We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Courtney Archibald a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Courtney with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I can trace my desire to work and succeed back to my adventures in babysitting, during my formative years. I noticed the parents and their littles were not just a means to a end for me. Each babe had unique quirks and interests and they were helplessly dependent on me to feel safe. Keeping them alive was the baseline, the minimum that was being asked of me, but what if I could create a whimsical, playful, world-within-a-world for them while their folks were gone? Further, the more joyful I made the hours we spent together, the more the kiddos asked for me by name. Also, I found a way to structure our days and nights, since the parents valued the rules and boundaries they had established with their children and didn’t want to deviate. I found myself having so much fun too, even though I was constantly on my toes. The schedules were strenuous. Some of the kids had life threatening allergies and even the pets had allergies sometimes!
Reflecting back on it now, the homes I was invited into, to care for their wee ones, were my introduction to the possibilities of the world of interior design. During my college years, I had numerous jobs in the affluent neighborhoods of San Francisco, since I was attending SF State. I had one job, for years, in the Sea Cliff neighborhood and they had STYLE! I once admired an elaborate crystal chandelier hanging in their garage that came with the house. She said, “You can have it.” That chandelier is still being stored at my parent’s house, waiting for my future home that’s worthy of its beauty.
In retrospect, I am still selecting things to use in my staging, I once saw inside those iconic San Francisco homes. For example: whimsical wooden toys, striped fabrics and tableware too pretty to use. What’s more, I want my staged properties to feel like those houses did. I want the staging to be perfect in a way a lived in home never could be, but not capsulated or artificial the way some staging looks. I want every treasure I place on built-in shelving to feel like the stuff of life. A ukulele you can pick up and strum, a Hoya plant that reaches far out towards the sunlight window, an antique plastic frog I spotted in a store window, and a perfect round stone I found in Montana, that came from the Rocky Mountains. My beds should look irresistible, like a hotel. They are layered and made on a real mattress with a turn down and fitted sheets. My lamps are all plugged in and can be switched on, cascading the light of a warm bulb, never harsh bulbs. When I check on the homes, to water the plants and freshen up, the pillows are smushed on the couch where somebody has taken a seat, the dining chairs are pulled out, the stuffed animals and blocks in the kid’s room are scattered. That happens in all real estate listings, but it still makes me feel like my staging is alive and real. It makes me so happy!
We stage a house, floor to ceiling, in two days. Every inch contains something I’ve thought about for many hours. Each install has its own personality, its own menagerie of plants, and I fall in love with every one. When a job is over my back aches from carrying storage bins, or my knees are having a fit after navigating the staircases that grace Oakland and Berkeley homes. Sometimes I long for a break. Creating, especially creating when there is money involved, is deeply tumultuous and emotional work and sometimes I ask myself, why am I doing this? But then a realtor calls and wants me to walk through another house with them. It will either be empty when I see it, or in some state of undress that comes with moving. Either way, I see a blank slate, a place to tell a story, a spot to try new ideas and I’m all in again.
People see what I do on TV, and they say, “Omg, that looks like so much fun! A dream job.” So many times I’ve retorted, “It is but…” and drone on about the things that make it hard. I’ve finally stopped doing that, because even though we are both right, they are right that it is fun and I am right that it is hard, the truth is, I dream about staging at night. So in that case, it is a dream job, and it is mine.
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