Spotlight Interview with Life by Design Interiors, LLC
When it comes to home remodels and custom home builds, every client deserves that one-of-a-kind, attention-to-detail experience when creating their forever home. As much as we focus on the homeowner relationship from sales contact to punch list wrap-up, we focus on cultivating lasting partnerships with our trade partners in the building industry to be a part of our process and deliver that final “welcome home” promise.
We recently had the pleasure of sitting down with one of our design trade partners, Stephanie Georgoulakis, owner and operator of the San Antonio located Life by Design Interiors, LLC, and we would love to share her story and expertise with you.
Life by Design Interiors “specializes in pushing design boundaries to create one-of-a kind curated spaces” in both the residential and the commercial building world. The Life by Design team strives constantly to create environments and spaces that are “not only beautiful but [that] also bring lasting value for years to come.” Yet despite having lots of experience in the design and building world, Stephanie Georgoulakis has taken a very unique route to get to where she is today. Though she is now the owner and founder of Life by Design Interiors, she definitely did not plan to wind up in design.
“I graduated from high school a year early and went straight into college as a Biology major. My mom is a nurse and my dad’s a dentist, and my dad’s brother’s a cardiologist, and I thought I might go into physical therapy or something like that.” Stephanie started with a laugh, acknowledging that biology is a strange starting place to wind up in design.
But she ran her dad’s dental office for four years, and eventually realized — after seeing the inside details of the healthcare world, and how she wasn’t always able to help people fully because of their insurance — that maybe the healthcare world wasn’t where she wanted to work.
“I didn’t like [that I couldn’t always help people] and I began to realize that maybe [healthcare] wasn’t really the path for me. But my dad’s sister was an artist and art teacher, and I spent a lot of time with her and my grandparents growing up. My Grandmother baked elaborate wedding cakes, and my Grandfather was a shop teacher and designed airplane interiors. So [between the three of them], I guess designing was just buried in my genes somewhere.”
Stephanie ended up moving from San Antonio to Austin, Texas, where she was exposed to a more “diversified environment,” and then she started traveling a lot, both of which together began to grow her love of design. “I think that one day it kind of just clicked. I noticed I was paying attention to design, [and I realized] oh, I’m drawn to this.” After that realization, she decided to join a friend of hers who she knew was at school for interior design. Going back to UTSA, she went to the architecture school there and got her degree as a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design.
After college, she grew her skillset working with commercial firms. Thanks to the time she spent with other firms, her skillset is broad — not just in interior design, but architecture and plan drawing as well. When Covid hit — affecting the firm she worked with — Stephanie founded Life by Design.
Despite an unexpected path to design, Stephanie now boasts almost fifteen years of experience in the industry, three with her own company. Life by Design “[specializes] in pushing design boundaries to create one of a kind curated spaces.” There are a lot of ways that Stephanie does that. When asked about it, she smiled. “You have to take the needs and wants of your client and translate that into their space. So you find creative ways to approach those things, to pull the clients’ needs and wants out and help them look at them with perspective, and [figure out] what they want in the space. Maybe that means taking an approach that hasn’t been done before, or presenting something that’s kind of bold, whether it’s a paint color or some tile or finishes that maybe they wouldn’t necessarily have put together themselves.”
Her experience working with other design firms before creating Life by Design taught Stephanie to push boundaries with her design. That boundary pushing led to spaces that were ahead of the curve — on-trend now and stylish then — designed years before trends broke. “I think that’s kind of how I approach design — I want it to be unique, but I also want it to function well and to stand out. But it’s also all about the experience, and how people — homeowners and [guests] — experience a space that I design.”
She laughed. “For me, part of forward-thinking [and a] curated approach is me not being afraid to put ideas in front of my clients because I’m not afraid of them telling me no. I feel like that kind of sets me apart because some people might, you know, be a little more sensitive and I’m just not. You can’t be in this industry. Design is subjective and people have different perspectives but I do feel like it’s kind of fun for me to just push those boundaries and that’s part of what sets my spaces apart from others.”
We hope you’ve enjoyed this interview. If you’re interested in learning more about our DMJ process or in working with Stephanie Georgoulakis and Life by Design Interiors, LLC for your next home remodel or custom home build, you can contact us through our website or give us a call. We look forward to hearing from you.