I started decorating and designing while still in junior high. My friends and family benefited from my artistic abilities and keen eye for balancing form and function or at least I'd like to think so. I'm sure my family would have been just as happy if I didn't re-arrange the living room or their bedrooms for the fifth time :) Specially moving the furniture around , that seemed to cause all sorts of problems - you'd think they'd turn on the light after dark - when in an unfamiliar room. My poor husband is now the victim of my obsession to change our environment...ten years into our marriage and he's still learning to adjust.
By the time I graduated high school my dream of pursuing a design career was put on the back-burner. My parent's, the sensible ones, wanted me to study computer science. For the next five years, I did so. I was quite unhappy but at least when I graduated I was fortunate to find employment as a Graphical User Interface engineer where I was able to channel my creative energies and combine them with my engineering background to create functional and aesthetically pleasing software programs. I think I would have gone mad had I been relegated to pure coding. As the years passed I found myself pursuing a Master's Degree in Engineering Management and enjoying success in my career but my desire to return to my first love - design was still there.
One year after graduating with an MS in Engineering Management and faced with a life changing event, my husband and I decided to go for it - start a design based business. That was seven years ago. Our business has evolved over that time. We now own roominakit.com a home decor store - which in 2004 went from a bricks and clicks venture to an all clicks (online only) business. In 2002, we launched Decorating Divas a center for teaching decorating and crafting workshops. Decorating Divas morphed into The Decorating Diva LLC (thedecoratingdiva.com) in 2003 and quickly became a welcome decorating and design resource for do-it-herself crowd. Today the primary focus of The Decorating Diva business is to provide advice, education and consultation services.
I look forward to being an active member of the refurber community. If you have any design questions then send me an email, I'd love to help.
Carmen
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