There's something that happens when a woman does something
physical, I have tried to figure it out, but if you've never done
something physical in your life outside of ride, a bike or swim
or go camping or something, but somebody teaches you, how to use
a cordless drill and put something together or chop saw
and put a crown molding. There is just nothing like it in
life for women. It is a singular experience
probably like motherhood, right? Having a child, once it happens,
it is just the person has changed, they have so much
confidence. So I've watched At that happen
over and over and over again. But I've watched them teach
other people. I'm in love with that feeling of
watching them transform. Hello, and welcome to designer
Jensen, the podcast that talks about the Nexus of design both
today. And tomorrow, I'm host be any at
Johnson and today, our guest is none other than Camille but for
more than 25 years she's been Building kitchen and helping
women. Create something beautiful.
Yes, for design adjacent, we're going to start off talking about
kitchen redesigns, but not as our sole subject, but as proxy
to also look at how we Inspire those around us to create
something beautiful Camille started, her journey in a rather
unexpected way though. She was a business development
consultant. She taught marketing did rat
students in California. And while she loved helping
people start and grow businesses, she didn't steal.
Its she had a chance to be very creative with her hands.
So she took the DraStic step in shut down her business and went
back to basics. Yes she dug ditches hung drywall
in the beginning but slowly over time she realized that she loved
Car Country. Enjoying the Carpenters Union
that letter down the path of exploring different types of
carpentry. And eventually falling in love
with kitchens. So today we're going to talk
about building businesses design, carpentry.
And yes, kitchens, welcome Cavill.
Hey, Benny nice to be here. It's really fun to have you
here. And I'd love to talk about your
kind of Journey to this point. So you were working in a
professional space. You involving marketing and
business development, and then you decided to take a step up
and not really a step back but a step off.
To do something completely nailed.
Talk to us a bit about that experience in that moment, but
really changing your world. So I was gone to school and for
business, and development and marketing, and I love the
creativity of building a business, and starting a
business, but it was very mental is, you know, you're behind a
computer, you're dressed in a suit all day.
You're meeting clients all day, you're inside all day and then a
part of that. It was also teaching graduate
level student, marketing classes, but I was still doing
the same thing. I was in a car.
I was driving to a classroom In class, till 10:00 at night.
And I was just in my head all the time, right?
And that eventually led me to basically have depression.
I didn't realize I had depression at the time of
depression, I obviously probably had it for a couple of years,
right? But I think, is anybody, that's
a very ambitious, a-type personality.
I just through sheer will just kept working through it until I
eventually became suicidal basically.
And I had to ask my mom for help and that was like the first time
to reach out and ask for help as a really a-type personality.
And so that was a journey for me of really a rediscovery of
myself because I just hadn't given myself even a second of
chance to think about what I was doing, outside of the fact that
I was good at it, which is a right big misnomers.
You might be good at something, but it's not really good for
you. So my therapist actually taught
me that and so I realized, oh, this is just, this job is just
killing me. It's not, which is a very
powerful lesson I was going to say, that's an incredibly
powerful lesson. Yes, it is actually.
And so I eventually shut that business down and I moved back
in with my mother and which was horrible because I was very
successful but I couldn't take care of myself.
I literally couldn't take care of myself.
So I just gone just really buried in and it was a period of
time before I was able to kind of really try to ReDiscover,
what it was going to make me happy and eventually I realized
that it was this physicality. I was missing.
I was missing just doing something with my hands
physically and I've grown up doing that with my dad.
So I was used to doing that with my dad but when my dad left that
kind of just like I just cut that chunk out of my life
because I him and so I realized that I could do both.
But it took a long, it took time for me to realize I could be
smart and academic and in my head and work with my hands like
usually you think like blue collar workers, you know, we
always kind of we think somehow like, if you're the kitchen
designer or you're working in a fancy space that you're more
intellectual than the person that's a blue collar worker,
right? We often make that I don't know
what you want to call it. Like it's such a false
assumption. It's a false assumption.
Yeah. And so it took me a long time to
realize I could be really smart and academic and good at school
and know how to cut a two-by-four correctly.
Like those two things are not exclusive of each other.
And for me, like, I just kind of thought that they were, right.
And I didn't think you could earn a very good living doing
Blue Collar work either because I had watched my dad grew up
doing it and he I mean he was successful but you know it was
still Feast or famine it was you know huge swings in highs and
lows in the construction industry and so I didn't want to
replicate that. So it took me all.
It took me time to like get to the point where I realized I
could do it differently than my dad did it.
When did you first realize that you were falling in love with a
hammer? And a saw, oh man.
That's such a what a great question.
I don't know. You guys are asked me that I
would say it was very young when I realize, I love working with
my hands, my dad taught me on. I was very little Small.
