Hello and welcome to episode 150 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host of mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Can't believe I've done 150 episodes.
OK, today we have a great interview with Karen Woolsey.
Let me tell you a little bit more about her.
Some are fortunate to discover their passion when they're
young. Karen Woolsey is one of them.
A native Texan growing up, Karen spent the summers visiting her
grandparents in New Orleans. This is where her love of
interior design, historic homes, and her appreciation for Creole
and French colonial architecture was born.
After graduating summa cum laude from Texas Tech, Karen embarked
on a career in oil and gas, which spans 16 years.
While she loved her career, she often felt it wasn't her true
calling. After the birth of her second
child and a relocation back to her hometown of Fort Worth for
her husband's job, Karen took on an ultra personal creative
endeavour, the design of her new home.
A new construction home. She delighted in working
alongside her builder from the ground up to bring her dream
home to life. During the process, Karen caught
the attention of other local home builders, and once her home
was complete with home owners, she began consulting on interior
design projects until it became clear that it was no longer a
creative hobby. In 2017, after relocating to The
Woodlands with her family, she officially founded CW Interiors.
Since opening the doors of her studio, she's grown her team to
six and has had the privilege of partnering with developers, home
builders, and home owners to create storytelling homes in The
Woodlands, Houston, and Conroe metropolitan areas.
I know you're going to love this interview, so let's get into.
It 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. Hi, Karen, welcome to Design
Curious Podcast. It's great to have you here.
Today, thank you. Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it. Of course, of course.
And I'm excited about our topic today.
But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about
how you got into interior design because I always like to ask
everyone's path. Everyone has a different path.
And part of the point of this podcast is to show people who
aren't curious about their career that there's many
avenues. Like everyone comes from some
different direction into into design.
So we'd love to hear your story and then we'll get on into
building a team. Yeah, well, thanks for asking.
I've always been creative in many different ways.
Like I love to write, I love to craft, I love to design, I love
all the things. I love to bake.
I taught for a little while and then I actually went into oil
and gas and that kind of fell into my lap a little bit.
It was my summer job. And then they asked me to stick
around and I did. And then it just kept going and
going and I kept moving up and up.
And I love the people, but I didn't love the work.
But I'm very grateful for the business education that it gave
me because it was a small company.
So you learned everything there. And then eventually it just got
to a point where I had two little kids and I couldn't do it
all. Like I just couldn't do it all.
So I stayed home. About that time, my husband and
I decided to build a house. And so that became my passion.
I loved it and we built our forever home.
And the builder liked it and would start picking my brain
about or his facts. And then another builder did
that. I love that part of it.
But then when we got transferred down here to The Woodlands from
Fort Worth, I just figured that was great, but it's over.
And so kind of threw myself into the move.
And then we bought this older home that needed a ton of work.
I did all of that. And then, you know, kids, their
parents, my kids friends parents would come over and be like, oh,
I love it. Can you help me do mine?
Can you help? Me do my sure.
And my husband was like, that's it, you're doing it go.
And I'm such a action is that I probably wouldn't have ever like
I kept thinking of reasons why I should not just went for it.
And I'm grateful that it's taken off in the past.
Can I talk to you a little more about how you just went for it?
So what were the first steps that you really had to overcome
to start a business? In reality, one of my good, good
friends who I made in The Woodlands and my husband got
together and they were like, that's it, we're doing it.
We had pictures taken to the house and I didn't even have
social media. So my friend was like, I'm
putting it on social media and saying CW interiors, call them.
And then people started calling. And that's how it started, yeah.
Wow. Well, you had some business
experience because you did work for the small business where you
have obviously wear a lot of hats.
So getting off the ground, though, was there any struggles
that you you faced kind of that you weren't expecting?
So I tried to do everything and I did do everything myself for a
long time. And it involved like many
weekends, never getting out of my pajamas and learning
QuickBooks. And we had a report tax and
learning. You know, I had done all of that
in the oil and gas industry, but carrying that over.
Interesting. So I never had social media.
Still don't personally. Overcoming that was giant and
it's still not my Forte today. It's just like a necessary
blessing and a curse, right? Sure.
Everything from working with people who build your website.
And I think it's also where my English background, like the
creative writing and all of that.
