About KATIE.
It started as a little girl, rearranging my room...again and again. Even then, I noticed how much a space could affect the way I felt. The same four walls, the same furniture, but somehow a new layout could make everything feel lighter, calmer, like a fresh start. I didn't have the words for it at the time, but looking back, that was the beginning of everything.
The Beginning.
After business school, I knew interior design was the path for me, so I started my own home staging company. I worked with hundreds of homeowners, realtors, and developers, to present their properties in the best light before going to market. Through that work, I started to notice something I didn't expect. Walking into home after home, the biggest transformations weren't always about furniture or accessories, they were about what got removed, sorted, and put back with intention. Closets full of things that no longer served anyone. Rooms so packed with stuff that you couldn't see their potential. Again and again, I watched spaces go from cluttered and chaotic to clean, open, and beautifully designed.
The Why.
But what stayed with me wasn't the before-and-after. It was the look on my clients' faces. That moment of walking back into a space that used to feel heavy and overwhelming, and suddenly feeling light, calm, like they could breathe again. It hit me that this wasn't just about helping a house sell — it was about helping someone feel like themselves in their own home again. That feeling, being able to give someone that, again and again, was something I knew I had to keep chasing.
From there, my work evolved again. This time into furnishing vacant investment properties for clients who wanted to rent out their condos and homes fully furnished. This was a different kind of challenge. There was no existing furniture to work around, no client's personal style to honour or work into, just an empty space and a blank canvas. I was responsible for the full vision: layout, furniture, lighting, decor, every detail, designed from the ground up.
The Result.
Outside of work, I started noticing the same story playing out again and again with the people closest to me. Friends becoming moms, watching the home they once loved slowly turn into something else. A guest room that quietly became a storage room, a living room that no longer felt like "them". Life got busier, priorities shifted, and somewhere along the way, the home stopped feeling like a reflection of who they were.
That's when it really clicked: this wasn't just a "nice to have" skill I happened to have. It was something people genuinely needed, and didn't know who to ask for. That's what led me here. LAYOUT is the place where everything I've learned in design, staging, organization, and a genuine love for helping people, comes together.