And he didn't think there was anything wrong with me being in
a war in his workshop. And so he taught me how to make
candleholders was a very first thing I ever made from scratch.
And so, I would say it was probably, I mean, I don't know
if I would teach a seven-year-old this different
times different times, right? Is when we drove without
seatbelts to write and so I was using a chop saw to cut these
little blocks of wood and then drill these little holes and
sand them and stain them. And then I eventually sold them
to a little Home Goods. Or locally this is before like
Bed Bath & Beyond. So that was when I really fall
in love with, I think doing something myself with my hands
but when I really fell in love with a hammer and a saw was
probably when I was in the carpenters union and I got my
first stiletto Hammer which was a titanium Hammer is else's and
it's very very light and sleek and I could frame all day with
that fucking Hammer. So when I could swing a hammer
next to a guy that looks like you like twice my not what
you're not twice my height but you know, You're a lot taller
bigger guys. When I could work alongside a
guy like that with mice little Hammer that's when I really
realized the power of the tool itself and then just my chop saw
just doing crown molding after crown molding after college.
I mean, I just love those two tools myself personally that's
awesome. That was early on, I guess that
was very early on when I started really annoying Union, your
comments just now brings me to a question of the last load on
your own, but you know, how has it been working in a field in a
trade? It's historically, predominantly
male dominated. Yes, as a woman, who's running a
business? Who you know, construction is at
the heart of what you do. Well, I can give you a kind of
the answer of when I first started when I was younger.
And now I'm older, I'm heavier and bigger, unfortunately, it's
what happens. We get a little weight but I was
110 pounds. When I started five foot three.
I looked and looked like a ten-year-old, literally,
honestly, I looked, I don't know how anybody ever hired me, but I
just did not fit in with the construction.
The look of it at, all right? So when I was younger, it just
bravado, just absolute sheer bravado.
You just had to actually Walk The Talk abs, like you were so
confident. I mean, just had to Bluff your
way into absolutely every single situation.
So, that's how I got on the job sites, but then, as once I was
on the job site, it would say this was before Instagram
Facebook. Google a nothing like that.
There was one way to search for answers or find it support,
right? So I I was always the only girl
on the job site. And what I did was always find a
guy that was Pro female, even if he didn't quite think I could do
the job. He was, at least willing to give
me a chance. So, that's what I did was, I
found allies that were typically, which is interesting
is usually it was the guy that was the best guy on the job.
The most skilled person. If you showed an interest in
learning and you really did the work, he would teach you to the
ends of the Earth basically. So that's why it was kind of
like I had this sort of had a lot of hope not.
Oversight. I had a lot of people that were
looking out for me guys, around account, for me, when I was
very, you know, much younger and looked really young and then as
I got further into it, I realized there was only so far.
I could go up that ladder in the Carpenters Union.
I was going to always be passed over by somebody that looks like
you that looked bigger and stronger no matter how good I
was doing, right? And so that's what I just
decided to start my own company. So that was my answer to that
was, I already knew how to start and make money with a business,
right? That's what I had done before.
I had more options than, maybe some of the other guys did.
Right? Kind of had to stay there.
I was like, I know I can build a brand out of this once, I knew
kitchens, I knew I could talk women in a kitchens like so I
didn't really have to deal with it.
Then what I did have to do with was asshole, General Contractors
on residential remodels, I still had to deal with that and that,
that never really went away. There was always some guy that
was going to chart. You know, put his truck
somewhere where you couldn't unload He was going to talk shit
about you behind your back, right?
He was going to talk shit about you to the homeowner, right?
He was going to try to undermine what you think.
If you knew what you were doing and you just had to over, you
just had what's or when you just over you over meet people's
expectations you just you had to be 150% all the time.
Right there was no 7080 percent, right?
So we just talked handled it, which is we talked through it.
You know. It's a conversation when you
first started. It's a real conversation of
talent recognizes Talent, right? Yeah.
Folks working, you talked about the guys who brought you in
weren't the people that you thought on paper, who would be
the most receptive. But they were the ones I
realized doing the work is doing the work.
Yeah and of exactly, yeah, really good premise in there we
talked about your journey and there's nothing that says our
Journeys have to be in ABCDEFG order, right?
Yeah, that all of those things that were part of your
experience. You can see how they reinforce
and bring you back from the time with your dad learning to all
the time. Thinking about Building a
business because what you just described on the construction
site is delighting customers and putting in that hundred and
fifty percent and that's a recipe for Success.
Yeah. Even without the hostility
right? That's that's it that's a recipe
for Success. So you said something that was
pretty magical. You realize that once you fell
in love with like kitchens as the expression of a carpentry,
you knew how to sell kitchens. What was that moment of
Revelation? Like like I could put all these
things together and we've got something It was awesome.
