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

Kerry Ann, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

The idea of designing and installing accent walls with wood trim came to us back in 2018. We’d moved from NYC to Houston and use to spend our free time touring models homes, looking for ideas. We loved how they would transform the space by highlighting the walls. We asked how we could do that to our homes, but the answers were always vague and it seems inaccessible.

Well, we found an inspiration photo and Pintrest and decided to take a chance. It was a wall of mirrors with wood trim. Our living room wall was 20 feet high, so we needed a to rent a scaffolding and get a ton of supplies and tools. Funny enough we didn’t know about a miter saw and ended using an axe saw. The result was beautiful and we quickly moved on to other rooms in the house. We were so impressed, we started thinking maybe we could offer this service to others. But of course it’s easy to work in your own house, but other people’s is a who different ball game. We wrestled
with the idea for some time and in December of 2019, we had our first client, a family member. From there we started building our portfolio by doing projects for coworkers, friends and going back to the same model homes to spread the word.

We advertised on Facebook marketplace which brought us good business. We dropped off flyers and door hangers throughout the neighborhoods as well. We were posting on Instagram and Tik Tok also. We were putting in the work, while working our full time nursing jobs. Until one viral video on first on Tik Tok then on Instagram helped us to put away our stethoscope and sent us on a design tour, from Atlanta to New York. We spent two months on the road, designing and installing accent walls in homes. We were booked at home in Houston and in a few cities. We’ve worked ourselves up to being leaders in our niche. We maintain a booked schedule and last year we started offering workshops to aspiring wall designers. In addition we have opened our very own content and design studio open to public.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are Clinton and Kerry, owners of CK Accent Wall Designs. We are both registered nurses with a combined 40years experience. You know how you always want that perfect piece of art for that wall in your home but can’t seem to find it? That’s what we do! We transform spaces by designing and installing statement-making, one-of-a-kind wall art.

Our designs are carefully crafted and installed to match any design aesthetic. We combine our artistic and interior design skills to bring beauty to our clients’ homes. What sets us a part is our ability to evolve and bring fresh ideas. We have taken the niche of wall treatment to a whole other level. People know us for quality and innovativeness and many want to learn from us.

Our designs are installed with passion, patience, craftsmanship and a proven method that we work daily to improve. We have built a loyal community on social media in our local community.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Starting this business does not require a lot of capital. We started out buying our equipment- a saw, nail gun, etc. little at a time. We did work in our own home and cheaply for family and friends to build our portfolio. We advertised on Facebook marketplace which brought in good business, that quickly paid for all our supplies and allowed us to buy more.

To improve our skills we invested in two painting courses amounting to about $3500 total. Those courses quickly paid for themselves as we learned so much to help us improve our business.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

We went viral on Tik Tok but didn’t find out until two weeks later ( I know that’s crazy). We were posting on all social media platforms not really expecting much. At first we didn’t know what to do, we were just happy that people liked our video. We had no marketing plan, nothing ! We were just happy to say we went viral. Another two weeks later, we posted the same video on Instagram and again it went viral. This time our marketing sense kicked in and without any real planning we announced we were going on a design tour to service those interested.

At first we had no idea which cities would be included. We didn’t have a website or a booking site. We were bombarded with requests through ours DMs and emails. We answered as many as we could and narrowed it down to 5 cities, 7 clients and 10 designs. We drove from Houston, first stop Atlanta and ended in New York. It was two long months on the road, discovering ourselves, building our business and forming new relationships.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ckcustomwalldesign.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ckwalldesigns/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CKWallDesigns

Image Credits
These are all our work