From Teaching Students to Teaching Clients with Uploft Interior Designer Shannon Major
I had the pleasure of reconnecting with Shannon Major, an inspiring designer from our team, as we continued our designer spotlight series. Shannon shared her journey from teaching to interior design, sparked by the creative itch she felt during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Design inspiration, real life makeovers, and the latest in pop culture. This is the Uploft interior design podcast with Betsy Helmouth. I’m so excited because this week we continue our series, our designer spotlight, where we’re talking to the interior designers from Uploft, learning
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more about them, learning what they’re into right now. And I’m excited to welcome back Shannon Major. Now, some of you will hear her voice or see her on YouTube and be like, she looks so familiar. Well, she has been on the podcast before a couple of years ago, but today we’re back with all new
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questions, all new ideas. And for those of you who didn’t see her a couple of years ago, we’ll fill you in on her backstory. So, welcome Shannon to the podcast. Thank you. Glad to be here. Yes. So, tell us for those of us who did not listen a couple years ago, even
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though I’m sure everybody will go back and listen after this episode, share a little bit about your background. Sure. Um, so I um have always been a creative person, but I didn’t start out as an interior designer for my career. Um, I started out and studied uh to be a teacher. Um,
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so I did that for several years. Um, and then when COVID hit, um, you know, obviously the world got shaken up and I I decided I needed a change. Um, and I was looking for something that would kind of fulfill the creative itch that I’ve always had. So, um, I I searched
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for, um, interior design courses. Um, I found the academy. Um, and I took the courses. I loved it. Um, and then, um, Uploft actually happened to have an opening, so I applied and here I am. So several years later, um, still loving it. Still still loving design. Um, and
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you know, it’s fun. Every day feels like something new because it is new projects. Yes. And what does a day in the life look like compared to, of course, being a teacher, which I’m sure every day was relatively the same in terms of your schedule. I don’t know. Ideally,
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yeah, tell me if I’m wrong about that because I really don’t actually know. Um, but what does a day look like as a designer? Yeah, it’s interesting. I feel like I went from one career um to another and they’re both different every day. Yeah, ideally teaching would be the same every
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day, but there’s all different, you know, things that happen, especially in elementary school. Um, but as a designer, um, you know, uh, the way we take clients, um, we meet with new people every day or several times a week. So sometimes, you know, I’m I’m waking up and I’m um you know, enjoying
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a relaxing morning or I’m working from home for a few hours and then I get on a train to the city and I take a client in, you know, the Upper West Side and then other days I’m working fully from home and I take a virtual client who lives in California. Um so every day is
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different in that way, which is really exciting, meeting new people every day. Um yeah, so kind of different schedules every day, but um the process with the clients um kind of stays the same. Um so, you know, going to elaborate a little bit more about that. Yeah, there’s freedom within a form, but
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there is a form overall, but what a leap. I know that for people who’ve heard your story before, it’s very inspiring. Maybe they’re in a career that’s changed a little bit for them or maybe they’ve got that creative itch that they want to scratch. What gave you the confidence to make that huge shift?
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Because that’s really big. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good question. Um I think um it just I had a good feeling about um well first of all it it was an interesting situation because it was COVID and um you know as everyone knows everything got harder during COVID teaching I would say was one of the
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careers in particular that got really really difficult and people you know had time to kind of think about you know what they wanted to do. um unfortunately like a lot of teachers left the the profession at that time. Um so that um kind of set me on the course to looking
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for something new. And then when I found the academy, it just felt like I was tapping into um a part of myself that I I wasn’t utilizing in my old career um as much. Um just the the pure creativity of it is what really um sparked my interest. And it it just felt exciting.
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Um which is something I hadn’t felt in a while. Very exciting. Um, and um, yeah, creative. I I keep saying creative, but that’s that’s really what I was looking for. And it it really does um, just kind of scratch that itch. Um, every day I’m looking at new color palettes, new um, problems to solve.