I still remember that. I was working for a local
contractor who hired me as a younger Carpenter.
They did kitchen remote. They did lots of her models, but
a lot of their stuff was remodels.
And so I was there for maybe even only 30 days.
And I was on two to three or four kitchen job sites.
And I was just there cleaning up, sweeping putting in
baseboards, I'm packing stuff. Nobody's paying attention to me
at all right? But I was paying attention to
what they were doing. They didn't realize, but I was
definitely pay attention and Really watching what the woman
was doing. And so I was an again, this was
25 years ago, right? So, I was watching them
completely. Ignore her.
I was watching them. Never ever asked her.
A single question, I was watching them only completely
talk to the husband 100% and her try to interject and say
something or I could see her face, she wanted to say
something, right? So I knew there was a problem
with that and then because I knew marketing, right?
Look for a problem, look for station.
And I knew there's a problem right there and so I just
thought maybe it was just that one job.
I just kept watching it happen. Over and over, and over again.
And then when I would see them put the cabinets in, I was, I
could recognize as some of that like to cook.
I was like, well, that's not a very good layout, that's not
gonna work for this. So I kind of just was paying
attention to my intuition, but also would watch her.
I mean, yes, of course, it looked prettier but it didn't
function very well even though they spent all this money.
And so, I started to keep track a list of myself, like, what I
would have done with that job, and this is before I really knew
very much about design. And so, that's how I came up
with the idea for the Since was like, I knew I could have solved
that kitchen for her better, and that was the bright idea was
like, wow. I actually thought I was going
to learn something from them. That's why I went to that job
and I realized really quickly with in under six months they
didn't have anything to teach me and I left and I started my own
company that was the like aha moment was almost within 30 days
of seeing them interact with women and that has never gone
away. I still watch contractors, go
into do B, kitchens and nothing has changed.
I'm still shocked myself. I'm literally like shocked that
I'm still talking about the same thing about kitchen design that
I was from 25 years ago. Wow, it's interesting.
I can say from our personal experience, we're looking at
doing renovations on our house. And when I first started
thinking about it, I separated the kitchen design work from
everything else, and my wife and I have had conversations about
how the kitchen not only, is it intellectually, and emotionally,
and metaphorically the heart of the house.
Also, this Mass functional space.
Yeah and unit and the very first person we talked to was a woman
who was leading design in the business and she walked into the
space first being she walked into the space that was never
one to see how he lived and the very first question to your
point that blew me away. She started asking questions
about how we use the space and how tall was my wife.
No one had ever else come to us. They come in as we're talking
before and they saw that I was tall.
Yeah and they built your generic kind of kitchen space and having
that conversation of you're using this in Partnership.
How are you using it? What is the work that's
happening. And it completely changed over
while we exterior didn't change the functionality in the heart
of it all changed from giving us something to think about.
Yeah yeah, yeah but that's basically what So in that those
first couple of years, when I started my own business, I
really spent a lot of time really coming up with my own
process, right? And so that's where I invented
this design from DFI. I called the FAO designed from
the inside out and so I teach women when we do the cabinet
layout that cabinet layout is where internalizing the
functionality first, then we think about the pretty part on
the outside. Most people said do the Pretty
part first because that's what a woman sees rights.
Like want a white kitchen. I want this but we start with
the internal. Parts first.
And then we do the outside last. So it's the opposite of what
most people do and design. Now it sounds like you had a
very good designer but most designers still don't even do
what I'm doing. Like yeah we do they don't do
what I'm doing the contractors, don't do it.
The builders don't do with Architects, don't do it.
I watch it happen over and over and over again, where I'm they
build an entire house and I'm like, that is the worst design
kitchen ever. And it's just took a couple of
hours of conversation so I still see the same problems happening
with looking at the outside. Part and not the internal the
actual Cabinetry. Obviously I'm a cabinet maker.
So right talking about Capital time I wish I could say it was
by some great plan that we just kind of tripped across from the
conversation. But what was very clear is we
saw as a client that our needs in sticking voices were
belittled in the process with other space that we have it.
So I'm using strawberry language there but it was that kind of
you know spacing therefore how do we raise an amplifier?
Races to speak in these design conversations.
Take my program look. See, how do you?
Okay, so if you're not working with me, how do I amplify your
voice? Well, for one, I mean, the first
thing we do is we always do a kitchen assessment, so we don't
design any cabinet layouts. We start with cabbage because
it's like the heart of the kitchen basically, right?
Most expensive things, it dictates the flow, the layout,
the countertops, everything. So most people don't spend
nearly enough time on the cabinet design the functionality
I would say One know how you use your kitchen, what food you.
