![]() ![]() Favorite spots to shop for design elements? It’s not the glitziest job in the world but the best part is the reveal when I’ve made your house into a home and now I’m a part of it forever. I love so much about what I do but it is also stressful and really tough. It’s funny because when I hire a lawyer I don’t tell him what he’s going to do, I hire him because he’s an expert in what he does. Biggest pet peeve when designing for a client?Ĭlients become difficult when they want to tell you how to do your job. That gives me a month to design it and to order things but it’s still a quick turnaround. This is what’s not real a lot of people think that I start construction the very next day but I actually don’t start until a month later. That’s immediately real but it’s hard to somebody that, first, owns a house and then also has a really bad kitchen and wants to take me home that minute. Okay, so on “Kitchen Crashers” when I go to a home improvement store and I find somebody that is real. When you’re filming, is it all real or are the scenes set up? We gutted it and then moved into it together. When I moved back to Chicago, he had a condo and I actually ended up buying the house three doors down from him. Then he was like, “Well, I’m gonna be at the game and you’re gonna be at the game so why don’t we meet by the concession stands and have a beer and see what happens?” So we did and that’s really it. We had been talking on the phone for a month and I was coming in town for Cubs opening weekend and we were supposed to go on a date. I was living in Vegas at the time but I knew I wanted to be back home in Chicago. When did you finally meet one another in person? He had such a great sense of style, I wasn’t expecting it. I’ve met wonderful guys in Las Vegas and Chicago but this was just one of those moments where you just know. He had it really well done and it wasn’t from a past relationship either. What kind of shape was his bachelor pad in prior to dating you?įor a 30-year-old guy in Chicago it was honestly unbelievable. You never know, sometimes it works! You just gotta bank on that one time! We met on ! Luke is like, “If you tell one more person, I’m gonna kill you!” Let’s be honest, guys go on Match for a different reason so he wasn’t looking to meet me, it just happened. Had I not read the book or quit the job I would have been too fearful to start my own company or do anything on my own. That day after I read the book on my lunch break I walked straight into my boss’s office and quit. The best chapter is called “Letting Go of the Ledge” and it’s all about letting go of the fear of not having this umbrella of a steady paycheck and insurance and all the other bullsh-t that really holds you back from believing that you can do it on your own. One day on my lunch break I read “Secrets of Six-Figure Women” and it was the best book I had ever read. I was 22, making a lot of money but I was. If you’re not scared, then what is it worth? I was so scared to quit my job. How do you go from an intern to HGTV and DIY Network host, Travel Channel personality and celebrity designer? When I mentioned Christopher Homes he was like, “Chris is right here actually,” so there was my stepping stone! It’s all about being at the right place at the right time. At the time I had been interning for a local designer and modeling-as much as you could model being 5-foot-1-but I really wanted to work for this high-end home builder, Christopher Homes. I ended up seeing at a convention and he had asked what I wanted to do. I had a blast but I had always known I wanted to be a designer so I stayed focused on meeting the right people. When was your first big break?Īfter graduation I went to University of Nevada Las Vegas. I was only 19 so if you don’t have your head screwed on tight you can really be sucked into the Vegas lifestyle. We were just kids running around the city. There’s a playground by the Water Tower that we used to play at a lot. Born and raised in Chicago! I grew up on the 45th floor of the John Hancock building, we lived right above the pool.
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