Business of Home, May 2022

The 50 States Project is a series of candid conversations with interior designers across the country about how they’ve built their businesses. This week, Portland, Maine–based designer Tyler Karu tells us how flipping homes got her business going while the economy was in a slump, why she added an art advisor to her team and how hiring a project manager changed her firm’s trajectory.

Did you always know you wanted to be a designer?
I always knew I’d enjoy being in the real estate industry in some capacity, but my journey into design wasn’t linear at all. My father was a real estate developer—he built spec homes all over the East Coast, as well as our homes, and my mother helped design the homes that he built. We lived in Washington, D.C., and Florida for a time, but I primarily grew up here in Maine.

After high school, I went to George Washington University and studied English, but I had very little direction. I was an English major because I loved reading books and writing, and I was good at that, but I hadn’t really thought about the actual “career” part until I was like, “Wait, I need to get a job.” I moved to New York and worked for a real estate company, where I realized that while I don’t enjoy selling real estate, I do enjoy houses. That’s when I went back to school—I went to New York School of Interior Design for a two-year associate degree.