So that's what we do. We do a pantry at it, we do a
kitchen edit. So if you know, if you do that
yourself and you know how you use your food, how you cook, how
your lifestyle is, and you share that at least with your designer
and make sure that they incorporate, how you use your
kitchen? That's like the big one of the
biggest missing pieces because if you bring that up, they can't
really ignore that. Like, for instance, you can
always tell a good kitchen designer, because the first
thing that he or she will do is walk in and open up every single
door in your kitchen. And if they don't do that they
don't know how you use your kitchen, right?
So you need to like look at the stuff and then analyze that and
then that's what dictates the new layout and I basically
preach seven types of kitchen cabinets and that's it.
So, my process is off of we do the assessment and then we use
the seven types of kitchen cabinets.
Those types of kitchen cabinets will functionally account for
90% of how almost everybody uses their kitchen.
Because there's a lot of similarities in how you eat, how
I might bake more, but you might make more Pizza is but still,
there's a lot of the same things that Americans keep in their
kitchen. So most people don't even design
around the 80 to 85 percent of stuff we have right in the 20%
is the specialty. So that's how I design a
kitchen. I figure out those seven
cabinets that cover 85% of everything you're doing, Ziploc
bags, utensils that stuff and then the 20% is that specialty
thing? Do you do a lot of church
functions? You have a bunch of people over
to make macaroons, you know. 40 cookie sheets like like there's
some specialty stuff, but there's a lot of similarities.
So I'd say assess your own kitchen, how you use your
kitchen and share that with the person, that's helping you with
the design, well, I did that, and I was completely ashamed.
I didn't want my God, are you serious?
It was five that no, I in a positive way, you open up, you
do it yourself and become the cell Cheney like, oh,
absolutely. I have a lot of various hand in
all these different classes, but you real, you realize how
inefficient are in that space. So I won't talk a bit about Now,
you know, it was interesting to us process in as I kind of take
a step back, really the work that you've done, early in your
career, in the trades portion. And now in the entrepreneur of
stuff, there's all that element of strategy.
That's been a part of each faces in there.
Talk to me about the importance for you of this strategic
thinking. I really do anything.
Unless I know why I'm doing it. So, I'm very you're right, I
don't realize that most people aren't doing that, but I'm very
strategic about everything. I do, especially anything.
Tively. Now that I've been a creative
person since I was very little in a lot of different ways.
I recognized that my creativity. You know.
It's very easy to what's or not minimize your creativity but
like put, you know, like extinguish it right.
It's very easy for. I look at creativity is like
little, very tender things that you're thinking of little ideas
you have. And they need a lot of care and
attention to bring them to fruition a lot more time than
people think to make like my And then took me like eight years to
figure that out. Think about it, practice it
fine-tune it fix problems, right?
Right. And so I now know the length of
time. It takes to bring real big ideas
to life. So I am more strategic about how
long it's going to take to take care of this idea.
I have. And I think that strategic way
of looking at things is different than I you, I see a
lot of people have really great ideas but they can't Implement
them very well because they don't realize how much time it
takes. And they don't nurture that
little idea I really take care of it so you're right, I am
strategic about that part of it taken care of the idea and I'm
strategic about how big of an impact it has.
So I rarely do things that don't have a larger impact because I
find just for me personally, it doesn't have enough of a
stickiness factor to make me interested in it long enough.
Does that make sense? Like, it's not?
Yeah, I'm not interested in just like a one-off.
I'm interested in make a difference in the world, in a
bigger way, but that's just me. Personally, So I am strategic
about where I spend my time. What I develop, what I spend
time on and generally less. I don't really love it.
I'm not going to spend time on it.
Let's talk a bit about that, the things you're passionate about
because it's really hit that intersection of craft practice
in entrepreneurship. You've been really passionate
about empowerment for women talk.
A bit about the work you've been doing and the conversations.
You've been leading around empowerment.
So I have a couple different brands that do kind of the same.
Same thing when I was getting into the union and went through,
the carpenters union and on job sites and all that.
And then I started my little budding Kitchen business.
That was like the kernel of noticing women's empowerment,
right? And the lack of it was before
all the stuff that's happening. Now with Instagram and podcasts,
like there was just nobody talking about women's
empowerment. So I that was the first start of
that, I think was that Colonel of like, you know, I had a lot
of the women that I would do their kitchens and they would be
like God, I just love, did they just sit there and watch To me
they're just watch me for hours and hours and hours, right?
Used to like me like, could do something like you're making me
nervous like crap. I'm like, yes, it's hard.
We're gonna be like, when someone staring at you and
they're like, we're just fascinated by it.
