Today on the Chaise Lounge, Nick talks to Kate Lester of Kate Lester Interiors  about growing up in Southern California, wanting to grow up to be rich and evolving into a designer and how fun it is to tell people “No.”

When Kate Lester was a kid, she wanted to be a very affluent business woman. She didn’t know how, but she went to USC for business and worked nights as a cocktail waitress to make the maximum amount of money while she did it. She got a corporate job where she could be an affluent business woman, but one day a co-worker cried at work because she was stuck at work and couldn’t go to her kid’s soccer game. 

Lester wanted to be able to go to her kid’s soccer games. And she had been doing a little bit of mental decorating in her office, so she went back to school to learn design. She ended up learning everything she needed to know and not finishing her degree, because she knew how to run her own business and how to design interiors. 

When she started taking on design projects, Lester took notes about all the things she would prefer to never do again. The more projects she took on, the more things she decided to not do anymore. Now, Kate Lester Interiors’ process for choosing clients demands that they pay for only exactly what Lester has decided she’s good at. She insists on buying everything that’s going into a house, for example. And she won’t work in just one room. Only clients who will go for the perfect Kate Lester house get the Kate Lester Interiors experience. 

To see what that looks like, visit KateLesterInteriors.com and browse the Kate Lester Home shop for pieces in the Lester aesthetic at KateLesterHome.com. And follow the company on Instagram @klinteriors.