Today we’d like to introduce you to April Littmann.
Thanks for sharing your story with us April. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up in a small town off I-45 between Houston and Dallas called Centerville. The population was around 900. It wasn’t until my junior year in high school that I discovered my love for interior design. I owe it all to my parents for helping me discover my passion and true calling in life. Since I would be leaving for college soon, they decided to purchase new furniture for my bedroom. They gave me free range on picking out the furniture (with budgetary limits of course) and let me redecorate my room. I selected a new paint color for my walls and purchased fabric from Hobby Lobby to design window treatments. I went online and found a print of Sleeping Woman by Pablo Picasso to be framed and hung over my bed. Looking back, I must have been ahead of the gold trend because my entire room was gold—gold-toned paint, gold satin drapery fabric, and gold-framed artwork. After the room was complete, I thought, “Wow, that was fun! I wonder if I could make a living doing this?” That is when I discovered the world of interior design.
Fast forward two years, and I was a student at Sam Houston State University. It was from here that I received a BA in Interior Design and graduated Cum Laude. My time at Sam Houston was wonderful—I made lifelong friends, and I still keep in touch with my professors. Believe it or not, one of my professors works with me now on large multi-family projects! Throughout college, I worked at a small apartment community as an assistant manager. I think during my time there, my love for multi-family design began to grow.
After graduation in 2010, I went on to work for a small residential furniture showroom in Pearland. There, I learned how to provide exceptional customer service to clients and the ins and outs of running a furniture showroom. As time went on, I worked at a few different places here and there, but it wasn’t until I landed a position with a luxury home builder in Houston that my career began to evolve. I was hired to assist with designing the model homes under the lead designer, and I really learned so much! After spending two and a half years with the home builder, I decided to move into multi-family design. I spent the next three years working for Marvy Finger, a multi-family developer in Houston. That experience was invaluable. I loved working in residential design as well as multi-family design, and I wanted the best of both worlds. This is where Neighbor Interiors was born.
Great, 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?
The road to starting your own business is rarely a straight path. It has many turns, twists, and bumps. As a working mom of a two and a half-year-old and five months old, managing a growing business alongside a growing family has a lot of challenges. When Neighbor Interiors started in 2017, my oldest was barely 18 months. I had to learn how to juggle the responsibilities of being a mom and business owner, and I’m still learning that today. Thankfully, I have the full support of a loving husband and family who is there to help me however is needed. However, even with their support I haven’t always had the courage to face the challenges that come before me.
In an industry where personal taste and style have such an important role, I struggled with doubt and discouragement along the way from the very people whose work I admired. I was told that I didn’t have what it takes to be successful in this line of work. With such harsh remarks echoing in my ears, there were days and nights where I wrestled with whether I had the ability to achieve the level of design that I desperately wanted to give. Nevertheless, the experience I gained gave me the confidence to challenge myself and find a way to serve others through my own means. Those once discouraging words are now the fuel that drives me forward. Seeing how my business and design aesthetic creates personalized interiors for so many happy clients is truly rewarding.
Neighbor Interiors – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Neighbor Interiors was founded in 2017 with the sole mission to serve our neighbor by creating a place they would love to call home – whether that home be residential or an apartment! We believe that interiors should not only be beautiful but that they should also be functional for our clients’ lifestyle. To us, home is more than a place. It’s where you make memories with your friends and family, it’s where you relax and seek comfort after a hard day at work, and it’s where you rest your head at night. It is an honor for us to be able to create these spaces within our clients’ home.
We specialize in residential interior design, multi-family interior design, and model home interior design. What makes us unique is our ability to design for any aesthetic by helping our clients’ reflect their personal style through each selection. From new construction to a home décor update, we strive to make interior design accessible because we believe everyone should have a home that they enjoy. Our 10-step design process makes working with us easy and straightforward. We take the stress out of designing a home and provide turn-key interior design solutions for our clients. At the end of the day, our primary goal is to serve others, create exceptional interiors, and make the process of working with us fun, collaborative, and easy for our clients.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I had the opportunity to complete a custom home in Southlake, TX for family friends. That project was special to me in so many ways. Not only did we have the opportunity to completely renovate a home, but we also had the opportunity to serve our friends and literally our neighbor! The clients were a neighbor of mine before they moved to Southlake. The project consisted of a team of people—from an architect to a builder—and took roughly eight months to complete. That doesn’t seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things, but they were on a time crunch to get moved in and settled, so things had to happen fast. The end result turned out to be a beautiful custom home where our clients could raise their growing family. Not only did we have very happy clients, but we also had lasting family memories throughout the entire process. Seeing photos of our friends enjoying everyday life in their new home always makes us beam with pride.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://neighborinteriors.com/
- Phone: 832-743-5696
- Email: april@neighborinteriors.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neighborinteriors/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neighborinteriors/
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8nzt6Myc7D90qhPJ95r00g
Image Credit:
Nathan Schroder, Colleen Scott
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