So it just it showed me that not every woman has had had that
upbringing that I had and when I thought back to, why was I so
confident about this stuff? Like what I mean, where did
that? I don't know where that came
from. But it came from my dad just
honestly, never second-guessing. II couldn't do what he was doing
right next to him. So that gave me the colonel to
think that maybe I could pass some of that on to my client.
So that's where this idea of teaching, power tools, two women
came. So, it was first brand was, what
could I do that in a larger way? And so I started a little tiny
small class where I taught a cordless drill and nine women
showed up and they just floated out of the shop that I couldn't
get them. I couldn't kick them out fast
enough and so then it was like 100 people in 200 women and And
women and we eventually got to like twenty nine thousand women
have gone through that program. So that was a big eye-opener for
me that you could have a bigger dream and it just transform
these women's lives and their daughters lives their kids
lives. So that was one brand and then
the kitchen thing took off because I realized, oh, they can
do way more than just power tools.
So then, I start teaching more around the kitchen design and
kitchen, remodeling, and kitchen cabinet assembly.
And, and so, I think, I think I've answered the question, I'm
not 100% sure. Sure.
But I mean, this idea of like teaching women that have never
done something fizzy, I don't know.
There's something that happens when a woman does something
physical. I don't, I've tried to figure it
out, but if you've never done something physical in your life
outside of ride, a bike or swim or go camping or something, but
somebody teaches you, how to use a cordless drill and put
something together or chop saw and put up crown molding.
There is just nothing like it in life for women.
It is a singular experience probably like motherhood, right?
Having a child, once it happens. Is just the person has changed,
they have so much confidence. So I've watched that happen over
and over and over again, but I watched them teach other people.
I'm in love with that feeling of watching them, transform right?
In such a short amount of time. So, I think that's probably,
that's got to be what it is. Is, it's such, it's like a
little. It's addictive to watch that
transformation happen. So I think now you understand a
bit more. Why people are watching?
Yeah, probably, I mean, it still feels like I do the same thing
every day with a kitchen. But it's, if it's the first time
you've ever seen it, like, I'm trying to think of something
that was that exciting to me, that, that doesn't scare me
like, I don't like roller coasters.
So, but I'm trying to think of something where I like pushing
us to fear, maybe learning to ride a motorcycle for the first
time and then you get good on a motorcycle, right?
Like that, just Elation that comes from it, I would imagine.
That's what they're feeling. I'm going to ask you this
question and I think I know the answer.
What's been your favorite project for you like personal?
Project. Yeah, your favorite project for
you. Okay.
Give me some little bit of of a constraint maybe that's like
I've had so many amazing projects.
Like I've lived all of them like my own house.
You mean like with a client? It can be your own house.
It can be where you're the client let's frame it back.
Well there's three things. I put all new hardwood floors
and my downstairs my entire downstairs Force but I did a
beautiful herringbone pattern that took me Me months to do and
I still love that is so fucking pretty.
When I walk downstairs, I've put my walk Barefoot all the time,
so I'd say my it it's dark wood. I think you said that you're
putting a dark wood. It's a very dark like chocolate
color and it's beautiful. And so I was going to hire
someone just to do it faster, right?
But I mean I knew how to do it and it took forever, but I love
that. So that was like a beautiful
project that turned out. We lovely my own kitchen that I
remodel every model obviously many of my own kitchens but my
last remodel I didn't take him. Notes.
And it was just a really beautiful transformation.
It was probably the simplest one I'd ever done.
We have very large, tall ceilings like 14-foot, tall
ceilings. So the cabinets were like 12
feet tall and it's just it's just beautiful.
I love I cook every single day so I love the design.
I did in my own kitchen and I followed that same same process,
the same seven cabinets. And then my third one, I think I
talked about before I started was I put in these beautiful
10-foot black Iron French doors in the front of my house.
I took out a stationary Window and put in these huge, you know,
eight feet wide by 10 feet tall Pete.
They're called pinkies is the brand and I just absolutely love
her. She is beautiful.
She is drama. She's like the Met of doors.
So that was by far like my probably, my hardest most
difficult project for me physically that was a hard
project but so satisfying, it's awesome.
Here I'm gonna ask you that moment of difficulties.
What if you think about it? What's been the hardest part of
your business? The last Five years.
Mmm. That's the thing that challenge
you the most and you look back over it now and realize it was
just that a challenge but you've overcome.
Yeah, I would say probably two of them.
One was going from a mick male-female shop or having guys
work in the shop to all-female. So that was a dream of mine.
That was too hard to do. Talk a bit about that.
When did that we probably know. How are you able to make that
transition, 15, 20, or, yeah. So that was probably about eight
or so years in and I had, I was basically just hiring on skills.
The guy would come in? I did my usual test to see how
fast he could walk because I'm short.
And if he couldn't keep up with me, I would always.
