Moline mom helps design joy for your home

Courtney Lawrence has spent her career being a teacher in different ways.

As owner of her own interior design business (Courtney Lawrence Studio), she is using her passion to teach others how to create the home of their dreams.

The married Moline mom of three juggles three little ones (ages 5, 3 and 1) and works with people on creating beautiful, cost-effective home renovation projects. She’s had her business four years, but recently started offering interior design workshops, with just the second one scheduled for April 19 at 5:30 p.m., at Old Oaks Winery, 10814 1^st St. West, Milan. It will include:

• Courtney’s Interior Design Instruction – a deep dive into home design styles. Learn about a variety of styles and identify your personal home style to help you shop and decorate your home.

• Design Work — Courtney will guide you through her process to create/craft a physical mood board for your home or a space in your home.

• Ask The Designer — Courtney will feature several rooms from your submissions and talk about what can be done to make the space more beautiful and functional.

• Q & A — Ask questions and receive decorating advice about your home.

Each admission includes one glass of wine or non-alcoholic beverage of your choice, and food will be available for purchase from Old Oaks Winery. She chose Old Oaks in part because she went to high school (Moline) with the owner.

“Some people sent me photos of their rooms and I would show them on the screen and I said quickly, here’s what I would do,” she said of the first workshop she did about a month ago. “They really liked that, hearing my opinions and advice.”

Everyone has their own favorite home style, and the next workshop will include assembling a “mood board,” which features colors and design elements people want to include.

“A mood board, I would call that inspiration for the space – you’re talking different images, elements, colors, and putting them together to create a feeling, a theme, a color palette, to then create,” Lawrence said.

They will also discuss each room’s furniture, colors, design elements, and lighting. The mood board is a way of putting together a space without the designer doing it.

Lawrence also makes recommendations for local contractors to use for painting, lighting and flooring, for example.

Usually customers will tell her their estimated budget, what stores they shop at and where they want to spend more money (such as furniture versus art).

Lawrence hopes to offer workshops every quarter. Most of her projects have been for living rooms and bedrooms, as well as home offices and kids’ rooms.

She started her workshops a month ago, to see if people would be interested.

The first one was early March (at the Moline library), was great and well-attended. “I feel like it was me getting back to teaching, but something that I love, interior design,” she said.

Designing a career

Lawrence earned a bachelor’s in elementary education from Southern Illinois University — Edwardsville, and taught 6^th grade in Geneseo from 2012-2015. In 2015, she earned her master’s in instructional design and technology from Western Illinois University, when she joined Modern Woodmen of America, based in Rock Island.

“My main reason for doing that, I wasn’t for sure going to be in school districts forever and I knew structural and graphic design could take me to a corporate job,” she said.

Lawrence learned how to teach and was with Modern Woodmen in training and education from 2015 to 2019. She trained managers on how to train their employees. Following that, after a year with American Rental Association, she decided to pursue her passion, which is interior design.

In 2020, Lawrence opened her own home-based studio and is still teaching people.

“It’s kind of a nice mix of everything,” she said. When she was a kid, she played the Sims computer game for years, designing her own houses and neighborhoods.

“That just carried me through college, when I was interested in décor and stuff, and really did my own research on interior design and decorating,” Lawrence said.

When she and her husband Bryn got married in 2015, they renovated their entire house in Moline. They moved into their current house in Moline two years ago and continue to work on it.

After COVID hit, her husband recommended she start her own studio, after she had her second child. He works for Deere’s corporate headquarters in data analytics. “He’s the total opposite brain from me – I’m very much the creative type,” Lawrence said.

“It’s a balance of, waking of early, working during their nap times, balancing the kids and my work,” she said, noting she uses part-time child care and doesn’t devote interior design as a full-time job. “It’s been a really nice thing for me.”

Lawrnce doesn’t follow what other interior designers in the area are doing, noting many Iowa-side businesses deal more with high-dollar clients with their own storefronts.

“I don’t do that and my business model is a little different,” she said of not having a storefront. “I believe that interior design can be for anyone. You don’t have to have a million dollars,” Lawrence said. “I have services that range from coming to my workshop for $45, to a design plan (starting at $250 for partial room and $400 for full room). I think that’s what sets me apart.

“I can work with anybody and I feel like it’s a different aspect – I’m not a corporate environment,” she said. “I’m a real mom.”

Avoiding trends

She sees many people get caught up in hot trends and communicates that even if it’s a trend, you don’t have to do it. “You should do what you like,” Lawrence said.

“A lot of times people ask me, gray’s a really a popular color now, should I paint my living room gray?” she recalled. “I think it’s navigating that, just because it’s trendy doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

In a kitchen, white subway tile is a timeless choice that will work with many designs, over many decades, Lawrence said. “I try to stick with timeless choices,” she said.

She recommends people also paint small sections in their home before deciding on a whole wall or room, to see how it looks first. “Paint colors are hard – a color ill look totally different in my house versus your house,” Lawrence said.

“With paint colors, that’s one reason to work with designers, because usually designers know the undertones of the color, what else will go with the color,” she said. “What does your furniture look like? All of those things play into what the color will actually look like.”

Instead of actually painting a part of the wall, she also advised just painting a big piece of white paper and then taping it on the wall. One of Lawrence’s favorite home colors is dark olive, which she has on her home office wall.

“I think it’s a timeless color that can be carried through; I highly recommend that color,” she said.

Her husband does woodworking, and has built pretty much everything in their home. They’ve been working in their living room since they moved in.

“I’m a strong believer in, when you really enjoy a space, it affects you. It affects your mood,” Lawrence said. “Your home and how you feel in your home matters.”

Often, she meets with clients after work hours (nights and weekends), at their home. One of the nice things about owning her own business is her flexible schedule.

“I only take on the number of clients I can handle,” Lawrence said.

“I really try to give people a real representation of myself, what I value and things that I do,” she said. “That way, they know what they’re getting when they work with me.”

Typically, the project timetable is based on the client and budget, she said. A living room can cost several thousand dollars, and it varies for everyone.

Lawrence has also served on the Lead(h)er board of directors from 2020 to 2023. She’s had a mentor (LuAnn Haydon) since the beginning of the program.

Tickets for the April 19 workshop are $45 (plus an option for specific individualized consultation for $15), and are available HERE.

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