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It’s a lot of problem solving in terms of layouts. Um and I felt like um you know I had that um creativity inside me but then the academy um kind of give gave the practical tools. So that together kind of helped me gain the confidence of oh you know I can I can actually do this. It isn’t
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just um you know an eye or something that you have to have. Um there were really practical ways um in which I saw my um you know projects get better um as I was learning the the more concrete tools you know of design. Yes. And now that you’ve designed a lot of spaces I don’t know if you keep track
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do you keep track of the number I do. You do. How many spaces have you designed because you’ve been with us for over three years. Yeah. So how many spaces has that been? I um I try to keep track as best I can, but I um have counted over 150. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, it’s funny to kind of look
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back at the the beginning projects and um yeah, I’ve come a long way. I wish I would have kept track. I used to keep every questionnaire and then over the moves you have these huge boxes of questionnaires. You’re like, “What am I even doing?” My husband’s like, “What
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are you doing?” So, last move I only took two huge boxes with me and I let the others go and I miss those boxes. I just want to like swim in a pile of questionnaires for my clients. Yeah. It feels it feels uh Yeah. Uh it feels good to kind of look back and see how many. Yeah.
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But out of those 150, what’s one of your favorites? What’s one that’s really memorable or just when you think about ah I remember that one, what comes to mind? Yeah. Um I think it has to be one that I um a client that I took recently in Long Island. Um she and her family had just
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moved um I believe from Brooklyn out to Long Island. Um and they were in a really beautiful um more traditional style um a colonial home um and kind of adjacent to the Hamptons. I don’t think it was as far out as the Hamptons. Um, but she was young. She had a young
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family, young um, children. Um, but she had a kind of an ultrraditional um, coastal style, which I really wasn’t used to designing for. Um, but it really fit the style of her house and she was really passionate about it. Um and it was just kind of like a fresh um
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take on what um we’re usually designing for. Obviously trends come and go, but um a lot of people want similar things. So I was not expecting kind of from her um you know from her age and you know that that would be her style. So it was really fun to work with her. Um, and it
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was it was fun to work with someone who was pretty confident about a pretty unique style at this point, you know, in 2025. Um, yeah. So, I I had a lot of fun with that. It was like a lot of blues and whites and jute rugs and, you know, um that kind of classic coastal
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traditional style. Um, I think I also really liked it because I realized as I was um, designing it, it kind of came really naturally, which I was surprised about because it’s not really my personal style at all. But, um, my childhood home was kind of decorated in that in that way, more
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traditional. Um, lots of blues. My mom loves everything blue. Um, so I it just like was a comforting design um, in in in that way. Um, so yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. That’s a fun surprise. Yeah. When you feel like this style is going to be a leap or a challenge or that it’s maybe
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something you don’t really innately understand and then it fits like a glove for some kind of subconscious reason. Yes. Where did you grow up? Subconscious. Um, I grew up in northern New Jersey, so it wasn’t exactly like a coastal style. Um, we did have a room with like a lot
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of sailboats now that I think about it. A lot of sailboat figurines. Um, but it was more like traditional colonial um, style. Yeah. Um, when I feel like a lot of people in um, looking back now, a lot of people in my area at that time were was doing like the kind of Tuskcin Italian style,
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the Sopranos stuff maybe. Yes. Yes. Yes. Like the really dark Paris. Yes. Maybe like the swags on the drapery. Yeah. Um Yeah. So, um my house wasn’t like that. Um a lot of blues and Yeah. So, it it was just a fun project. Um yeah, kind of unexpectedly tapping into my childhood home.