This is my test always. We beat it low so front of lows
6 a.m. in the morning, right? Because if they can't be there
at 6:00 or not going to make it doing Kappa tree because we're
on the job by 7. So I jump out of my truck and
I'd say, hey off, come on, let's go right.
I just start I just take off, we start talking and I would just
walk from the front of the store to the back of the Lumberyard,
right? Straight through lows and I
would see if he could keep up with me and if he They could not
keep up with me, just walking my normal walk wasn't going to
work. So I did that a few times.
And we hire for skill obviously. And then the guys, I may hate to
say this because I love men to my husband's man.
Right, obviously, I love man, but they just couldn't keep up
with the pace to be honest. It's so I was like, you know,
I'm just going to train women that have no skills.
I'm going to train them in my process from start to finish.
So that took about three years to get to transition from hiring
people that had skills. But I wanted them to work a
certain way, right? And work with women a certain
way and so that was a big change and it I lost a lot of money.
Just like, trying and trying and trying, but I did eventually get
to where we had 14 women working in the shop and it just hums
like just hums like, boss, just beautiful.
Do you think this sets your organization apart from others
in the field? Oh yeah, it made selling so
easy. I mean, the women I didn't have
to tell them to sweep up. I don't have to tell them to be
careful packaging. I have to tell them to Triple
wrap stuff. I didn't have to tell them to
look for screws under the blankets.
Like, there's so many things about women that are so good in
construction, that just come naturally to them.
And that's not saying I have not worked with some amazing men,
right? I have but I can just take a
young woman that just wants to please and do well.
And she's going to listen to every instruction.
I give her if I tell her to not turn that song until I get back,
she's not going to do it right? If I tell her to cut a certain
way, she's gonna cut it. Exactly how I tell her to do it,
right? She's not going to argue with
me. She's not going to try to show
me, she knows how to do it better.
It enabled me to have basically very beginner level people but I
could operate in a very safe way because I trusted them because
they were scared of getting hurt.
Men are scared of getting hurt. They'll just try anything.
Okay. They'll try anything and then
they get hurt right? Most a lot of men in
construction, I should say. So that.
Yeah that took that was really a huge competitive Advantage.
For me, selling me, just being a kitchen maker.
I mean, I got most jobs that I went out for And then having an
entire crew of women was just a dream.
I didn't, I slept like a baby. I didn't have to worry about
whether they lock the door cleaned up at the shop or you
know, just for smoking weed in there after I left, like I don't
have to worry about anything like that.
So fo side lack of worry. What's next?
What's next for you? And this is from, I mean what
I'm working on now is the time I retired officially three years
ago from physically doing The jobs we shut down the shop, and
I moved my whole operation online.
So my whole business now is virtual, okay?
And so I found all those women, lovely women jobs.
Some of them started their own shops, you know, that was like a
full. I was going to ask you about
that about the kind of trajectory because you talk so
much about training. Yeah.
And a big part of training is skills mentorship that then
encouraging the other day that none of us really none of us
want to shut the shop down but it was impossible for me.
I did try for about a year to do both.
By then, there was Facebook, Instagram, Facebook ads.
I mean, there were so many things, I had learned that I
just couldn't do both, I need it to be in an office planning, the
marketing and doing a lot of things I couldn't do both and be
on a job site, physically. I mean, we did 30 kitchens a
month. So that gives you an idea of how
much volume we did. We did a lot of kitchens, right?
And and you're not doing a kitchen in the afternoon, right?
Yeah, we talked in. Yeah, we had a week when you
have 40 of them in that really know what they're doing, almost
every woman can install by herself.
So we had two women. In install, a whole kitchen fire
themselves. So I mean yeah, we were we were
flailing. We were at the top peak of our
production, so to go from that to, you know, lower.
So I scaled down until it was eventually just three of us and
then that last year I tried to do both and it just, it just
wasn't going to work. I tried to have one of the
girls, take over the shop. She just didn't have the
marketing that I did. And so, I just, I found some of
them started their own small shops, and some of them got
great, you know, transferred them, and they got great job.
So they're all doing, they're all doing very well in most
Women are mothers is the other thing that people don't think
moms pregnant, women can work. Like let me tell you.
Women are incredible. Like they did stuff that even I
wouldn't do, right? They had two and three children.
They worked in that shop. They loved it.
They absolutely loved it that I agree for like easily a year or
two. It was, I mean, I hated shutting
it down. I absolutely loved my shop, but
I wanted to make this bigger difference in the world and I
wanted to be National and I couldn't really do that that
way. So I partnered with a fellow
contractor that we built cabeceo other for many years.
And so he basically builds all the cabinets that I need now in
a very specific way. And then I moved online.