Like you have to just dig in and you have to research and you
have to focus and you have to go down 1,000,000 rabbit holes to
such depths that you have to be willing to put that sweat
equity. And it's not just pretty.
It would be great if that were true, but it's just not.
It's all the things, all those details matter to make it
profitable. And, you know, interacting with
clients, that was a whole new dimension for me, right?
Like a spec is one thing, but a person is another.
So that was all huge. Yeah.
Did you have any other designers
that you modeled after or had a mentor or a coach or anything
like that, or how did you develop your systems for your
design? No.
So my background to go even further back, so my parents
moved to Texas before I was born, but they're both from New
Orleans, so all the extended family was in New Orleans.
So we would do Christmases, summers, spring breaks, always
in New Orleans. So I've always loved that city,
love for the architecture, love the design.
And so that really started out as kind of like my focus.
But then as I started working with individuals, it was really
fun to connect with them and bring their best version of
themselves out. And so it was just me.
I did not have anybody I was modeling after.
I did not have a mentor other than like watching the builders
and a little different. I just kind of navigated it and
it was just me for a while and it became a client who she's
still one of my best friends to this day.
She was one of my first clients, but she became my assistant, you
know, just divine intervention. I feel like the team came to me
like my right hand man did name Allison Taylor.
She's our lead designer now and she is the yin to my Yang,
whereas I love that old New Orleans vibe.
She is very much edgy and modern and takes big swings.
If you saw her, you'd be like, oh, OK, it's just the, like I
said, the end of my Yang. And so that partnership has been
huge for CW Interiors because when I'm spinning out, she
grounds me. And so that's been wonderful.
And then we have another designer who's come on board and
she is color extravaganza me. When she writes an e-mail, it's
only with 10 exclamation points after everything.
And that's kind of how it's developed.
So first it was Allison and then it was Nikki, who's the color
one that I was talking about. And now we have Lauren, who's
another designer on our team and she's actually from Lafayette,
LA, but she's super minimalistic.
And now we have, we had just hired another one and her name's
Madison Colwell and she is our baby on staff.
She is the one who loves antiques the most, which so an
accountant, ACPA who was on it also.
But now she does all of our bookkeeping and taxes for us.
And we have an operations coordinator.
That's way more than you wanted to know, but that's evolution of
the team. OK, well, let's peel that back
and start talking about how to build a team because I'm sure
that your story is relatable for a lot of people who, you know,
similar situation. People are telling them you got
to go into design, you got to do this for a living because you're
so good at it. But then they have their
business and they have more work than they can handle.
So I know when it's time to hire.
That's hard if you're brave enough to get started and if
you're detail oriented and type A enough to make it thrive
because all those details matter.
It's very difficult, for me at least, it was to be willing to
delegate and hire those people because you died to get this
thing going. And eventually you just realize
you can't grow without delegation.
And so once you're drowning, you just have to be aware and be on
the lookout for the right people because the wrong person can be
worse than no person. So you just have to be aware,
you have to look for the character of people, which is
huge. And I think you get to the point
of knowing you need to grow before you find a person, right?
And so I think it's hard when you're like, it's time to hire.
Let's go on indeed.com and hire somebody.
Sometimes that works out great, but other times it's hard.
It almost needs to happen organically.
You have to be open and aware. Yeah, that is a little bit
daunting in and of itself to hire someone on, especially
going from zero to 1 like to managing.
Yeah. It's like having kids, right?
Yeah. But yeah, so it's like learning
how to manage someone, even the business side of it of like
having an employee or maybe their independent contractor,
but still it's a whole different role that you also have to take
on as well, right? It is, yeah.
And that's another thing that you just said an independent
contractor to employee, that's another hurdle, right?
Like it was independent contractor, but the IRS can be
is very picky about OK, are they an independent contractor?
Because I'm not you. Can get away with that, you
know, which is great. People deserve to be employees.
But that's a scary thing too, because it's just more risk
every time. It's more risk and you just have
to be open to the right person and also give yourself grace
because inevitably, I mean, you're not going to bad 1000 and
everybody's not going to be the perfect fit.
We hope for that. But if you grow enough,
eventually you're going to have to deal with that as well.
