Meet Amanda Giuliano (Jew-lee-ano) | Principal Designer and Studio Manager at Nicolette’s For The Home in Southold, NY.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amanda Giuliano (Jew-lee-ano) and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, do you disagree with some advice that is more or less universally accepted?

Work / life balance. It’s just so ridiculously unrealistic for small business owners. You ARE your business and the unfortunate aspect of that is people rely on you to be present and essentially BE the product. Yes, you can train you team to be “mini – you’s” but you can never make them fully you and that’s just a fact. You will find ways to accept some of the things you can’t control or how that “mini-you” does their job however, you will always be haunted by wanting to reach for that carrot of success and consistently grow. This means you will always be in charge of the ship, your brain will always be moving at all hours of the day and night assessing. You will be the one who has to flex your time and energy when someone doesn’t show up or messes up because, you know your reputation is on the line.

So… you will always work harder for yourself because entrepreneurs typically have high standards of themselves and if you want to be successful, maintaining those standards creates unbalance.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

Our business is unique. It’s truly the first of its kind that I’ve ever known of but now I feel like I am starting to see shops across the country pop up on social media with similar takes. I mean, I doubt we are pioneers, but we certainly weren’t mainstream.

We are a kitchen and bath design showroom that also offers interior design services BUT, we are also a home decor retail store. You can come in and by a $10 candle or a $40,000 kitchen. I did not want our shop to have a warehouse vibe. Our store is a Dutch colonial home from the late 1800’s in the historic district of Southold, NY. The first floor is the sales floor and the second floor has our offices and storage rooms. The main kitchen is our custom cabinetry display. We have small bathroom vignette displays as well as a mudroom, custom built-in’s and a mini kitchen display throughout the first floor. It’s blended in with our retail products such as barstools, pendants, wall and tabletop decor, authentic vintage pieces, rugs, etc. I wanted our customers to actually LOOK at the FEEL of a space in a real home vs. florescent lighting in a big box store with zero personality.

We don’t have thousands of samples of the sales floor either like a typical kitchen and bath showroom. They are all tucked away in our sample room on the second floor by our offices because we want clients to talk to us first. This allows us to build the space for them based on what they describe they want. In my opinion, that is the best way to create a fully curated home with no regrets.

Now, how we got here is such a long story… too much to type! It was not easy for me. I left a corporate job with benefits to work for a small company and of course, convince the owner to let me open and kitchen and bath design studio along with retail merchandise that I would make it wildly successful. We’re entering year 5 of our design studio and I am so glad I made the jump. We are working on a lot of changes currently as lessons are continuously learned in business. The biggest thing I want people to know about us is we are everyday people with an incredible talent for design. My husband and sister work with me and our junior designer is basically the little sister I always wanted. We are extremely involved in our projects and get our hands dirty. You won’t find us dressed to the nines and I know that sounds odd coming from an interior designer, but we are authentically ourselves. I love fashion – LOVE it! However, I work a lot, have a toddler, pets and physically do a lot like remerchandising in the shop with the girls, organize deliveries, I am constantly running to job sites, processing merchandise, etc. so I have learned quickly that my nicer outfits just stopped surviving. That being said, you will find us in comfy leggings, t-shirts and probably baseball caps on any average day.

Our work speaks for itself. Some (or many) designers may disagree with my sentiment on this but in 2022 actions speak louder than labels or ideas. We are producers, not peacocks.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

This is such a great question! Well, my friends from Minnesota usually insist on going to the NYC when they come to visit. I actually despise going to the city nonetheless I will show them around, search for the best themed restaurants, find unique museums like the Rose Mansion or the Ice Cream Museum and of course hit up all of the touristy spots. Where I live on the island, which is referred to as the North Fork, is full of vineyards, farms, beaches, breweries, and old charming towns from the 1600’s. We will of course hit up some of the small vineyards, my favorite two favorite are The Old Field Vineyards and Croteaux. The Old Field Vineyard is so quaint. There’s always a group of chickens wandering around and a puppy. Croteaux is definitely more manicured but it is still small and tucked away off a side street in Southold. Other fun things we will do is obviously to the beach, set up a fancy dinner at American Beech in Greenport or do a fun casual dinner at Barrow House in Jamesport. My two favorite breakfast spots are Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck and the Cutchogue Diner in Cutchogue that is an old midcentury silver little thang. In fall, you can go pumpkin and apple picking, get cider donuts at just about any farmstand and homemade pies.

My favorite drinks are at the Halyard which is on the Sound in Greenport or at Lucharito’s which is a Mexican restaurant in Greenport Village (best margs) that is a luchador theme! It’s awesome and so much fun.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

My success has come from a wide variety of life lessons and encounters I’ve had from taking risks. I could break down my success on so many levels however I would say my drive definitely comes from my parents. I hated hearing “no”. Despised it actually. It left me with a burning desire to prove evreyone wrong by doing what they thought I couldn’t. As far as my experience in custom millwork and kitchen and bath design, my attention to detail absolutely was flourished by an amazing designer at yes… Lowe’s Home Improvement stores. It was one of my first real jobs after graduating college for interior design. I know people knock the designers (usually I do too!) at big box stores since many lack attention to detail or common sense which is simply because many don’t have proper formal training but I am so glad I did my first 4 years in the industry with Lowe’s. It allowed me to mess up and I also got to mentor under a unicorn. Robert Covitt, who was out of the Stonybrook, NY location where I worked was an incredible designer. He had so much patience with me and allowed me to hone my skills. He focused on so many details and would make sure I was continuously asking questions.

Now in Lowes, the kitchen designers do not conduct measurements and homeowners came in with measurements. If information was missing, Robert would force them to come back with additional measurements especially if people showed him photos of their spaces and let’s just say a vent in the ceiling wasn’t going to be moved, so he’d tell them to go back home and measure how far out it was because if they wanted crown to the ceiling he needed to know what size crown molding to put on the cabinets. He caught so many things. It allowed me to see spaces in a way college never prepared me for. He taught me about cabinetry, how to install it, the mistakes contractors will make and how to get around them… just so much. I honestly will forever be in debt to the amount of knowledge he has provided me to make me the designer I am today.

x

Instagram: nicolettes_kitchens as well as giulianodesigns

Image Credits
Design – Amanda Giuliano