And so now, you know, I'm hoping to do roughly about 20,000
kitchens across the country. So it's that's my next.
Wow, that's what I'm working on. That's what I'm doing.
So we do thousands right now and the goal is to do about 20,000 a
year. There's about 10 million
remodels a year in kitchens, so it's still, I just want a little
piece of that, this little piece of that asset, this little piece
of ya. See.
So today what are the Project City still the still getting
Goosebumps by the projects that you was that.
You were saying, well, that door.
I mean let me tell you that our into before well we're putting
the whole thing together. That was sketchy, that was that
was that was nerve-racking for me, which was good.
I haven't been scared on a job for a long time.
What so you said like in a good way, what makes you excited?
Yeah, well I would say. So one piece of my program that
I was not expecting to have happen, which I have fallen in
love with which I did not Not think I would even like doing
was some of the women that come in for design.
We help them do their design and we help them find contractors in
their area and cabinets, all that, and some women by cabinets
through us and we ship them. We custom make them here and
ship them to them. Right?
Help them install it, teach them how to install it.
Now, some of those women actually paid to fly me out to
them, to install, their kitchens.
Now that I never saw coming that, I did a few times thinking
this can't possibly work, right? Like, I don't Don't even know if
I can pull this off, right? And I did and so that is become
like my new favorite thing of my program.
I don't have to do it but basically we if she wants to, we
build her cat. We manufacture the cabinet's
here custom. They get shipped to where I'm
going to her house. I fly there with my tools, I
have a box of mobile-ready tools.
I fly there and assemble the custom-made cabinets.
I made in California. And I, and she, and I, I teach
her and her old family power tools.
And in like three or four days, we put their whole Kitchen in.
So it's like a mix of my carpentry school because I'm
teaching their grandchildren, their neighbors, anybody that
was there, I'll teach a chop saw, a cordless drill, jig saw
and a nail gun right in three or four days.
So, they learn their power tools, they learn how to work
together. The woman just feels so special
because like most of them women that come into my program, are
there the typical like Mom that gives everything to everybody
else? Right?
And she rarely gets something that's just So for her.
So this kitchen is her thing. So this is the whole family
doing it for her with her and then we put it in and we have
pizza and beer and sit back and just like, so that's my favorite
thing. Now is I'm like a mobile
traveling Carpenter Master people, and it's fun.
So I just was, I was just in Atlanta, Georgia, and to this
lovely family. I was in South Carolina.
I've been to Florida. I've been to Idaho, twice.
I've been to Seattle. I've been to Los Angeles.
I've another job coming up in Los Angeles.
Probably about In November. So that's just like a fun weird
thing that I didn't think was even going to work.
I didn't think I could do it that quickly.
So, so it's fun. I was gonna ask this question
and I probably know the answer already but I just want to ask
anyway. Did you ever imagine this when
you were Knee Deep digging to? No, no, absolutely not.
No, I knew I would do something creative, but I didn't think,
you know, this is pretty Facebook and Instagram.
Okay? So I think you could build II,
didn't think? I mean without the to Right now
have like these modern digital tools online tools in this would
have been possible. I mean, who would?
Yeah, I would have never imagined.
I'd be installing a kitchen for a woman in Georgia off of the
plane, right. It's like so, it just goes to
show you just never really know what, you know.
I just kind of kept falling step by step each year kept thinking
a little bigger, a little bigger and you just never know what you
can build when you just keep at it for a while, right?
And do it for the right reasons, like it's still the same for me
that woman in Georgia. You know, who Who moved into her
house 19 years ago and her husband would let her do her
kitchen and she just was the matriarch of the entire family
and she just kind of defied him a little bit and join my program
was like nope I'm doing this kitchen finally and then we got
him on board and the whole family.
Just like celebrated her that transformation is really what
it's about. I know it's about the kitchens
but for me it's about showing women.
How much value they have, how much they can do more things
than they thought they could and just appreciating them.
So that's like the kitchen. Let's Do that basically.
And as you said designed, the comes a powerful not only
metaphor but a powerful tool to its promise and agency and
transformational the kitchen is just the whatever we call it,
the container the impetus but it's really it's the
transformation. I see her go through in that
kitchen remodeling, process with me.
Do you have an alumni group now of folks who have, who have had
you help to build these gifts? I do, of course.
Yeah. We We have lots of those women.
Some of those women have become kitchen coaches.
So this is the other part of the program, I forgot to mention,
which was okay. Yeah, shit, Sherlock.
I didn't imagine that piece of it either.
And so what ended up happening with some of the women that went
through the program, they like fell in love with the process so
much that they said. Would you ever consider hiring
me to help with the other students in the group, right?
And so then that's where this idea of kitchen coaches came.
