Since 2013, my design business has been guided by one principle: the HOME reflects the SELF.
I've worked with makers, vendors, collaborators, and our team with a singular purpose -- to create homes that reflect the true nature of our clients.
However, due to the pressured realities of family obligation, over stimulation and time, many of our clients are challenged to connect with themselves in a consistent and meaningful way.
What I've discovered is the yearning to be of help in the space of connection and belonging is the work I want to do. It is from here we are better equiped to create HOME.
At MKD we marry the inner and outer worlds design. We provide both Internal and Interior Design Services: processes to create the inner space and outer place you yearn for—a place to call HOME.
I'll be the first to admit—the above sounds lofty, and without execution, concept is nothing more than a daydream. We all need practical application and support to make our hopes a sustainable reality.
After years operating as a one-person shop, I'm fortunate our tiny team has taken MKD from me to we.
In 2020, my business had a major growth spurt—yes, right at the beginning of Covid. One of my closest friends shared about a HeartMath group she just "knew" I'd be into to help navigate those surreal times. In that group, I met Erin Robinson, and we began a friendship.
One night, I was crying on the phone with her about not being able to keep up with the work in front of me—including my own billing. She very simply said, "I think I can help you."
Erin builds the systems that make our interior design projects flow. All the phases and processes I had in my head or on a million sticky notes are now organized in Google Drive and effectively translated to our planning platform, Studio Designer. Erin supports all of our efforts -- from Scope and Terms proposals to contracts to monthly billing -- tracking our agreements to execution with integrity.
Her professional background is in Operations Management in the retail space. When the pandemic hit, she used this transition to pivot toward work that better resonated with her personal values. Outside of work, Erin maintains a home in Lakewood, Colorado called Grateful Farms, where she cultivates heart intelligence and field coherence with a small number of animals, including equines, to help people heal.
Operations mind, healing heart.
The next growth push came when I acknowledged needing more than an assistant. I needed real design support. This person had to be an extraordinary multi-hyphenate: interior design training, talent and ambition; deft computer presentation skills; some marketing, some filing, some dusting, plenty of resource library research, a strong work ethic, and the ability to be client-facing.
My additional hope and the cream on top? Someone with approachable sophistication and taste that harmonized with mine. Secretly, that's what I hoped for first; the rest is teachable.
Enter, Anais Falantin...
Anais has a background in luxury real estate management in New York and Hawaii. She is a graphic artist who grew up in France and had recently completed her Interior Design certificate program at UCLA. She was ready to start working in the field, and -- bam! -- I found the talent I needed. Anais has a pulse on every moving piece of a project from design creation to installation. She is beautifully committed to an exceptional experience.
As we cultivate and grow our services, I marvel at how lucky I am. The three of us are excited to expand as we embark on this experiment of linking Internal with Interior Design Services.
Erin continues to stabilize our operations as we grow, while in parallel supporting her own growth with Grateful Farms. Anais is taking a more prominent role in all our interior projects and—I believe—is growing into a "designer to watch". I continue to serve our clients with more capacity, creating more pathways home.
The three of us are each part of a constellation that creates this star cluster.
We'd love to help you create the space that reflects your true self. Please contact us to begin with a complimentary call.
Principal Designer, Interior Design
Teacher and Guide, Internal Design
Operations Manager
Designer, Interior Design
We all yearn to feel at home and belong. For me, I have and continue to create this experience through movement, art, healing, and design.
My creative arts progression has been dancer, to actor, to designer.
At fifteen, I moved to Houston to study with the Houston Ballet on scholarship. This foundational tutelage informs my eye, my sense of space, my body awareness—and the refined beauty that comes from each of these disciplines to describe the extraordinary lines of the human condition.
I am a Lifetime Member of The Actor's Studio, a storied institution devoted to craft and to expressing the truth of the human condition. My time there taught me that every space is a living character that has the capacity to propel or block narrative. Space and those who inhabit it are meant to be in relationship.
I hold a BA in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin and an Associates Degree in Interior Design from Parsons School of Design at The New School.
Over the past decade-plus, I have completed more than 100 interior projects for homes in New York and Los Angeles—and, more recently, one each in Hawaii and Mexico.
My healing arts progression has been artist, to student, to guide.
I have formally studied both meditation and astrology since April of 2001—twenty-four years—with the late Tanda Tashjian. Since her passing, I continue my meditation studies with her teacher, Sifu Leong Tan.
I now teach a weekly class for the Tanda Astrology community and work with private clients utilizing meditation, astrology, and somatic intelligence.
I am actively enrolled in and pursuing certification in Integral Somatic Psychology™, founded by Dr. Raja Selvam. Dr. Selvam leads the training modules personally, and certification is earned through supervised hours with both Dr. Selvam and his clinical staff.
I will always be both a student and a teacher. That is who I am. I study and walk a path intent to actualize connection, belonging, and refinement of SELF. To be at home with the self—your self, my self—that is true belonging, and that is how we create HOME.
Ready to begin? Contact us for a complimentary call.