Yeah. So what are some of the things
that you look for then when it starts to happen and you're
notes, OK, I need to have someone come and help me.
And you're, you're open to the idea, but you, you know that you
have a job description that you need to fill, but you also need
a personality that works with yours and other characteristics.
So what kind of did you have? Like a checklist you were going
off of or just intuition at? First, it honestly, the first
couple of times it was just intuition and I got super lucky
and it worked out. But I think there's a couple
things. One, they have to be willing to
be part of a team. It doesn't matter if they're
super talented. If they can't work, if they
can't be collaborative, then it's probably not going to be a
good fit for a growing business. And so that's the character, and
that's huge because you can't really teach character.
Their thing is, and this is something I think a lot of
people struggle with, and I certainly can relate, but my
theory is I don't want anybody in their specific.
Role who is not? Better at what they specifically
are doing than I am. So, you know, I taught myself
accounting, but the CPA is better at accounting than I am,
right? And then I love color, but my
friend Nikki, she does color better than I do color.
So everybody's got their place in the business and I can do all
of what they do, but I can't do it better than what their
specialty is, and I'm great with that.
Yeah. So that's also an interesting
point to bring up is because you're letting other people have
some creative roles as well in your business.
Does that take away at all from your enjoyment of being an
interior designer? Like, are you not designing as
much as you want to or isn't that always the risk that people
think, Well then I'll just be managing and I won't be
designing. Oh, 100%, yeah.
It depends on the day that you asked me.
So for example, yesterday for a charity auction, we donated A
consult and I went solo to the winner's house and worked with
them. And I had a blast, A blast
because it was just, you know, she and I working there
together. And we were both enthusiastic.
Like that brought me so much joy.
And so I do make sure that we are doing a lot of those for me
because I enjoy it. But at the same time, it's not a
huge project that I'm like shouldering all on my own
because you have to have my head on a swivel with all the parts
of the business. So I would say, yes, it's
unfortunate that I don't get to design a whole lot anymore.
But also just make sure that you're sprinkling in at least
something that you get to do to nurture your creativity.
Your own won't be worth it anymore.
Yeah, that feels the. Balance.
Yeah. And there are certain ways.
I mean, you can ask my husband that I'm like, I love it.
And then it's like a Oh my gosh, why do you know, what have I
done? Yeah, I know.
I try to keep it on an average like 90% of the time I love my
job. And I think that's accurate.
I would say about 90% of the time I love my job and that's
that's still good. That's a lot better.
Than many people can say so. I agree.
So just make sure if you're drowning in the minutiae of the
business part, just find a way, find a way.
Get those in, give you know those auction winners.
Those are so fun. I would definitely say to make
sure you're giving yourself some of those.
So you talked about how you can't teach character, and I
think one of the ways to that we talked about to attract the
right person to come along is to have established your mission
and your values for your business.
How did you go about doing that process?
Because I ended up leaving my other job because just the
obligations of the kids, I've always wanted to be very family
friendly. That's been super important to
me. And so while we obviously have a
business to run, I do try to make it as flexible as possible.
So we don't have a single office space where we report everyday.
We do have a weekly in person staff meeting where we connect,
but then the rest of the time we get to be flexible and that's
been huge. I really try to treat my staff
like family. So I said I love to bake like
every Monday I have baked good evening them all packaged up for
them to take home. It's like the reverse biscuits
from the boss instead of biscuits for your but and that's
worked great because we're all we are all moms at this point,
different stages. And that's been great for us
because a ton of flexibility. You have deadlines, but as long
as you're meeting your deadlines, I don't care when
you're doing the work. I mean, when we, our client
facing, obviously we need to all be there.
But I've tried to give that grace.
We have a vacation policy. It's not necessarily
restrictive, but you need to make sure you're backfilling
your, you know, nagging body in if you're going to be out.
So I think that's been great. And when I approach them that
way, then you know they have grace too because it's a small
business. So sometimes there are crunches
and emergencies and fires to put out.
Yeah, we just have to work together.
Yeah, that's a good philosophy. You're leading by example and
everyone's coming alongside. Yeah.
I mean, I'm not a St. like some
days I'm like, what are we doing, you know.
