We were lucky to catch up with Vanessa Perez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Vanessa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

My mom passed away recently and her final months, everything took a backseat. Husband, kids, work, the home, friends, everything. It hadn’t sunk in when I was taking care of her in those months, that those were her final days here. Now 8 months later, I am so appreciative to had had the time to be with her.

After her passing, I knew I wanted different for my life as far as how I spent my time. I still have certain responsibilities, one of those being brining income in to the house, but now I wanted to change that.

When you experience a major loss like this, you really do realize just how precious life is and that is when I decided to start an Interior Decorating Business.

Growing up I watched my mom decorate our house and ultimately by doing so, she made our house a home. To this day, just sitting in my parents home is the ultimate comfort. My mom definitely had her own style and although our styles differed, everyone should live in a space they absolutely love and feel complete comfort in!

As a result of COVID, I believe more and more people want their homes to be a place of refuge. Somewhere they can sink in to and feel completely safe and at peace.

Within in weeks of starting the new business and only mentioning it to a few people, I was booked. Often times people know what they want to feel and have somewhat of a vision for it, but don’t know how to put it all together. Hearing this now, time and time again, I knew I had a successful business on my hands!

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?

I have been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years. And although I have enjoyed every business I have had, I didn’t always love it. Some of the businesses I opened because of others dreams our out of necessity. This business I opened for me, for my personal goals and aspirations.

Rooms Refreshed provides Interior Decorating, basically decorating made simple. Whether is is your residence, you rent, your office or any space you spend time in, we want you to absolutely love it!

Many of our clients don’t have the time to decorate their space or they have a vision, but can’t quite put it together.

Rooms Refreshed makes it easy for our clients! We get to know our clients and what they want and then create that virtually for them. They can be assured that what they want is what they get and all they have to do is say it, we do the rest!

We can work from clients all over the world to create spaces they absolutely will Love and the best part is when the space is complete, hearing our clients say, “You nailed it, I love it!”

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

My first business I opened out of College. It was a gym and it did well, until the recession hit in 2008. I had to close my physical doors, but was able to contract with local governments to continue delivering my fitness programs within their community centers. This allowed me to reach more people and expand my offerings in ways I hadn’t thought of before.

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

I opened my first business with credit cards and had debt totaling almost $100,000. I would not suggest this as the way to go for a new business owner. A lot of the purchases I made were not necessary and had I had a business plan, even a lean business plan, I probably could have avoided a number of those costs and ultimately the amount of debt I accrued.

When the recession hit, I did not want to declare bankruptcy, so I sold everything. All the gym equipment and all the new furnishings I had just bought for my home to eliminate the debt entirely.

Since that first business, I have not gone in to debt with starting another. I have only opened business with initially low overhead and have learned to manage money appropriately as the business has grows.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.roomsrefreshed.com
• Instagram: RoomsRefreshed
• Facebook: Rooms Refreshed
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-perez-126150146/

Image Credits
Amanda Kossina of Kossina Photography