Meet Emily Mackie of Inspired Interiors in River North

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Mackie.

Emily, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up in Texas, I had a passion for design that came from two influential women in my life. In the early 80s, my mother began flipping houses for supplemental income, a process that fascinated me as I watched her hard work transform each home. Meanwhile, my stepmother lived a life of luxury, jet-setting off to Europe to collect antiques for her shop in Dallas. Together, both women served as creative role models for me, ultimately motivating me to build her career and found my own luxury interior design firm.

I first moved to Chicago to work as a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines, and soon after enrolled in the Illinois Institute of Art Chicago. Driven, like my hard-working mother, I attended school during the week and worked as a flight attendant on the weekends, becoming well known as the flight attendant with the T-square hanging out of my bag.

I accepted a position at Gensler and began working six months prior to graduating with my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design. In my first year at Gensler, I was responsible for the design and specification of $12 million in commercial furnishings. In the years that followed, I continued to work on large-scale commercial interior design, and assisted in the development and design of several nationally marketed furniture products.

After a few years with Gensler, I felt it was time to make a change. I wanted to be more intimately involved with my projects – see how a house was built and watch that progress every day until the design that I envisioned was sitting right in front of me. In 2003, I went to work in the residential kitchen and bath design. It was there that I experienced what it was like to work directly with homeowners and control the process from start to finish. After a year of doing residential design, I knew I had found my niche. I received my National Council for Interiors Design Qualification (NCIDQ) and license in the State of Illinois, and became a professional member of the American Society of Interiors Designers (ASID.) By 2004, I had founded my own luxury design firm, Inspired Interiors.

Twelve years later, Inspired Interiors is one of the most sought after luxury design firms in Chicago, working on everything from sleek city penthouses and stately suburban estates to trendy corporate offices and boutique hospitality spaces. A truly full-service design firm, Inspired Interiors is accountable for the entire design process, handling projects from pre-acquisition to “magazine ready.” I believe in taking a personalized approach to design – spending time understanding a client’s needs and then blending in best practice. Ultimately, Inspired Interiors’ mission is to create interactive environments that enhance how clients live, love, work and function.

Inspired Interiors has been consistently recognized by the design community, receiving awards such as the ASID Design Excellence Award in the kitchen category and contract space under 3,000 square feet. Also, for the past six years in a row the firm has received Best of Houzz badges, both in design and in service. However, none of that has stopped my relentless ambition to continue improving, and I recently completed Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Business Program. In 2015, I was honored with the Professional Remodeler Magazine’s 40 under 40 award.

When I’m not working, I can be found taking my three children on a cross-country road trip (we’ve visited 25 states thus far) or building out my Northshore Chicago home, which I designed to have three interior slides for my kids!

Has it been a smooth road?
Being present for my children while running my business has always been a challenge. For instance, breastfeeding infants while answering emails…that wasn’t easy. Crazy fact: I literally went straight to the office after my third C-section.

Another challenge I’ve found with this field is being a woman in the male-dominated construction industry. Unfortunately, this means I have to work that much harder to be taken seriously.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Inspired Interiors is an award-winning interior design firm that delivers luxury, personalized design. A collection of 11 interior designers, our team promises to customize every space to reflect each client’s personality and lifestyle. Having worked on everything from sleek city condos and stately suburban homes to trendy corporate offices and boutique hospitality spaces, our firm is fully accountable for the design, construction, furnishing and detailing of each project.

We try to help our clients reflect on their lives and discover/identify what they want to improve. This knowledge allows the our team to prescribe design solutions that deliver authentic and unexpected moments, changing the way our clients live, love, work and function within their space.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
There is an amazing architectural history here in Chicago, and I’ve really enjoyed running a design business and raising my children here.

Contact Info:

• Address: 25 W. Hubbard
  Floor 2
  Chicago, IL 60654
• Website: www.inspiredinterior.com
• Phone: 773-728-0419
• Email: info@inspiredinterior.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspired_intrs/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InspiredInteriorsChicago/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Inspired_Intrs
• Other: http://www.houzz.com/pro/inspiredinteriors/inspired-interiors

Image Credit:
Inspired Interiors

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