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Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s very interesting. And now let’s segue a little bit to your personal design because you mentioned you sort of have a a style that’s different than that. What is something no matter the style that you feel like you include in every design? Is there
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sort of this thing that you’re always checking off? Do I have this or not really? There is I mean um yeah I I looking at a lot of my designs I don’t do this consciously but I do uh include a lot of um like open bookcases or ladder bookcases. Um and I think there’s a few reasons for
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that. Um we design a lot in New York City so it’s it’s great vertical storage. Those uh those bookcases that kind of attach to the wall. um are usually a lot taller than other bookcases, but they don’t feel as heavy because they don’t have sides, they don’t have backs. Um so they’re a great
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way to add extra storage. And something that I want to encourage everyone to include in their design after we leave, um even if I don’t source it for them, is um our books and plants because I think real plants and I, uh ladder bookcase is perfect for that. Um, and I just think books and plants just
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automatically turn, you know, kind of a stark, um, cold room into just homey and cozy. So, I I think they should be in every room. And, you know, a ladder bookcase can fit a lot of those. Yes. And there’s lots of plants that, you know, are very hearty because I know
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people are bristling, oh my gosh, do I need a green thumb? I when I was selling my last house, I am not a stager and somebody in the academy was a stager before she came to the academy. I hired her to virtually stage my house and she said, “Betsy,” this is Ashley from House
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Candy Home. If anybody wants to hire, she’s amazing, even virtually. Uh, so she said, “Betsy, your house needs to be one plant shy of a jungle in every room in order to make it feel homey and really attractive and really vibrant for people.” And so I went out to Trader Joe’s and I bought a
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whole bunch of plants. I do not have a green thumb, so I didn’t want to like be devastated if these plants died. And I still have them in my house, this house, like 5 years later, whatever it is. So she was right. And they just warm up every room. Now my favorite thing is to
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go around and water them. Like my kids never finish their cups of water, so I just take old cups of water from dinner and go feed all the plants. That TMI, there’s probably backwash in there. Okay, we won’t get into it. But they’re nourished by backwashed dinner water. Um, that’s my secret.
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But I couldn’t agree more. That all that was to say that I can’t agree more. And I love a ladder bookcase also because they’re so child friendly in terms of you don’t have to worry about anchoring to them to the wall since they literally attach to the wall in order to stand up.
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So I use them so many times in my own nursery and in other people’s nurseries and kid-friendly spaces. So another perk of that ladder bookcase. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Now, when you’re shopping in New York City, because you’re primarily our city designer, even though you mentioned a
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suburban space, many times you’re right in the heart of Manhattan, what is a hidden gem? Where’s a place where you always find a really cool design piece or a place you love to go? Yeah, that’s a good question. Um I I feel like I find the most um you know hidden gems um when I’m walking
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to and from a client. A lot of times we source virtual or you know online. Um but I pass through a lot of um markets like farmers markets but there’s a lot of like craft booths and artist booths. Um, and I always stop by those. Um, Union Square has a really big one, um,
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that I’m always walking through just because we have a lot of clients in that area. Um, and I find artists that are don’t even have an online presence. Um, and I usually just have to take their card and they have like a random Instagram with not that many followers,
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so I would have never come across them. Um, but I love that. I just feel like um it’s it’s something you would have never discovered otherwise um in a very like virtual uh consumer world that we live in. Um and it’s real artwork um that’s usually affordable because small smaller
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artists. Um and yeah, I really like it. I I it’s it’s a dream of mine to just have a booth at an at an art fair. So, I’m like I always want to support these these people that you know bring all their their art and um try to sell it at these markets. Um yeah, and you know
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that they’re it’s it’s their passion project. They’re, you know, they’re putting their all into it and it’s um yeah, I think it’s just a great way to find kind of authentic um real uh art pieces. Yeah. Well, and it’s so nice in this world that’s virtual. I just went on
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Etsy the other day to recommend some drawings for a client and I could tell that all the drawings that I was initially finding were done by AI. He wanted um sketches of his pets. Yeah. And I was like when I looked at the first three pages of Etsy results, I could tell it was all AI and I literally
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went to like page 15. I’m like get me away from this. I want to get that essence again. It’s so hard to find it online. So, even if you do find a resource at a market and you want to recommend something to a client, but we only recommend online items, you can take that Instagram, you can find their
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particular Etsy account or go to their website and recommend in that way and really vouch for them because I saw it, touch it, felt it at the market. So, anyway we can get back to that because it was so disheartening to me. Like I can go on chat GPT and make my own
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sketch of your tabby cat, but I really want to find something a little bit more soulful. I know it’s very Yeah, Etsy and Pinterest, it’s really tough now. But yeah, so going to the market and seeing with my own eyes, it’s like the proof of, okay, I’m looking this artist in the
