Interior Design – Career or Hobby

Regardless of how talented you are, if you are donating your time and not getting paid for it you are designing as a hobby. Would you like to be more serious and turn your passion into a career? To do so, technique and training are crucial to turning your talent into a career. Taking a certification course will give you confidence to show others that you are serious about using your talents to create a career as an interior design professional.

Growing up watching my mother design our homes, I just thought that was what grownups did for fun. I don’t mean to make it sound glamorous, however. I am leaving out the fact that, while my mother was raising five children on her own, we did not always have our pick of homes. Luckily, growing up in Rhode Island older homes and apartments usually meant incredible architecture, wood floors, and French doors. Usually those features weren’t unveiled until after we’d removed several layers of turpentine to return historical architecture to its original beauty. My mother always believed that a beautiful home was one of the key ingredients to a proud, happy family. Turns out, she was right!

Mom a born decorator had the natural ability to balance objects and harmonize colors while always keeping in mind the function of a space. That being said, Mom would gather us up and explain to us that there was a neighbor who needed our help, and we all knew what that meant. Once again, we had to don our dungarees and fix up our neighbor’s apartment. Yes, you guessed it – Mom was never paid for her decorating talents; it was a gift she gave from her heart and she never thought of herself as deserving of any fee for creating beautiful homes for those in need. To be honest, they could not have paid anything anyway. Mother’s hobby was also her gift and she shared it with many in need. 

I hope that sharing my short story will help you decide what comes next for you. After attending a college with a double major – one in fashion design and the other in interior design – I graduated with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, a nice tan, and a lot of technical information but very little hands-on experience or practical knowledge.