Following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, like many others, I had an unexpected change to my work situation. I decided it was perhaps the moment in time to bravely put my entrepreneurial skills that I had learned into practice and finally start my own business in the UK, despite it being a very challenging climate on multiple levels.
Having been an international property investor and undertaken a number of home renovations as a side interest for many years, I decided to turn my passion into a business and launched The Room Boutique - a property staging and photography styling company. I hold numerous certifications as a professional home stager. As my business slowly grew, I found time and time again that I regularly utilised my previous knowledge of introductory interior design courses that I had studied as a hobby and constantly applied these skills into the homes that I staged and styled. Although home staging and interior design have some different fundamentals in terms of principles and application, I realised that holding a professional interior design certification would give me the added confidence and skills to formalise my interior styling expertise. It would also ensure that I provided my clients with advice based on best-practice from an accredited institution. Following research, I decided The Professional Interior Design Course was an excellent avenue to help me achieve this.
I enrolled and started my studies at a very busy and unusual time of launching my property staging business, being a wife and a mum to two young daughters and a puppy (in the context of uncertainty with lockdowns and during the pandemic), of which there were a mix of highs and lows. The Professional Interior Design Course was the perfect fit to help me balance my personal aspirations and manage my day to day life whilst studying. The course provided me with the flexibility to complete projects and assignments at my own pace with the added advantage of being able to study remotely. The course content crystalised the key areas and important elements of interior design in a practical and digestible manner. It also offered great insights about the history of interior design over the ages, something that I don’t think one can ever know too much about! It cemented my core interior design skills and provided ongoing feedback on my work and progress, which was encouraging. I discovered many new insights about colour, trends, techniques, and it even brought out the artist in me with sketching, a talent that I didn’t know I had or thought I would ever do.
A few months after I had graduated and received my Diploma of Professional Interior Design from the British College of Interior Design, my company, The Room Boutique, won the ‘Best Show Home’ award at the 2021 Home Staging Association Awards in our selected category.
This journey - from being a heart-felt passionate leap into the unknown - to actively harnessing and applying my existing and newly acquired skills has resulted in developing specialist expertise to assist many clients stage and style their homes to showcase lifestyle appeal. The projects are complete with high-quality photography to present properties at their best and achieve successful property sales at the best price. Ultimately, this has positively impacted peoples’ lives and enabled them to move forward in their own life journeys. We provide our property staging and photography services to clients across London and various locations in the UK, as well as providing services to clients from abroad virtually.
I would highly recommend The Professional Interior Design Course for anyone interested in exploring interior design as part of your own journey and the opening of potential future career prospects.
