Written by Renee Berg
Jessica Curry is familiar with the pains of business growth.
She was bursting at the seams, as she puts it, in her Eyota workspace before expanding to her current Interiors by J. Curry showroom in downtown Rochester’s Queen City Center.
Her next business expansion will be to hire an employee who will staff the showroom at least three days a week, Curry said, and thereby be able to capture walk-in customers.
“We do a lot of referrals,” she said. “I feel like that says a lot. I started out just doing consulting and design, but I have been able to flourish into some different avenues.”
On Friday Curry will speak to a Chamber of Commerce women’s round table, with about 30 guests. She plans to go in depth about what her business is about, and also include some question-and-answer time with the audience in case they have projects they’d like advice on.
Another speaking engagement Curry has coming up is a live webinar for the Voices From the Industry conference for the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show. It’s put on by the National Kitchen & Bath Association.
With more than eight years of owning Interiors by J. Curry, and with 23 years in the industry, Curry has assembled quite an array of experience.
A few years into Interiors by J. Curry, she started selling cabinets and countertops, adding custom pieces to physically complete the spaces she was designing. “We can make any cabinet any size,” she said, “and can customize it within 1/16 of an inch for a remodel.”
Cabinetry might go into a kitchen or bath, or into a basement with a bar and entertainment center. Interiors by J. Curry has also done built-in pieces such as a desk for a home office.
Her background is in kitchens and bathrooms so she thrives with those projects, but also gets excited when a kitchen remodel splays out into the rest of the home. “We create a cohesive flow and help clients from design concepts to all the furnishings and details going in the end.”
“The neat thing is, with the products I sell, a couple of them I’ve sold for 20 years plus so I was familiar with the quality of materials and am able to customize it to the way the client wants.”
“Just knowing that with your involvement you are making their everyday living better. Creating a retreat or oasis in a bathroom after a hard day or a kitchen for entertaining family gathering, or a homework area,” Curry said. “Problem solving what’s not working to get the perfect design in the end is so great and seeing the before and after transformation of a remodel never gets old.”
Curry said she and her colleague Michell Vogl offer consulting on every type of design project, and they have even done a few commercial designs. The majority of their business is residential remodels, but they do offer their services to people building their new homes as well.
There they dive into the blueprints and make suggestions with finishes, Curry said.
“I think the biggest misconception with interior design is people think, oh you kind of pick out colors and materials,” she said. “That is a part of it. But the big part of the process is brainstorming, conceptualizing, measuring space up, scaling blueprints, creating technical drawings … to make it functional and safe and beautiful in the end.”
Find Interiors by J Curry online on Facebook here or on the website here!