15 Years of Bold, Fearless Design | Kim Lewis on Building an Iconic Interior Design Career
What happens when a furniture marketing exec gets hired for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and spends the next eight years designing over 120 homes from the ground up? For Kim Lewis, it launched her extraordinary career in interior design. Laura sits down with Kim Lewis, founder of Kim Lewis Designs, to trace her journey from Four Hands marketing to lead designer on one of television's most beloved home renovation shows, to building a thriving seven team design firm in Austin.
Kim opens up about losing her mother at 10, the divorce that brought her back to Texas, and how meeting her husband Joey, who first DM'd her looking for bar stools, helped her finally finish the memoir she's been writing for years. She shares what it really means to build a business that feels like family, how she parents with intention and presence, and why the years your kids actually need you are a shorter season than you think.
Topics Discussed
- How a chance meeting at High Point led to nearly eight years on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
- Designing Jewel's home as her very first private client
- Building Kim Lewis Designs into a seven-team firm with 20 active projects at a time
- Losing her mother at 10 and how grief shaped her independence and empathy
- Parenting with intention and the questions she asks her kids instead of "how was your day?"
- Writing a memoir about death, divorce, and forgiveness and why she's finally ready to finish it
- Finding a partner who complements and encourages your walk
Resources and Links
Kim Lewis Design: https://www.kimlewisdesigns.com/
Follow Kim on Instagram: @kimlewisdesign
Shop Living Oak: https://livingoakhome.com
Learn More About Laura and Living Oak Interior Design: https://www.livingoak.com/about