Today we’d like to introduce you to Caroline Mounger.
Hi Caroline, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My mother was a decorator in the 80’s and as a result of her amazing taste, I developed an appreciation for how people live in their homes and spaces. I’ve always been a sensitive person, sensitive to my surroundings and from an early age, I would rearrange, decorate and organize my bedroom as a way of staying grounded and inviting change into my life. I decided to study interior design in college and never looked back. I have an interior design degree from Texas State University and have been involved in some realm of design since before graduation. I’ve done several internships (from commercial to residential), studied design abroad, worked for a lighting showroom, for different furniture stores, and for different designers and design firms including Marcus Mohon and Cravotta Interiors. I formed my first design partnership, Cocoon Designs in the early 2000s and I also started Studio Tupelo as a partnership with Katie Marye who is still going strong and doing fantastic work. From there, I experienced some big life changes that led me back to a design firm and eventually back to working on my own.
While I love the flexibility of working on my own, I really always hoped to find someone to collaborate with because in my opinion, design is way more fun when you have the opportunity to collaborate! And that is exactly how Lindsay Villarreal and I teamed up and formed Elevate Interiors. Like me, Lindsay had been working on her own doing design for many years. She was able to pick and choose her projects and take on a load that worked for her while raising her three kiddos. In 2019, she and I met for coffee and talked about teaming up to form a new design company and shortly after decided to give it a go. We literally hit the ground running as soon as we made the decision. We both had a slow few previous months as a result of Covid and everything shutting down, but as soon as we said “yes”, it’s as though the universe conspired to make it happen and fast! We are a referral-only business and rely on the referrals of past clients and word of mouth to bring our business. We do not advertise and so far, we do not have a website. We plan to have one eventually as soon as we slow down enough to work on it.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our biggest struggle as Elevate has been the speed of growth and the demand for work while maintaining a work/life balance and meeting our business goals which include taking photos of our work, keeping up with our Instagram, attending networking events and creating a website.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are a design team with a focus on residential design. We also design commercial spaces and have had a few commercial jobs peppered in here and there such as a restaurant, clothing stores, a baby boutique, along with a few others. We actually love commercial work and hope to get to do more in the future.
We take jobs of all sizes, big and small, from furniture selections, window treatments and accessorizing/styling to architectural finish out where we specify selections for any and all aesthetic decisions including flooring, tile, paint, hardware, cabinetry details, plumbing, electric, hardware, etc. We make selections for swimming pools, fireplaces, bathrooms, exterior paint stories and curb appeal. We work on partial or full home remodels and revamps and also new builds. Additionally we’ve helped many of our clients with other fun and interesting projects including ADU’s, pool houses and a school bus that was transformed for live-in travels. We love branching out and designing new and different things.
We make an effort to really assess our clients tastes and lifestyles and offer them designs that feel like them, not us. And we have found that we tend to attract a more practical clientele with kids and/or pets and a need for a focus on designs that make sense for such a lifestyle.
We serve new clients that have been referred to us along with a lot of repeat customers. We tend to have long-standing relationships with our clients and we love that!
How do you think about happiness?
It makes us happy to feel that we have been able to really serve and help others, whether it be through design or some other way. Our greatest mission is to figure out how to really open up a part of our business that serves humanity in a unique way and while we don’t have our heads totally around what that looks like just yet, but we intend to figure it out in the near future.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: elevate_interiors__
Image Credits
Brian Mihealsick Personal photo (Caroline Mounger on Right; and Lindsay Villarreal on left)
