Andrea Meats shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Andrea, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
My mornings are very intentional. I begin most days with a ballet class, either at home or at Prickly Pear Dance. This allows me to start my days with 3 important elements: movement, passion, and discipline. This grounds me in my body before my kiddos wake up and the day becomes outward-facing. Starting my day with ballet reminds me to lead with presence rather than urgency.
After ballet, I move into a quieter rhythm. I make coffee, watch the sunrise, and take a few moments to set my intentions for the day ahead. This pause before shifting into motherhood, work, and collaboration has become essential. It allows me to show up more thoughtfully for my family and with clarity and calm in my design work.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Andrea Meats, Principal Interior Designer and Founder of Animas Ridge Interiors, based in Durango, Colorado. I lead a design practice grounded in thoughtful, human-centered interiors, shaped by over a decade of experience across healthcare, hospitality, workplace environments, and a curated selection of alpine retreat homes.
My foundation is both deeply technical and an art form. I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from a CIDA-accredited program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and began my career working within an architecture firm, collaborating on complex commercial projects across Colorado and the U.S. This experience and my lifelong connection to art and ballet influences how I design, bringing rhythm, balance, flow and a deep connection to nature into every space.
Today, my work bridges disciplined commercial expertise with deeply personal residential design, creating spaces where functionality, materiality, and light work together to support healing, connection, and everyday life.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
At my core, I am an artist. Before career expectations and professional titles entered the picture, my happiest moments were always spent dancing and creating. Those early experiences shaped how I see, feel, and respond to space.
Motherhood and especially my daughter brought me back to that place. It reminded me of the value of creativity, presence, and intention. The value of honoring who we really are instead of listening to what everyone expects from us. Today, my practice is less about becoming someone new and more about honoring who I have always been.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Yes, every day we have a choice: to give up, or to do what we intended to do and there are two seasons when I came very close to giving up:
The first was during university. I am originally from El Salvador, and Spanish is my first language. I attended a CIDA accredited interior design program where the early years are heavily rooted in architecture. At the time, I was navigating cultural shock, and the mental exhaustion of learning complex technical concepts in a second language. I vividly remember struggling through architectural scales and the metric system, wondering if I truly belonged there. What carried me through was a quiet but intentional choice: I stopped thinking about the entire degree and focused on getting through one semester at a time. Each day I chose not to give up. That season taught me resilience and patience, lessons I now pass on to my children.
The second was when I became a mother. I felt deeply pulled in two directions: the desire to continue growing professionally and the equally strong desire to be fully present with my children. Choosing to step away from a traditional career path required courage and trust in my intuition, especially amid outside voices encouraging me to do otherwise. I had so many opportunities to go back to my “traditional career”, but this would mean giving up on my dreams of being fully present for my children and homeschooling. Each day brought the same decision—to walk away from what no longer fit or to keep honoring what mattered most, my family!
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
My closest friends would say that what is most important to me is Family. Being present and nurturing connection and creating long lasting memories with my children and husband. Then Health, both physical and emotional, movement, time in nature, and balance are not luxuries in my life, they are essentials. Especially as mothers, we have to show up for ourselves so that then, we can show up to others. And finally, following our Passions. For me that is dance, creative work and spending time in nature. When those three are in harmony (Family, Health and Passions), I feel most like myself, and everything else flows.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope the story people tell about me is that I was present. That I listened. That I loved deeply and lived with intention.
More than anything, I hope my daughter remembers that she was always seen, that she was encouraged to trust her instincts, follow her curiosities, and move through the world with both strength and grace. I hope she remembers watching me choose alignment over expectation, creativity over fear, and family over speed.
If both of my children grow up knowing that anything is possible, that we evolve and we need to honor who we are at different seasons of life, and to build a life that feels true rather than performative, then I will have done my work. That is the legacy I care most about leaving.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aminteriordesignhouse.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreameats/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreameats
Image Credits
Rebecca Bonner, Vic Moss and Animas Ridge Interiors
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