So I have a certification program where if you're a woman
you can become a certified kitchen coach.
So you learn my deify a process I put you through the paces.
I teach you how to design that kitchen, the way that I do it
and your kind of certified to work in your own local
community, the way that I do it. So yeah, that's another like
empowering thing that I feel which is women and money which
we have really talked about. But a big part of my program is
teaching women how to make money.
Like, when you have money, you have choices..
Women need more money. You have better choices.
So, I that's kind of been a running theme to like, that's
why I had all those women in the Chop, those women were working
at Taco Bell and instead they made a hundred thousand dollars
a year, so you can bet that changed her life, her children's
life. So I do the same thing.
I'm always trying to find ways to help women be more empowered
financially, as well as she think about that.
I often ask this question, take, what advice would you have?
What advice would you have to a young woman?
Who's thinking about starting a business and you're at a space
where you were successful in your working, but it wasn't the
right. Right work, right?
I was caught by that at the beginning because I know I felt
that in my entire life. You have phases where you're
really good at doing something but it's not good for you or
it's not the thing you want to do, but everyone knows you're
really good at it. So Camille gets the call for the
absolutely horrible work. Yeah.
So the question is, like, what would my advice be to a young
woman or young gentleman that wants to start a small business
in design, specifically, or just kind of an entrepreneurial
journey and entrepreneurial Journey, you know, design, maybe
one, but that moment of Being from doing a job to creatively
eating your own Enterprise. It's so powerful.
There's nothing better in life than doing that to be honest I
would say well for me I've always done.
This is the marketing background.
I've always just look for a problem and thought of the
solution. It's not.
I mean, yes, you can find something you love to let's just
say it was Furniture Design, right?
I see a lot of people go into building furniture.
They don't make any money because that's a hobby and a
craft, which is different than making a living, a good living,
right? So I would say, would ask that
young person to really try to find them a mixture of blend.
A sweet spot of what something that they're passionate about
that. They like to do, which could be
just a hobby, which is great to have these are fantastic, or is
there a way you could solve a problem around that thing?
So if it's you like a certain type of furniture you want to
make handcrafted chairs. Well, what's a problem around?
That type of furniture, is it? Local designers?
They can't find that chair. Is it restaurants that need that
style of chair? Is it homeowners that?
Like that's a business, the business has to solve a problem
period and the more you can do that, the more money, you make
deeper the problem, the bigger, the solution, the more money you
can make. So trying to look for those
people say holes in the market, but if you're new, you don't
really know what that means. It means is there a solution and
I saw my problem was that there's lots of people were
modern kitchens, but nobody was talking to the woman of the
house and nobody was helping teach her what real
functionality is. So that was the solution that I
was doing there. Lots of people do kitchens, but
no one's doing them that way. Right now, that would be my
suggestion and find a mentor, find a mentor, find someone that
supports your ideas do apprenticeships.
Do I did a lot of free stuff, right.
Don't be afraid to do free stuff to work around people that are
talented. You got to put in that time up
front and then if you love it, you'll find a way to get a job
in it or start something small fines clients.
First, that's another one I always had clients before I did
anything. It's like I had clients before.
I quit that job. This has been incredible talking
about your journey. I'm going to close with where we
began, we started talking about home and that home has been a
metaphor for all this as a place of empowerment and a place of
safety and a place to launch. So we started talking about you
going home first. And now, the all of your work is
about building from these spaces.
What are your final thoughts on the power of home?
Well, I think especially in the last couple years, right?
We've really seen The power of connection, and intimacy and
vulnerability. And the pandemic, just stripped,
everybody raw basically, right of income, and dogs and
connections. So, you know, for me, I think
the house the home has been is even more powerful than I think,
the more, you know, design is fantastic, right?
Creativity is fantastic, technology is fantastic, but I
do feel that it pulls us more and more apart, right?
It keeps it creates separation very easily.
So you have to be really, really intentional about creating those
connections. And a house is such a simple way
to do that. You know, a kitchen is truly the
heart of the house. And I say, the heart of the
kitchen is the heart of the woman actually typically.
And so, I just love working in an industry where you're helping
people connect and build deeper relationships with their
children and pasta van to the next Legacy.
So that's kind of that. I mean, that's what it brings up
for me. It's how important that is.
I can't think of a better way to conclude our conversation today
with Camille. Thank you for just being
Incredible example, entrepreneur Carpenter door lover and
inspiring empowering as other words that I think about
whenever we talk so thank you for joining us today for this
episode of design adjacent. Thank you Camille and all the
work that you do delightful. Thank you all for joining us and
we invite you to tune in. For designer Jason we look at
other connections to InDesign in our world today and tomorrow I'm
your host Ben Johnson. I thank you show notes for this
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