We recently connected with Rachel Burger and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

I decided to open my own Luxury Interior Design firm, Studio 1950, in 2024. When I started building my interior design brand, I thought a lot about who I was, what I didn’t enjoy about my previously jobs, and how I can implement those ideas into my brand. This is ultimately how I came up with the idea of building a “silver dollar” interior design business. I knew I didn’t want to be the interior designer for everyone, so I built my business to reflect that. I began by specifying my ideal clientele, projects, and style. By starting here, I was able to create a direct reflection of that on my social media platforms. I implemented verbiage like “luxury”, “custom construction and renovations” and “business professionals” into my captions. Implementing verbiage like this allows potential clients to know if I am the right Interior Design Firm for them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I knew I wanted to be an interior designer since I was 8 years old. For Christmas one year, our gifts were to refresh our bedrooms. My mom took me to Home Depot to have a milk chocolate paint color made, and when they made it, it had a purple tone in it, so I asked my mom to have them remake it. This is the day we knew I had a gift. At this time, we had a neighbor who worked in admissions for the local design college, O’More College of Design. She invited me to sit through an interior design class, so I did. This is still one of my fondest childhood memories. I fell in love with O’More College of Design and went on to graduate from there in 2020 with a BFA in Interior Design.

I started my career in Interior Design over half a decade ago at a commercial design + build firm. In February of 2020, right before covid hit, I put my life on pause to deal with the death of my father. With covid storming in the week after my dad died, I was furloughed from my job. After taking a few months off to support my mother and deal with grief, I took a job at a furniture store making $12.00 an hour as an Interior Designer. For months I was miserable knowing that was not where I wanted to be. I interviewed at many Interior Design Firms getting ghosted, told I didn’t have enough experience, or that I wasn’t old enough. Finally, after a year of this cycle, I accepted a job at a Nashville based Interior Design Firm as their Interior Designer. For three years, I climbed the ladder, growing my own clientele, submitting myself for local and global awards, managing and designing my own jobs, showing up to events, and ultimately, creating a name for myself. This grind is what led me to opening my own Luxury Interior Design business, Studio 1950.

At Studio 1950, we pride ourselves in pushing our clients outside of their comfort zone and curating unique spaces that provoke emotion through color, texture, and lighting. We believe that interior spaces hold weight, memories, and emotions, which is what drives us to design influential spaces for you to share with the ones you love on your best and worst days. With over half a decade of experience, our Luxury Interior Design firm has expertise in custom construction, renovations, and furnishing projects. We use our creative gifts to curate spaces from plans to furnishings. Not only do we do the creative thinking, but we also know exactly what your builder needs to get the job done. We act as an advocate and intermediary throughout the duration of the project allowing for a seamless execution.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Five months before I moved 8 hours away to go to college, my dad was diagnosed with dementia. This changed the trajectory of my college experience. Every fall, spring, and summer break revolved around traveling to be with my family. Between juggling the workload of college, trying to be the best daughter, and grieving the father I once knew, I learned nothing other than resilience. After battling this horrible illness, my dad passed away my senior year of college, the day before my 22nd birthday. 2 months later, I graduated college Cum Laude, with a BFA in Interior Design.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I didn’t have the money to fund my business, so I took a risk, transferred $65.00 of my personal money to open a business checking account, and put the startup costs on a credit card. I knew that failure wasn’t an option for me so I began to build my business from scratch. I would put my business card in people’s mailboxes, pay for advertising via social media, connect with industry partners through email/Instagram, and attend lots of networking events.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.studio1950tn.com/
• Instagram: studio1950tn
• Facebook: Studio 1950

Image Credits
Logo: @creativelymadeline Headshots: @jessica_amerson