“Home” has been a big theme throughout my life. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been drawn to it in its different forms over the years, from design to architecture and finally to real estate. Home can be literal—a space made from four walls, with a roof above you. But for me, home has often been tied to a feeling of security and stability and, of course, a primary backdrop in my memories. 

When I was ten, we moved to a small rural town in Virginia. I didn’t know it at the time, but my parents had either lost, or had to short-sell their house in Virginia Beach, which is where I was born, and had lived until then. Moving was a confusing experience for me. I didn’t know what was happening, or why it was happening, all I knew was that we were leaving behind my friends, the only home I’d ever known, and that my parents were really stressed out. We ended up living in a motel room. Yes, you read that right, one single motel room with four people, two dogs, two cats, for months, until moving into a bit of a run down trailer that my dad’s work had lent to us. 

My parents eventually purchased 64 acres of land that had yet to be cleared, with the dream of breeding horses and stabling racehorses between races at the racetrack nearby. The first step in that dream was to build a barn with an apartment above it, with the idea that we would live there (again, temporarily) until our house was built. Itching to move out of the trailer, our parents moved us into the apartment before it was finished. This sounded exciting to us, as we were so happy to be somewhere more stable, and more like the home we were used to, but when you’re a kid you don’t really understand the full picture when it comes to living in a home that is still a construction zone. Unfortunately, the apartment never did get finished, and neither did the barn. The house never got built, and the stable never really took off.

As my childhood progressed, and our housing situation became worse in many ways, I would often daydream about what the insides of beautiful houses looked like, and what the lives of those people were like. I’d even daydream as we drove by big old houses that had been abandoned and were falling down, imagining what they looked like back when they were new and full of life, and when people or families lived there together. I loved playing house as a kid and my favorite part was creating and imagining the details of the house. I wanted to do that part over, and over, and over, and now I get to do that part every day for my clients. 

But, before finding my place in real estate, I graduated with honors from Virginia Commonwealth University, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design, and then went on to get a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology and became an Architect. Right out of school, I got a great job at a very well-known (and dare I say, prestigious!) Architecture Firm, SOM (Skidmore Owings & Merrill). Fast forward to not even two full years and BAM, The Great Recession…

Naturally, architecture (and real estate, and construction) was hit really hard, and I, and everyone I knew in Architecture, lost their job. I didn’t have a job for almost two years after that. I was in my late twenties – about to hit thirty, and having been raised to be a pretty good people-pleasing, rule-follower, who did all of the “right” things, like going to college, studying hard, and then working hard, this felt especially crushing. It wasn’t working. 

I was feeling exactly as Charlotte in Pride & Prejudice perfectly stated, “I’ve no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents. And I’m frightened.”

In case your next question was about to be, “So, what did you do next?” It was exactly that. I moved back to Virginia for about a year to live with my parents and work in construction, as a literal construction worker with my stepdad, who is a contractor. 

While I was doing this, a friend of mine had gotten their real estate license and spent months trying to convince me to get one as well. They kept saying they knew I’d be so great at it. With no other job prospects in sight, I did it – at the very bottom of the housing crash in 2010, I liked it, and the potential, but the reality was grim. 

I ended up finding a full-time job in Design back on the East Coast in Alexandria, Virginia, and eventually found my way back to Chicago. Even though I knew I wanted to work for myself in real estate, I ended up staying in Design for six more years before finally reaching a point where I felt like I wasn’t really having the success I had been looking for in corporate America. I didn’t want to wake up one day at 60, having never really had the courage to take the leap and work for myself. I didn’t like being told I was great but not *that* great, and I felt ready for the only thing limiting what I could have, or how much success I could have, was myself. 

Because of those experiences, I am keenly aware of how much your home impacts everything else in your life. When your home is secure and stable, it’s a strong foundation for you to create in other areas of your life. When that part feels uncertain, all of your energy and attention has to go there, and it makes it incredibly difficult to build anything else on top of that. 

My parents weren’t able to make their dream happen for many reasons, but I love that I can be a guide and resource for my clients; to help them really hone in on exactly what they need and want in a home, to keep them from compromising on the things that matter to them (not their friends, or family), and to help them feel empowered to create a space that lifts them up, and nourishes them. Professionally speaking, my background in interior design and architecture is an asset that I am always happy to share. I love, love, love transforming, renovating and bringing spaces back to life. So, maybe seeing the potential, or imagining what “could be” is not a strong suit of yours – that’s okay, it’s a strength of mine.