But I would say again, 90% of the time, yeah, it works great.
Good, good. How do you encourage then the
work life balance? You mentioned not discouraging
people from taking vacations, but what else do you have you
set up for your employees? Well, we're just in constant
communication. We do try to do a couple of fun
things a year. We do a big holiday party every
year. It's just we've grown so much in
the last couple of years that it's just been so busy that it's
hard to work that time in. But I feel like important to do
that too. We also are always checking in
with each other if we know somebody's kids having a hard
time or somebody's mom. Is it just I feel like we're so
close that almost every day it's like working with your friends
at this point. So you don't have necessarily a
studio or anything that you all work out of, but so how do you
keep in communication with each other throughout the day?
E-mail, text, like constant. We're texting all day and that's
been good. I do think we've all started to
make a very concerted effort to respect officially our work
hours are 9 to 4. We do try to do a very good job
of leaving each other alone outside of that, and we do have
a centralized phone system that we used.
It's cloud based and kind of separate ourselves when we want
to. And I tell them it's OK to sign
off. If I e-mail on a weekend, I do
not expect a response on a weekend.
I have to communicate that all the time.
Yeah, again, it's respect for each other.
That's really good. Let me ask because you didn't go
to school for design next, you didn't have a degree for design,
right? Do you require that as a
requirement for hiring someone? A designer?
Do you ask that they have a degree or does that matter to
you? Some do, some don't in design,
like I said with the rabbit holes.
It's so funny because I have an English degree and I did very
well in school, but I have poop more time into the interior
design research. Anything else?
So I did the Quizlet the other day for the NCIDQS that you sit
for to get the degree certification and I aced it.
I was like, OK, I've gone down enough rabbit holes at this
point. So I have that knowledge like
when I'm reviewing somebody's design like think this, this,
this, this. And we do have people on staff
who also have that knowledge at this point and are in it.
And so everything is peer reviewed.
So our clients while we're not, while the designer this may not
necessarily have that it's getting reviewed by people that
and so that's been huge. Yeah, I think that would be
encouraging for some of our listeners because a lot of the
people who come through my mentorship program don't have
time to go back to school to get another degree.
But they're wondering like I want to work for someone for a
little while, will they hire me without having a degree in
design? My response to that would be how
much of a cell starter are you? Like if you're designing this
and you know that's the ceiling height, like maybe I'll give you
grace the first time that happens, but if I have to
correct that, I'm going to expect you to remember that for
now. And so, yeah, they just have to
be a self starter. They have to be good at research
and then they have good at remembering that going forward.
Learning on the job. The job itself is your degree.
Be coachable. Yes, yes, good.
OK, well, this has been great. What other advice, if any, do
you have for an up and coming designer who's interested, maybe
just to get started like you did?
Like just to get started? Just do it, OK?
Yeah, it's scary. I was thinking before this
podcast and I've been in some scary situations, but the most
scare I may have ever been in my career was the first consult for
a client, not a builder, but like a person.
That's the scariest I've been in forever.
But also following that was maybe the best I felt, you know,
at high risk, high reward. So let's say that you try and it
you fail, you tried. I mean, they're that guts.
I mean, you had the guts, right? So do just do it.
Yeah, because I would respect the guts more than a swing.
And a miss is still a swing. So do it.
For sure. Yeah.
Well, that's wonderful, Karen. Thank you so much for coming on
today. We'll put all of your contact
information in the show notes and someone would like to reach
out to you and they can check. Now.
I know you don't like social media, but do you?
Are you? I have social media native
partner, so I will get it and no, I love it.
I love. Like I said, I could talk about
this all day. Yeah, I would invite anybody to
reach out anytime. Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Karen. It's been great talking with
you. So it's so great to hear Karen's
story, hopefully very inspiring for you.
Don't forget we have some great things in the show.
Notes you can. Also find the contact
information for Karen there if you're interested in reaching
out to her, but we also have some downloads and we have a
quiz. We've got information about my
design mentor, which you might be wanting if you're looking for
an online mentorship platform to work with me on getting your
career started. All right, next week we're going
to have another great episode. Until then, stay creative.
Thanks for listening if you love this episode.
Please leave a. Rating and a review.
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