We were lucky to catch up with Kate Chipinski recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kate, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

I was working in the restaurant industry and my husband and I had just bought a house on a lake that we had been searching for for years. I started to fix it up and a coworker of mine said; “you need to start posting this on Instagram!” So I set up an account and started posting my projects, before and afters, and just every day life things. I wanted to be a positive source for inspiration. There is so much negativity out there and I just wanted to share a laugh, inspiration, and real life moments. I started to grow and people really resonated with what I was doing to my home. I don’t feel like my designs are what you see everywhere, they are a breath of fresh air to a sometimes mundane design world.

Kate, 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?

Technically I call myself an eco friendly, DIY home renovator and stylist. When I renovate spaces I like to use as much as I can that is in the space, donate the rest, and find used or vintage pieces to add to the space (I love mixing old and new). I will find furniture to redo, use existing cabinets but spruce them up with new paint and hardware or find a different use for them. Paint always goes a long way in design and it’s such an inexpensive fix with a great impact. I like to share my projects and renovations with people so they can use it as inspiration for their projects and spaces. I love when people send me pictures of their spaces they have done with me and my designs in mind. It’s SO fun! I am very proud that I try to have as little waste as possible when renovating and designing. It’s so import, this day in age, to care about your footprint. We have become too accustomed to wasteful consumption, it’s time to turn the tides and think more about our footprint.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I am at a crossroads in my journey right now. To be successful in the online design/renovation world you always have to be creating new spaces. I like my house, town, and setting so I don’t want to move but we have done so much of the house that it sometimes feels like that is what you are forced to do. Start new, create new, etc. So I am deciding where to go from here. We are not moving but I do have some goals and dreams of owning a building in our small downtown area to have a commercial and residential area. I am shifting my ideas and thoughts on what I want to do, what I want to share, and where I want my journey to continue. It’s new, exciting, and scary at the same time but you never know unless you try, right!!

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I was so focused on never wanting to blog, saying I wasn’t a blogger, that I had shut myself off from having a website. I didn’t want to get stuck doing something I knew I didn’t want to do. I like getting my hands dirty and creating art in spaces not walking about in detail how to do it. A friend of mine pushed me to start my own website a few weeks ago and you know what, I am loving it! I was so resistant with thinking I wouldn’t like it and if I hadn’t tried it, I wouldn’t know how much I like it now. So my advice to you is; step outside of your comfort zone, do something you think you won’t like or don’t want, because maybe you will find out that it’s where you were meant to be all along! (and maybe you will hate it, and now you know!😝)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://katechipinski.com/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/katechipinski
• Facebook: http://Facebook.com/katechipinski1
• Other: https://linktr.ee/Katechipinski

Image Credits
Me:) to put some of them into context, I wanted a shot of me in nature because nature is so important to all of my designs. I love bringing the outdoors in. Another pic is of me at Lowe’s. I am on the ad display for 3M. I did a little campaign with them and am on their displays in the stores, a commercial and still photography for some of their products.