We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christine Trimmer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christine below.

Hi Christine, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Having the idea was the easy part. We both knew exactly what we wanted to do, but making it become a reality was the next, more fun and also difficult part. We didn’t need a lot of money to get started, so we got to focus on creating a beautiful brand that would attract the type of client we knew we wanted to work with. We worked at all hours of the day and had infinite energy for our little budding business. In the beginning, we chose our name and bought our domain. Then we went to Instagram and set up our account for the future. We set up trades of services with anyone we knew that could help us create our brand for the first year. We set goals, we dreamed our ideal client and our business model, and we developed our first website. Over the course of two years, we evolved along with what our clients were telling us they wanted, changing our services, prices, systems, etc whenever it felt necessary. It was a lot of trial and error, or as we like to say, “throwing the spaghetti against the wall,” to see what would work out best. At our core, we knew we wanted to always come from a place of sharing love for children by loving their parents. In doing this, we have built a reputation and a business that are exactly what we hoped they would be. The part that we love the most is that we are always evolving to offer more and more to our families, to build relationships and trust with them so we can support them through the years their children are young.

Christine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am Christine Trimmer a mother to a beautiful 9month old, a teacher for 9 years, and a business owner with Casa. My partner at Casa, Aubrey Wallen, is mother to the most fun 4.5 year old twins, a teacher for 5 years, a parent coach for 5 years, and a business owner with Casa.

We met at Xavier University in the Montessori Education program in 2010. The idea for Casa Design Consulting began forming during our training there and later experience in the classroom. We had parents come to us with frustrations about how their children were argumentative, challenging during transitions, or unwilling to help restore their play spaces or bedrooms when at home, but at school all they heard were reports about how their children were the complete opposite. We knew that parents needed information on how their home environment impacts their child and how by just making simple changes to the way their toys are set out, and inviting more independent opportunities for their child, behavior changes.

Casa Design Consulting has the mission of Cultivating Your Child’s Independence. We want to assist parents in setting up their home in a way that invites their child to participate in getting dressed, concentrate on a game, put away their toys, or make their own snack. With our signature service, The Toy Edit, we take the pressure off parents to find the time to figure out how to best set up their children’s spaces and then actually do it. During The Toy Edit, we go through all of the toys or items in your playroom, bedroom, or child’s kitchen drawer, and organize the items in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, but also functional for the child. We carefully choose furniture and containers that have your child’s developmental needs in mind to create the most functional space. The final step in The Toy Edit is setting up a Toy Rotation system. This system is designed to not only promote concentration skills for your child, but also pique their curiosity and independent play abilities. From the design, to the organization, to the implementation, we offer parents ease of mind knowing that after The Toy Edit, their child has a space that will develop their intrinsic desire for independence.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As most small businesses had to pivot during the pandemic, so did we. We focused on our expertise as teachers and developed a service called School by Casa that was a way for us to virtually or in-person set up your child’s school at home experience to promote concentration skills.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Our ideal client has always been local moms who are looking for a service that can alleviate some of the stresses that come along with parenting small children. By focusing our social media outreach to this specific clientele and collaborating with local bloggers, and publications, we have built a loyal following. We recommend doing social media collaboration posts with as many accounts as you can that align with your brand – this has helped us a lot!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.casadesignconsulting.com
• Instagram: @casadesignconsulting

Image Credits
Britt House Photography Rachel Rice Photography Alex Morgan Photography