with a junior, but you have to realize that getting a junior is
going to be very time consuming and it's going to take a very
long time until you can actually offload some of your work,
right? And it might be bright and they
might, you know, they might pick up very soon, but it still will
be a lot longer and more challenging than working with a
senior interior designer. So, yeah, just working this out.
And that depends 100% on the outcome and where you want to
drive your business to. But I would say working with
more experienced people will drive your business higher.
And then you can, of course, build the whole, the pyramid,
the foundation with juniors is not an issue.
But being just mindful of that and being aware, I would also
say the one thing that I always talk about that is so important
and that I think made a huge impact on my business are the
systems. So all the internal systems.
And again, some creatives can just go with the flow.
But I think if you have internal systems, so if you have all the
templates ready for your business, then it's just going
to be so much less stressful for you.
So having that systemized and internal operations is
paramount. Yeah, to the.
Success of the business and to your own mind, to yourself, like
you owe it to yourself because otherwise you'll be like, Oh my
God, what do I do now? Oh my God, where do I take this?
So if you kind of like prep everything, just if you would
like work on a concept design before you show it to a client,
then I think if you approach your business from the same
angle, then you're you're setting yourself up for success,
not for failure. Yeah, that's really good
insight. And especially I love the part
about, you know maybe what you need is a senior designer first
because you are going to get so much more out of that more
experienced designer and it's going to advance your business
and so much faster than spending time training an entry level
person. So that's good insight.
And then yeah, the systems just to help keep you from overwhelm,
like if you can set those up early for sure.
That's great advice. Well, you have a lot of great
insight and I know you have a podcast as well.
Would you like to shout it out on here so we can go check it
of? Course, Yeah, yeah.
So it's interior design deconstructed.
And the focus is basically to empower aspiring into your
designers in their business skills.
So I invite interior designers and I also invite business
specialists because I think there's so much to learn from
them as well. And there's so much to know.
I learned from this podcast by inviting these people.
I mean, I work with some of them, but some of them I haven't
worked yet. And I'm just so curious to learn
from them how else we can enhance business, right?
I mean, recently. So it was a September episode.
We had Doctor Vaniel Yavar as one of the podcast guests, and
she talked about how her business that she cofounded
helps businesses and brands really understand their idea.
Your client, right? I mean, ideal client is a very
big thing in interior design as well.
But she gave a beautiful, a lot of beautiful explanations about
how they do that and what to look out for.
So, yeah, so this is what my podcast does.
I try to invite business specialists and other interior
designers just to share the insights as well and get tips
and inspiration maybe as well for business.
Yeah, and probably pulling some of your education background of
just wanting to inform others and help them too, Yeah, to
learn to do better and everything.
Yes, yes, yes. That's the point of of the
podcast Realist. That's the main focus.
And and I wish, you know, when I was starting, there's so much
out there like 11 years ago. I mean, if someone really wants
to, there are resources and there's lots of support.
And what's beautiful is that a lot of designers offer this
coaching now because they have this.
I feel they want to give back and it's just amazing.
That's why I said like if you have a choice between a more
generalist coach and a business coach and then interior design
coach, so someone who actually has taken their experience and
is willing to share, then that's worth so much more because it's
very specialist and they can really resonate with with your
challenges and and help guide you.
So I think it's such a beautiful thing that people started doing
these days of the podcast, like your Venkat coaching.
So it's amazing. Yeah, Yeah.
Well, you too, Katie. So where can people find you if
they want to reach out and ask you more about anything that you
talked about today? So yeah, so if anybody would
like to know about house whispering that they should
definitely head to katiemalik.co.uk and for
basically for training and business support and podcast,
it's Interior Design deconstructed.co.uk and podcast
is the same as Interior Design Deconstructed on Spotify.
And I think now on Apple. I haven't actually checked
whether it's it's connected, but I tried to connect the 2.
So that's how they can find me. Great.
OK, we'll put those links in the show notes too, in case
someone's striving and listening to this so they don't have to
take notes. Well, it's been a pleasure to
talk with you, Katie. Thank you for coming on and
sharing and just paying it forward to the next generation
of designers. So.
Thank you so much, Rebecca, for having me and for also for your
podcast and for what you're doing.
I think it's really amazing and we should all support younger
aspiring interior designers and younger.
I would say younger. It's not about the age, it's
just aspiration. Yes, and.
Younger in the career, yeah. Younger in the career, yes.
Yeah. All right.
Well, thank you. It's so good to talk with you.
Thank. You.
So I really enjoyed talking with Katie and I had the opportunity
of returning the Favorite and being on her podcast, Interior
Design Deconstructed. You can go ahead and check that
out. We'll have a link for it in the
show notes. And that is all I have today.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. We are coming up to the end of
the year and also it is December, which means that boot
camp registration is open for us to get started in January.
So if you're looking to start your business in interior design
in 2026, then sign up for Launch Your Business Boot Camp.
So that's all I have for you this week.
Next week we'll have another great episode and until then,
stay creative. Thanks for listening.
If you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me, simply
head over to my website arworddesign.com or e-mail me at
podcast@arworddesign.com.