Okay, we are here with the newest member of our team, Ms. Erin Othick, and we're so excited to have you on the team, and we wanted to do this quick interview and let a lot of our followers and viewers get to know you better and realize what a great asset you are to be able to join the team.

 

So tell us a little bit about your background, your personal story, and what brought you to Kingdom & Co.

 

I have always had a passion for interior design since I was a little kid.

 

I started with this Victorian dollhouse that on the weekends when I'd visit my dad, we would go to the hobby store and get flooring and electrical lights and wall covering, and we'd sit together and do it.

 

I don't know why my dad had this idea to do this with me, but we always did that, and I loved it.

 

It kind of stayed with me my whole life, and when I went to college, I thought I was gonna do business.

 

I wanted to do international business, started taking classes.

 

Once I took the Japanese class, I decided international business was not for me, and I went back to my roots of wanting to do interior design, but my parents decided that I should finish my business degree because you can't go wrong in life having a business degree, and that they'd be happy to support me in any way if I wanted to continue interior design, which I did.

 

I interned a summer while I was in college still, and then after graduating, I enrolled in a trade school, an interior design trade school here in Vegas, and the woman that I had interned for the year before said, you know what, just come work for me.

 

I'm gonna teach you everything you need to know, and so I credit her for teaching me a lot and really- Yeah, you must have stood out in the class with a lot of other people, so that's amazing.

 

Yeah.

 

And it's interesting, at such a young age, I think with kids, there are certain things that they just care about, and isn't that interesting that right from the get-go- I don't know where it came from.

 

Like, even my sixth grade graduation, they did little skits, and like, oh, what's someone gonna be in the future?

 

And mine, it was an interior designer.

 

Like, I just knew that's what I was gonna be, and even in school, when I saw other people doing their hand drafting and stuff, I thought, oh, that's what I wanna do.

 

I just knew.

 

That's great, what a gift that is, so.

 

Was there a defining moment or perhaps a defining project where you felt like, okay, this is definitely it, or maybe you felt like that you've made it in that process and in that craft?

 

I think that a defining moment for me was when I went to go work for the, so I did the internship for the woman, and that she said, you know, she obviously saw something in me that she wanted me to come work for her and mentor me.

 

So I went to work for her, and I feel like that really helped pave the path.

 

That was here in Vegas, and then we moved to California.

 

I worked for two different design firms in California, and then moved back to Vegas to start a family, and took a little time off, and then went back to starting my own company, and I had that for 10 years.

 

But I was kind of tired of working on my own and ready to be part of a team again and be part of something big.

 

And that's where we crossed paths.

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Yeah, and I can remember when we first sat, me and Lincoln, when we first sat down with you, we were like, wow, she would be such a great team member, not only with the experience that you had, but your willingness to collaborate.

 

There's a lot of designers in the industry where they're very my way or the highway, and we've run into that several times, and so it was such a breath of fresh air when you came in and were like, hey, no, you wanna play team.

 

Yeah, thank you.

 

Yeah, that's what we needed.

 

Yeah, I love being part of the team, and everybody's been so welcoming to me here, and right away, I just felt at home here.

 

Good.

 

And it's nice to also have the team behind me, the support that I've never really had working on my own, to have collaboration, but also collaboration with cabinet manager, plans manager, people who support what I do.

 

Yeah, I think helping you be able to make that project come to fruition and in the best way possible, and then having the production side of it, whether it's Ethan and his team looking over, and hey, here's a better way we can do that, and there's so much value in engineering that goes into that, so.

 

When you approach a project, Erin, tell me a little bit about your process, how you approach it, and how you like to get a project off to a good start.

 

First and foremost, I like to create a relationship with a client, because I need to know who they are, and what they like, and how we can work together, and so that's really important for me, and I want them to trust me, too.

 

I want them, I don't need to be their friend, but I wanna have a good relationship with them, which usually ends up being creating a friendship when you work long with somebody on a project, and then from there, I really like to see what their vision is, so I wanna see, do you have any concept boards, or any Pinterest pages, you know, things you've put together, so that I can see where your vision is, because why should I start from square one with my ideas, if you already know what you want?

 

So I start with that, and then from there, I like to make my own concept boards, so that I have my own vision for what I know I can do with their space, and with incorporating their vision into it, and I like to go room by room, so I can see the whole project, kind of how it's gonna flow from room to room, and then I like to get the client's input on that before I really start designing.

 

When somebody is thinking about doing a remodel, what are some kind of go-to resources that you use to get the creative juices flowing?

 

Yeah, I usually direct them to Houzz, Pinterest, Instagram, there's so much good content out there that's really showing what the trends are right now, and you don't have to do everything trendy, but you kind of see where everything is going, so I like to suggest that they browse those areas, I mean, back in the day, we went to the magazine stand, and came home with a stack of magazines, and had to look through pictures, so it's at our fingertips now, so we should be using it.

 

Yeah, it's been amazing how far we've come there.

 

Do you feel now, in the era of AI, that you kind of have to give people a disclaimer, like, not everything that you see is possible?

