Hi Friends! Welcome in! Kick up your feet, have a beverage, stay a while. We’re Anna and Kelsey, writing to you from Seattle, Washington, here to introduce you to Sturdy House Co. our small design studio and gathering space. But first, a bit about how we got here…

We met at our tech sales jobs in 2019, on the 17th floor of a high rise in downtown Seattle. Back in the times when tech companies were in-person five days a week, and we were “office people”, we’d take frequent walks from our desks to the company kitchen to fetch free snacks, what a fortune. And on those walks we’d lightly discuss the software deals we were closing, but mostly we’d bond over a common obsession for design. We’d both just gotten back from Copenhagen, separately and by coincidence, and were perpetually explaining to each other that Scandinavian furniture and Danish design made us feel weak in the knees. And talks of Denmark led to more design talks about how much our surroundings, and design of all sorts, impacts us physically and emotionally (for example if we accidentally land in a space with fluorescent lights or a sign involving the font Curlz MT, we will be overcome by a general malaise, but anyways…). We’d both studied design to different extents in college and were hyper aware of the role design played in our lives, but neither of us had pursued a design career. And the thing we bonded over the most, was that the existing format and definition we knew of ‘interior design’ felt flat and constricting.

So fast forward to January 2021, we’re at home on Zoom, likely in bottom-half lounge wear. With a ‘New Year New You’ pep in our step, we start a text thread about starting a design company. Now what that company would look like, we weren’t sure yet, but that seemed fitting. We didn’t see design as sitting quietly in a neat defined box, so our little design studio was going to be free to roam and evolve. We hired a creative coach to help us follow this little design idea as it zig-zagged on a journey of self-discovery, and in the Fall of 2021, Sturdy House Co. was born.

So here’s where we stand now….we know design is powerful and multi-sensory and we believe the end user of a space needs to be at the core of the design process. If design and our surroundings can evoke physical and emotional responses, then the process of designing should not only account for these responses, but start with them. For example, what is the end feeling you’re looking to achieve in your space. Calm, inspired, energetic, grounded? This is where we’ll start and then work backwards. We created an intuitive design process where we help you identify the essence you’re aiming for in your space, define the details of your vision and bring your desires for your space to life. And this is why we love design. Because of the power it can have in our daily lives and the thrill of using it as a tool to shift our emotions and actions.

At the end of the day, we’re truly people people and we love getting to know what makes you you, so email us, follow us on instagram, have a drink with us etc.

Xoxox,

Anna, Kelsey & Sturdy House