Six Years In: What I've Learned About Growing Slowly, On Purpose
This month, H&S Interiors and Organization turned six years old.
I want to tell you the truth about what that's actually felt like, because I think it says more about how I work — and who I work best with — than any portfolio photo can.
The comparison trap
At my daughter's pediatrician appointments, there's always a moment where we look at her growth percentile against the national chart. She's petite, and it would be easy to spend that whole conversation worrying about how she measures up. Instead, I've learned to ask a different question: how does she compare to herself, last year? That's the only chart that actually matters.
I think about H&S the same way. It would be easy to compare our six years to design firms that scaled fast — the ones with rapid hires, national press, and an exponential growth curve within their first three years. By that measure, I'd come up short.
But that's the wrong chart to read.
Our own growth curve
In year four, H&S started over in a brand new city — new market, no existing trade relationships, no built-in referral network, and no roadmap for how to establish a design business somewhere with its own unwritten rules. We rebuilt from the ground up. And instead of that setting us back, it set the pace for the kind of company I actually wanted to run: steady, intentional, and built on relationships rather than rapid expansion.
Six years in, every project that comes through H&S still gets my full, hands-on attention from first walkthrough to final styling. That's not a limitation — it's the whole point.
Why this work is personal
What I've come to understand over these six years is that interior design isn't really about furniture or finishes. It's about trust. I'm in the rooms my clients don't show their closest friends. I know their morning routines, their storage habits, the real, lived-in details of how a family actually moves through a home — not just how it photographs.
That's the work I set out to do when I started H&S: spaces that are beautiful and functional, designed around how a family actually lives, not just how a room looks in a single frame.
What's ahead
Six years has taught me that growth doesn't have to look like everyone else's chart to be meaningful. This year, I'm investing in sharpening my craft and building community with other designers through a group I started called Design Table, where local designers support and uplift one another instead of working in silos. I'm also exploring new tools to make the design process even smoother for the families I work with.
If there's one thing I want you to take from our story, it's this: H&S was built to last, one relationship and one beautifully functional space at a time. I'd love for yours to be next.