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face. They’re real. So yeah, it feels good. They’re not a robot yet. Soon everyone in the markets will also be robots and we will be robots, but not yet. Not quite yet. So what is your number one design tip? You’ve been doing this for three years. You’ve maybe had enough time to gather
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your own philosophies and own ideas. What do you keep thinking about or repeating to people as that number one tip? Yeah. Um, I think something that comes up over and over again um is I think um for people to be realistic and um honest with themselves um when when they’re designing a space. I
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think it’s really easy to especially when um we give people the very difficult task of surprisingly difficult task of finding inspiration images. Um you know I had to do it myself when I first started here and it’s it’s truly very difficult. Um, and people always
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have a difficult time with it because I think it’s hard for people to see themselves in these ideal daged photos of beautiful spaces. Um and I think um sometimes people are expecting that an interior design designer will come in and create that staged space. Um, but I
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really encourage people to be real realistic about a their the space, b their um their tidiness habits, and truly no judgment. Like if you know it’s just important to be realistic. Yeah. Um and C about their living habits, about, you know, guests and dinner parties. Um, I think it’s really
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important to design for the life that you’re living and not not an idealist kind of version um that you think um maybe like a new living room design will create. And I’m not trying to say that in any sort of harsh way. I think, you know, once you do have a beautiful
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space, um, you know, you’ll want to take care of it and and things like that. But I think it it does have to reflect who you really are. Um and just to kind of give a concrete example um for me um and I think this comes up a lot for clients too. Um like a beautiful entry space. So I’m someone who
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I’m walking in. I’m putting my my shoes in the closest possible space to the door. And I’m not going to open up a closet to put them away. I just know that about myself. So, I create a little space next to the door to do that and with hooks and things so I can easily
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put my clos um you know jacket down as well. Um and I know that about myself. So, I’m not going to um you know, leave that space blank and assume that you know I’m going to put my jacket and shoes and everything in the closet down the hall because that’s not going to happen. They’re just going to
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end up in a pile next to the door. And I know that about myself. So, I think working uh within that reality, I created a cute little, you know, shoe storage and hook system by my door that looks really nice. Um, instead of kind of thinking, well, ideally this would all be empty and I would, you know,
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pristine and everything would be behind closed doors because I just I just know that that’s not the case. Um, I hope that makes sense. Yes. And when you’re looking at those after photos, as somebody who’s styled many of those, even my most pristine clients have a few things that we remove or
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style differently for the picture. And so it’s looking at a retouched model in a magazine and saying, “I want that result when I’m done dining.” It’s ridiculous because that person doesn’t even really look like that. Even my tidiest clients who have $6 million homes still leave a shoe by the door and
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we remove it for the picture. Right. Exactly. And so the pictures are the inspiration but they are not the translation because nobody is really living like that. Right. Except for those robots we mentioned earlier. they’ll probably like that. But, uh, I think that that is a really
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important thing to tell clients because I think that there’s shame involved, right? Like, I don’t want to tell you, but I’m never going to put my shoes in the closet, and I don’t want to tell you, but when I get home, I just throw the mail down. I don’t like open it and
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categorize it in a file cabinet. And these are things we need to know in order to be able to create solutions that help. They’re not going to make it ready for us to shoot a magazine shoot. Do people do magazines anymore? No. Okay. But anyway, you know what I’m saying? Uh, we’re not shooting it for
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HGTV tomorrow. What we’re doing is giving them a gracious living space that accommodates their needs that they don’t have to constantly worry about. Like, I know where my shoes go. They’re wrangled in this boot tray and I feel good even though, you know, I may not be putting
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that picture on Pinterest. Exactly. That’s okay. Yeah. Well, my last question for you is you design in so many different city spaces. What is your approach when you’re designing in a small urban space? Um I think there are a lot of challenges um with smaller spaces. Um, I think urban spaces
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are not only smaller obviously, but sometimes they have really strange layouts because apartments get cut up and, you know, turned into four apartments. Um, or these newer buildings, you know, have giant, uh, you know, high-rise supports running through them. Um, and beautiful floor to ceiling
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windows, but nowhere to hang like a picture frame or a TV. Um, so I think layout is is always the first and most important um, you know, hurdle to jump over um, when designing. So that’s always first. Um, and sometimes you have to get creative, you know. Um, sometimes those windows do
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have to get covered up a little bit by uh, you know, part of a sectional or something like that. Um, so that’s my first step of the approach. um is coming up with a realistic layout um for the space. And then beyond that, I think um storage is always an issue in in any apartment. So
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um thinking about vertical storage, like I said, that’s that’s where all the ladder bookcases come in. Um using kind of every vertical inch um is really important um because the floor space is is very limited. Um, and also just being mindful about um the type of storage.
