What happens when you choose
the right kind of hard?
When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by interiors. I would re-arrange and re-organize my room regularly, moving books and trinkets around until my room felt new again.
I remember the way it felt when I learned that “Interior Designer” was a job title. I was truly in awe of the idea that it could be someone’s job to make homes and rooms feel beautiful. Feel, being the key.
My path led me to journalism school in Halifax instead of design school in Toronto. But I’ve come far enough in my journey to see this deferment of my passion for design as a gift.
For a while, I let my love of interiors exist online through my blog, Sincerely, Rowan, and in the way I made myself feel at home in the many apartments and spaces I’ve lived in. I dismissed my passion for creating beautiful spaces as “just a hobby”.
But it never felt like just a hobby to me.
Design was always drawing me back. Daring me to do the one thing I’d always struggled with: to trust myself.
I followed every path except the one I was genuinely curious about until I couldn’t.
Two years ago, I quit the corporate job that looked fantastically impressive and important on LinkedIn. I blamed my burnout on the corporate landscape, the high-pressure position, and felt validated by the doctors who encouraged me to leave my job. But I don’t think I really took responsibility for what led me to burn out so completely.
When we ignore what our mind and body are telling us, and keep pushing forward, trying to fit into boxes we aren’t meant for, we get sick. And I got sick.
Not only because I’d made the “good girl, people-pleasing, high-achiever” archetype my entire identity. But also, because I knew I was completely disconnected from my true purpose, and I was too scared to do something about it. There’s a reason why uncovering the felt and unseen is such a big part of my design process. It’s because I know what it’s like to see a fork in the road and choose the path that looks good instead of the path that feels right.
Design has never just been about making things look beautiful to me. Beauty is certainly part of it, but design is really the journey of finding yourself. It’s figuring out how to express your deepest truths on the outside. It’s vulnerable and honest and life-affirming. When you live in a space that allows you to practice being the fullest version of yourself, it becomes unbearable to play pretend out in the world. My home is the foundation that everything in my life rests on. I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to leave my job and follow this dream without having a safe place to land.
And today, my design studio is one year old!
Rowan McKerihen Studios is the product of choosing the wrong paths over and over again, until there is only one possible path left to follow. It’s the amalgamation of every hat I’ve ever worn. Every day, I am a student. Journalist. Writer. Storyteller. Marketer. Listener. Artist. Project Manager. Photographer. Event Manager. Experience Curator…
And, I’m a designer and decorator
All of those hats inform my work in ways I could not have foreseen when I was making slime videos for a toy company or arranging meetings and press events for the leaders of this country.
It took me 20+ years to trust myself enough to follow the dream I’ve had since I was a little kid, drawing floor plans with pencil crayons. But I wouldn’t change a thing.
This year has been full of beautiful and brutal moments. But for the first time in my life, I know that I’m on the right path.
Thank you SO MUCH for being here! For allowing me into your inbox each week and, most importantly, into your homes. I’m so excited to see where the next year takes me, and I’m grateful that you are part of my journey.
And of course, if nobody told you today, you’re doing a great job xx
Sincerely, Rowan
