1200: Delivering on champagne dreams for clients REGARDLESS OF THEIR BUDGET w/ Taylor Lewis-Costa

Affordable Interior Design: How to Get a Champagne Look for Less

Taylor Lewis Costa, founder of TLC Home, explains how she moved from litigation consulting to running a value-driven interior design studio based in Charlotte. Her mission is to make elevated aesthetics accessible, using smart sourcing, vendor discounts, and fixed-price packages so clients achieve luxurious results without premium costs.

Design Apprenticeship and Career Pivot for Entrepreneurs

Taylor’s backstory is an instructive example of a modern apprenticeship: she leveraged a part-time role with an established designer to learn the craft while applying consulting skills to the business side. This pivot highlights how transferable skills—contracts, time estimation, client billing—can accelerate a career change into creative industries like interior design.

Market Positioning: Affordable Luxury and Pricing Transparency

TLC Home’s differentiator is simple: pass preferred vendor discounts to clients instead of marking items up. By using an honest, fixed-pricing model and transparent sourcing, Taylor builds trust with budget-conscious homeowners who want high-impact design without inflated costs. This positioning expands market reach and converts self-disqualifying prospects into paying clients.

Practical Tools: Space Planning, RoomSketcher, and Canva

Taylor emphasizes tech that improves decision-making and reduces surprises. She uses RoomSketcher for accurate room dimensioning and Canva for client presentations. These affordable software tools help clients visualize furniture scale and layout, preventing costly returns and improving satisfaction.

Client Communication and Expectation Management

Success comes from asking priority-focused questions and offering tiered options. Taylor presents a lower-price and higher-price version of design solutions, clearly outlines delivery or assembly needs, and guides clients through realistic outcomes. She frames worst-case scenarios and return options to reduce buyer anxiety.

Entrepreneurial Lessons: From Risk Tolerance to Hiring

Key takeaways for entrepreneurs include embracing the "go for it" mentality, accepting ongoing imposter syndrome, and being strategic about first hires. Taylor’s first hire marked a scaling milestone—an intentional decision to invest in operations even before maximizing personal draw.

• Takeaway: Use fixed-price design packages to remove billing friction and create predictable client value.
• Takeaway: Pass vendor discounts to clients to offer true affordable luxury and win trust.
• Takeaway: Use RoomSketcher for accurate space planning to prevent size and scale mistakes.

This episode is a practical roadmap for designers, consultants, and entrepreneurs who want to build a service business rooted in transparency, affordability, and smart use of technology.