Budget Luxury

Introduction

A few years ago, I could not have predicted that I’d be an interior design content creator. My job didn’t even exist when I was in school. But it turns out, my weird job is the perfect one for me. Let me tell you, I didn’t ever think I would find my “dream job.” In my mid-twenties, I was living in New York, aimlessly working in a job that made me totally miserable, but didn’t know how to get “unstuck.”

A particular memory from those days remains with me today. I was crying and exhausted one evening in my Alphabet City apartment, having reached that critical rock-bottom at which I could either swim back up to the surface or drown in my current reality. I was working at my second job after graduating college—a low-level associate gig for a public relations firm specializing in the most niche thing ever: financial advisers. PR was easy enough to get a grasp of, but finance?! Not only was I completely confused by the industry I was supposed to understand, but I was also incredibly bored by it. I was feeling like my life was a lost cause.

Back to that hot night on Avenue C: I can still feel the too-dry wood of the IKEA kitchen table under my hands, which dripped with sweat from damp city heat . . . My lampshade, off-kilter, glowed Halloween-orange from the lightbulb I’d bought months earlier as a party prop. I can still hear the wailing of sirens unsubdued by the flimsy partition wall my roommate and I had put up to create two tiny sleeping areas in a one-bedroom apartment.

That partition wall was actually one of my first design projects. My roommate, Paige, was also my best friend from childhood. Even though we were like sisters and never shied away from sharing a bed, I’d just spent the previous six months sharing a bedroom with another roommate on Saint Marks Place, where my college friends and I had piled in after graduation to save money. Needless to say, I was ready for my own space, and we were thrilled to be living in our first “big girl” apartment. So we did what any recent college grad living in New York City does: called up the “wall guy.” I sketched a floor plan of our living room area and showed him where to put the temporary wall that would create my new bedroom. I even remember skipping down to the hardware store to pick out a robin’s-egg blue to paint it. Memories of creative joy, like these, contrast with the many nights I spent coming home from work crying.

Back to that one particular night: At this point, I was so fed up with crying over my life that I decided to make an immediate change. I grabbed a pen and a piece of scrap paper. Though I’d never allowed myself to fully embrace my creativity, that night something magical happened: My hands took over

as if enchanted. I began to sketch, not knowing what the tear-blotched pen lines I was scribbling across the paper would become. After about five minutes of frantic drawing, I studied the sketch I’d drawn. I felt, for the first time in ages, hopeful.

I had drawn a two-story shack, covered in shingles and elevated on whimsical stilts. The double doors to the shack were arched and flung open. Above them hung a crooked sign with my very own name on it. On the first floor, there were products lining the walls, and a gigantic flower bouquet perched on a round table in the middle of what appeared to be a home decor store. Upstairs, stick figure Clare was working at a drafting desk surrounded by rolls of floor plans and a computer displaying her very own website.

I didn’t really know what I was looking at, but I knew I wanted to be there, living in that scene I’d drawn. I asked myself, for the first time in my life, “What do I want to do?” I’d been asked this question loads of times by my parents, my teachers, and my friends. But I’d never asked it of myself. This time, I asked without pressuring myself that my answer had to be a fancy job title or “Save the world.” I just wanted to answer it correctly.

Underneath my little sketch, I wrote:

“I just want to make everything around me beautiful.”

And I knew instantly that I needed to do just that. That mantra has become a personal compass that gives me direction in life. Apart from my family, it’s my most important cornerstone; the phrase I can lean on if ever I feel lost or unsure of the future.

The very next day, I applied to interior design graduate programs in the city. My parents didn’t understand why I’d throw my steady, paying job out the window for something so risky and uncertain. Miraculously, I got into all three of the New York design programs I’d applied to. I remember opening my acceptance letter to Parsons in the lobby of my building, too nervous to wait until I got inside my apartment. I read the letter in complete shock: Not only was I accepted, but they had offered me their president’s scholarship, which covered 75 percent of my tuition. Turns out, my undergrad art portfolio wasn’t a complete waste of time!

To cover the remaining 25 percent of tuition costs, I landed a job at a high-end cabinetry shop, which exposed me to the world of luxury interior design. I walked from Parsons to my job on 10th Street each day, where I got to work with celebrities, famous interior designers, and even billionaire video game creators. (By “work with,” I mean . . . I got them coffee.) Most of my fellow students didn’t work, since our curriculum was so intense, but I didn’t have the choice. Though it was grueling, learning how to balance a job and school taught me how to work hard for something I wanted.

At the cabinetry shop, our clients’ multimillion-dollar interior design budgets blew my mind—and that was just the tip of the iceberg. I was captivated by the beauty and grandeur of it all, and I became a sponge on the job, soaking up as much information as I could. I fell in love with luxe paint colors, learned to pronounce the French names of fancy wallpaper houses, and studied the opulent rooms of top interior designers.

At home after late-night studio sessions at Parsons, I’d open a copy of Architectural Digest or watch lavish home tours on YouTube. I was enamored with the beautiful homes that money could create, but I couldn’t shake a feeling of unease.

I’d look around at my own slapped-together apartment, filled with hand-me-down furniture and framed art I’d printed at Staples. I yearned for a more beautiful space. “Why does luxury interior design have to be so inaccessible?” I kept asking.

It’s a question I explored throughout my two years at Parsons. One of my favorite projects proposed an aesthetically beautiful mobile farmers market to help food-desert areas in Brooklyn by using low-cost, sustainable materials. My professors pushed me to investigate how good design could be accessible to all. They encouraged me to dismantle the reasons why good design, which is such a crucial part of our well-being, is off-limits to the average person and blocked from public consumption with red-velvet-rope barriers.

In the years that followed my graduation from Parsons, I decided to work for myself.

Creative entrepreneurship wasn’t really something I chose; it was something I simply couldn’t ignore. It was an itch I knew I needed to scratch. My creative fuel gets supercharged by one thing: problem solving.

An obstacle presents a problem, and a problem demands a solution. And I always want to reach that solution. It may sound counterintuitive, but my creativity runs on lack: lack of materials, lack of space, lack of budget.

My philosophy of creativity is the same one I apply to budgeting. I think of a low budget not as an interior design obstacle, but as a problem that needs solving. I can confidently say that I create better designs on a limited budget than if I had a million dollars to spend. Because not only do limited budgets create more interesting solutions, but they also invite a much more personal approach to design. A good interior is full of love, effort, and personal effects. Good design is that which reflects YOU: your heart, your travels, your passions. I’ve found that you don’t need a big budget to achieve good design—what you need is the confidence to design your home as an extension of your truest self.

It took me some time to find myself, and once I did, my style followed. I promise we can get you there, too.

I learned a lot about myself and design in the past few years, and in this book I’m going to teach you that:

• Beautiful interior design doesn’t have to be inaccessible.
• A lovely home is created by self-expression, not by throwing wads of money at an expensive interior designer.
• If you can tell me who you are in words, you can tell me who you are through your design style.

If you’re willing to dust off your tools, get thrifty, and dive deep to explore your own personal story, then you’re well on your way to creating the hashtagBudgetLuxury home of your dreams. And I’m so excited for us to roll up our sleeves and get creative together!