 

Absolutely, because in remodel world, people think that they can just show you a picture off of Pinterest, and they want their house to look like that, when they're keeping their floors, and they don't wanna change their countertops, and there's a lot of things that you have to work around, there are grandma's antique furniture, and it's not gonna look like this Pinterest picture, so you have to be very clear and upfront that not everything is always gonna be perfect, like you see in these pictures, whether or not it's a real photograph, or an AI version of it, you do need to communicate that.

 

Yeah, and related, but in a different category, my wife was showing me this beautiful waterfall that's in Arizona, and have a soup, I just got these beautiful waterfalls, right?

 

But this was not a waterfall that existed in, it was completely fabricated out of AI, had all the right tones and stuff to make it look like it was on that hike.

 

I've seen stuff like that, yeah.

 

Yeah, and that stuff happens in the design and construction world, too, where there'll be something that AI can generate that looks so amazing, but it's, for most issues, completely unattainable in a lot of ways.

 

So there's, you gotta be careful out there, and not get your hopes and your standards so high that they're unachievable.

 

Right.

 

Is there something, is there anything that Keenum & Co. does exceptionally well, or particularly better than other firms that you've been with?

 

Yes, definitely.

 

The other firms I've been with have been strictly interior design firms.

 

Okay, yeah.

 

Working on my own, I did interior design, but worked with general contractors, so I had to collaborate with them.

 

What I like about Keenum & Co. is that it's like one-stop shopping.

 

So somebody can come here, and they can have a designer help them hold their hand and pick all of their stuff all the way through until it gets handed over to construction, and then construction can take over, and everything is encompassed in one place where they don't have to worry, does one person know what the other person's doing?

 

The other thing that I find very impressive by Keenum & Co. are the set of construction plans that the company puts together.

 

The collaboration, again, between the designers and the plans manager, cabinets manager, construction team, I don't know who else gets their hands on them, very comprehensive, should leave very little room for error in the field because there's so much information on the plan.

 

Yeah, that product, it really is your final product, is all coming out of the same infrastructure.

 

Everybody's rowing in the same direction to get there.

 

And you're not having to cross-collaborate with different companies, people, different processes, and so much of that becomes lost when you're dealing with a separate design firm, separate GC, like that.

 

And there's accountability where, like when you're working on your own as a designer, and you have a GC, and then they have their subs that they're using, who's accountable for when a tile's being installed improperly?

 

Or who's accountable for certain things?

 

Where if we have everything in-house, we know who's accountable.

 

We're accountable for all of it.

 

Yeah, I've often told customers that our most expensive line item on the proposal is responsibility.

 

And it's not a line item exactly, but it is that it's interwoven within that whole estimate that we're taking responsible for everything start to finish.

 

But I think that's why people wanna hire us because they know that the end product, they're getting in the great end product, but that at the end of the day, we are responsible for everything that happens from start to finish.

 

Exactly.

 

So let's talk a little bit about design trends.

 

Is there any particular trend or trends that you're excited about that's up and coming and that's getting a lot of attention?

 

I mean, I personally love the old world, Santa Barbara, modern Santa Barbara, Spanish.

 

I grew up in a 1920s Spanish house in the Hollywood Hills with original wood floors and beam ceilings and stained glass, my mom still lives there.

 

So that's, I love that style.

 

And that seems to be a trend right now.

 

Now a modern version of it.

 

Yeah, it's making it.

 

But white walls are coming back, white walls are back and they were gone for so long.

 

So the trend that I do not like, which I did like the whole time it was popular was gray.

 

So now grays are kind of trending out.

 

Nobody wants gray walls anymore and everybody wants the white fresh contrast with darks.

 

So you're glad to see that.

 

I am, but I mean, when it was here, it was great.

 

We all loved it, white cabinets, gray walls, wood tones with grays in it.

 

Now it's just has a different feel to it.

 

It feels more timeless and classic and back to its roots.

 

Okay, challenges.

 

What are some biggest challenges that you've faced on a project?

 

How'd you overcome it?

 

I would say the biggest challenges are just working with GCs that could not get the job to the finish line and clients, when I was working on my own, clients want you to refer a GC and I would refer a couple of times or had referred a couple of times and then I was like, I'm not anymore.

 

You have to find your own GC and then I'll do the design work because it was just hard to find somebody reliable.

 

Yeah, and then when it goes south, that tarnishes your reputation and yeah.

 

Right, and it's not my work.

 

I can make it look good, but the rest of it, getting it done is not my responsibility.

 

It's the GC's responsibility.

 

And did you ever have to have, I'm sure you did, but those incidences where that GC is pointing the finger at you saying you screwed up and you're like, no dude, you screwed up and.

 

You know what, thankfully I did not run into any of those circumstances.

 

That probably means you were a good designer.

 

That it was being, the finger was being pointed at me.

 

I almost had everybody end up taking responsibility for things that happened.

 

That's great.

 

Yeah, so I didn't have to come out of pocket and take care of anything.

 

Good, yeah.

 

What's the difference between an L.A. design path and a Las Vegas design path?

 

Is there any nuance to it?

 

Yeah, I think because Las Vegas is a relatively new city and most of the homes here were built like 1950s and moving forward, so they're not that old.