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Um, so instead of open shelves, which the ladder bookcase sometimes are, um, creating a lot of opportunities for closed storage as well. So TV console, closed closed doors. So all that is hidden away. Um, even on the bookshelves, baskets, things like that. So even if the the space is tight and
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there is a lot that we need to fit in the space, visually it feels cleaner um and less cluttered um when you’re not seeing every single item that you have on display, you know, whether you want to or not. Um so that those those are my few approaches to um those smaller tricky spaces.
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Yes. And I can’t say enough about floor plan, floor plan, floor plan. You know, when people are thinking maybe even when you started at the academy, most people are not excited about creating floor plans. They’re about picking paint and artwork and colors and fabrics. And yes, that is a really fun
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part of it. But if you do not have a proper layout, if you do not have the right pieces in the right places in the right sizes, no matter what you do, it’s not a good design. And it’s just such a crucial component that almost feels in my mind more like geometry and math
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because I’m doing a lot of calculations in that stage when I’m doing the floor plans and trying to make sure that I’ve allotted enough space for walkways etc. There’s just so much math in that piece and the fun artistic side usually for me comes a lot later. Uh and I think people
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forget that step but it is so crucial. It is so important and that’s where a lot of that expertise comes in because what people like is so subjective, but having that solid layout. You’ve got a huge column in the middle of your living room and this is how we’re going to, you
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know, crack that nut because you want to watch TV. You need a sectional for six people. You need blah blah blah blah blah. Like, you’ve really got to solve this puzzle before you have fun with the design. So, I couldn’t agree more. It’s all about the floor plan. It’s all about the
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layout. So many people write me in with questions to the podcast and they’re asking me about, you know, Betsy, what color should my drapes be? What color should the paint be? Should I change it up? I’m like, no, you got to move that couch first. I can’t even look at the
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drapes until you move that couch. Yeah. Uh, and that’s my own block, but I think it also stresses just how important that first step is. Is do I have the right pieces in the right places? Yeah, exactly. You can’t move forward unless you do. Agreed. Agreed. Well, it’s been so great
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having you on the podcast. If people want to learn more about you, if they want to see your designs, they can just head over to uploft.com. Shannon has her own page with mood boards she’s been working on. And of course, if you check this episode out on YouTube, you’ll be able to see Shannon
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talking uh sharing her stuff. We’ll be splicing in some mood boards, so you’ll be able to see in real time as you listen the challenges that she’s illustrating. But it’s always great to have you back on the show. And of course, it’s wonderful to have you on our team.
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Yes. Thank you for having me. This was fun. Yay. Well, until next time, everyone. Bye. A big thanks to our producer Jeremy Young and to Eton and the Embassy for our theme music. And shout out to our parent company, Uploft Interior Design, your trusted source for expert interior
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design. Visit uploft.com to explore our services and book a consultation with one of our talented designers. If you’re enjoying the Uplift and Tear Design podcast, please support us by sharing the show with friends and leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or
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wherever you listen. It’s the best way to help new listeners find us. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next week with more pro tips and pop culture dish.