We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kim Kapellusch a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kim, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

When I started it was just me – I ran the business, staged the homes, and was the sales and marketing manager. I was lucky that early on I found another new business owner in the area at a convention and we partnered up on some first projects together and eventually she came to work for me. Her significant other at the time needed work and would also help with loading and unloading of the trucks when I reached a point of owning my own furniture. He still works for me today. Along the way some of our workers had high school or college age kids who also had friends that wanted to pick up extra work. Luckily for us summer is our busiest season and the time when students are usually looking for temporary work. Since our work is more seasonal, we try to schedule workers as needed like a moving company does. Alot of our older workers have side gigs of their own which was symbiotic for both of us. They had a way to make extra money and I had extra help on an on needed basis. During times when we had a hard time finding people, I would use online recruiting platforms with mixed results. Platforms like next door sometimes worked and the beauty of that is, the ad is local and they may have friends who want extra work and are local. What we do that is unconventional, is hire people as a temporary helper for 3 weeks. If they pass the muster, we keep them on. This gives both parties a way to feel out the situation and part ways if it’s not for them without going through a traditional hiring and firing process. This proves to be my most successful model to date with people learning as they go in steps. At times I have gone the traditional route in hiring with multiple rounds of interviews and formal training and have found that upon the conclusion of training (and I have heard this from other business owners as well) they leave to “leg-up” somewhere else which wastes a ton of time and resources for the employer.

Kim, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

When I discovered the field of home staging I was a set designer and a couple of my clients were cutting back or looking for “fresh perspectives”. I felt marginalized and the people hired to bring in the fresh perspectives wanted to establish dominance over the “OG” vendors so the client would give them more work opportunities. At the time, I was a freelancer and these events inspired me to want to become an entrepreneur with a business. One day my mom told me that my cousin, living in San Francisco, was getting her home staged to sell it. My cousin was also intrigued and got all sorts of information from the stager, like how lucrative it was and the return on investment for sellers who could sell in 1/3 the time for up to 10% higher offers. Since staging rooms in a home seemed very similar to designing sets, I immediately got online and began researching and subsequently found and attended training. In April 2026, I will be in business for 20 years and have amassed enough inventory to stage 35+ vacant homes. While we have evolved in our service offerings over the years, we currently offer vacant home staging and interior design services. The thing I am most proud of, and what sets us apart is that we also taught home staging and design for over 15 years to aspiring designers. As I head into my retirement years, this program was recently phased out but I still consider it to be one of my best professional accomplishments. As for the personal, my staging company has afforded me the opportunity to create a secure retirement plan and one day I hope to build a retreat center for women wanting to align with other women and experience new things.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I started my business with almost no capital – sounds impossible I know so I will share! I made a free website to market my business and then spread the word via actual network marketing (at the time there weren’t a lot of platforms to advertise on – mostly phone book type apps which I did). I made free business cards on vista print – nowadays you could do a digital card or QR code. For home staging, the process is to decorate a home so inventory to do that has to come from somewhere. I always charged clients up front so I had the capital needed to rent the inventory. Over time, I used some of the client fee from the job to invest in some small pieces. I started with accessories since these weren’t especially cheap to rent and it made more sense to buy them myself and begin earning the rent as part of my profit. Once I was a bit more established (about 4 years in) I began to purchase larger furnishings. When a higher end job would come in, I would try to buy some really nice pieces for it. I would use a portion or all of the profit from the job to invest in these nice pieces while renting the remaining items if needed. This allowed me the ability to “afford” to invest in more furniture without securing capital, which in turn meant most of the job revenue was staying in my pocket. Having my own inventory also allowed me to have my own point of view with the designs I was installing since rental furnishings were limited in choices and widely recognized. Initially I stored these items in small roll up storage spaces but as I grew, having my own inventory also meant employees, owning a truck and large warehouse storage and investing in new inventory regularly to stay on trend. For anyone already in this business and facing this decision, my advice is to do the math of renting vs owning before moving forward.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Stagers going out of business – we offer to pay them a commission for a period of time or for so many projects if they introduce me to their clients as the person taking over. If I have enough inventory, I allow other stagers to also rent from me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stylemyspace.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stylemyspace
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/style-my-space-los-angeles-3?osq=style+my+space