 

And they were no character.

 

They were just cookie cutter homes, right?

 

They're track homes.

 

A lot of production builds, yes.

 

Yep, production builds.

 

So there's a challenge in creating character in homes that have no character on the envelope, right?

 

Yeah.

 

So that is a challenge.

 

And then also it creates a challenge, the challenge that creates a market for us is the remodel industry, right?

 

Because all of these houses now need to be redone because nobody wants what was there.

 

So there's a lot of dated homes in Las Vegas that need help.

 

And how would you add character to a characterless production home?

 

I think through finishes and elements that you can bring in like lighting and maybe you're adding archways to, they may have had steps or pot shelves or ugly stuff.

 

Pot shelves, a lot, yeah.

 

So now we can clean up the production house stuff and maybe add, I would say like built-ins and things and beams, even if they're faux beams, beams or hardwood floors or vinyl floors, the LVP, or, you know, but elements that feel more natural and more organic to an original house.

 

I think a big one for me that I've seen is just the larger openings with windows and doors.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

And then if particularly you've got to blend in the landscape with that, that indoor-outdoor feel.

 

Yeah.

 

But when you can get the outside and the inside to harmonize, for me, that's what really sends it.

 

And that's really popular right now.

 

Yeah.

 

Bringing the indoors, uppers in.

 

Yeah, because obviously doing it, you know, you can do a great job on the inside and not do it on the outside and it just doesn't blend.

 

It doesn't have that holistic feel.

 

And quite the opposite.

 

I've been in some homes that are really outdated and then just have this killer yard.

 

And it's, you really want those things to talk to each other.

 

Yeah.

 

Okay, let's do some rapid fire questions.

 

What's your favorite color palette right now?

 

Neutrals.

 

If you could design for any celebrity, who would it be?

 

Any celebrity.

 

Matthew McConaughey.

 

Matthew McConaughey.

 

Who wouldn't want to work for Matthew McConaughey?

 

Yeah, I do like him.

 

Describe your dream project in three words.

 

Modern Santa Barbara.

 

Tell us a fun fact, something surprising about you that most people would not guess.

 

Fun fact was that I grew up in the Hollywood Hills underneath the Hollywood sign.

 

My mom still lives in the house that I grew up in.

 

My entire family, minus me, including my husband and my daughter who's studying it, are all in the entertainment business.

 

Okay, what's your vision for the future?

 

Looking ahead, what do you hope to achieve with Kingdom & Co?

 

And what are you most looking forward to in the new year?

 

I am looking forward to continuing to grow as a designer here within Kingdom & Co and be part of the team.

 

I'm continuing to learn things that I wasn't doing as well as being able to teach some of the designers stuff that they don't know.

 

I'm excited to bring furniture design.

 

Yes, that's what I'm excited about too.

 

Yeah, I bring it to Kingdom & Co so you can offer that service to your clients.

 

So you're really one-stop shop from beginning to end.

 

I'm also really excited about the new home division, building division, which I personally love to do because then you get to work floor plans all the way to the end and see your whole vision come to life, I love that.

 

Yeah, Erin's been giving us a masterclass, teaching us about furniture, sourcing it, and that's something that we just haven't, we've always kind of left off the menu.

 

Nobody really, and within our circle, knew much about it.

 

So that's also something we really appreciated by you bringing to the team.

 

What advice would you give to someone who's just starting their design career?

 

I would say definitely to get hands-on experience, get in the field somehow, get an internship, see how it all works.

 

With that said, I also think you need to take classes.

 

If you're not doing a full interior design program, take classes in CAD or any of the renderings or drafting, computer technology, which I do not have those skills because I went to school back when we were still doing hand drafting and I still used my hand drafting skills to scale out furniture and stuff.

 

Then hand them over to the plans manager to put it into the CAD program or whatever program he uses.

 

But I think that's really important in this day and age.

 

You have to have those technical skills.

 

It's amazing what we can do now and how we can 3D render and walk through virtually and all of that stuff.

 

So not only do you need to have the design skills, you should have some of the technical skills as well.

 

Yeah, and I would add, if there's a way you can get on job sites too, understand how, I guess with YouTube these days, there's so many resources for how to build stuff, the DIY community.

 

But it is really important, I think, to start accumulating that knowledge of how stuff goes together.

 

I agree, because there's still stuff that I don't understand on construction side that I try to learn.

 

Like I was just saying, for me, usually before coming here, when I'd pick plumbing, I'd pick a faucet and it was really pretty and that's the faucet I wanted.

 

Well here, because we're also construction side, I have to understand what goes into it, what other parts I need, or what goes in the wall for a shower head.

 

And those are things that I know, right, I know exist, and I know about them, but I'm not schooled in that stuff.

 

So there's definitely, it's good to understand the construction side of it too.

 

So again, I'm teaching them things, they're teaching me things.

 

So I like that.

 

So in summary, if you were to, in one sentence, to wrap all that up and what you're most excited about working with Keenum & Co., what would it be?

 

It'd be that I am excited to be part of the team here and to help the company grow and expand in a market that they're already cornering and doing amazing in.