Meet Emily Tucker Bernstein | Interior Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emily Tucker Bernstein and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
With this industry, I think most people go into it knowing that the end goal is starting their own business. I knew it was what I wanted from my very first job in interior design, it was just a matter of getting the experience and know how before I felt comfortable going out on my own. After working for several amazing interior designers over a 7 year span, I felt I was ready to embark on opening my own design studio.

What should our readers know about your business?
Emily Tucker Design is a small interior design studio based in Boulder. We focus on high end residential interiors that are uniquely suited to the architecture of each home, and the people who live in them. I really truly believe, that a home’s design, can dramatically impact the happiness of the people who live there. I feel so lucky to get to create these spaces and build the backdrops for so many memories. Homes really hold people and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.

I care a lot about my clients and their families, and I do think that makes my services unique. It also makes me really proud, that a lot of the projects that we work on, are for repeat clients. It allows for such a great partnership because they really trust me and my vision and ideas, and i really get to be creative, the second or third time around working with them.

It took a lot to get to where I am, and I still feel like I have a long way to go. It has been a bumpy road, filled with really good years, and some much harder years. I was really lucky, that right off the bat, I had some great clients and projects, and work was coming to me easily. But as quickly as those early projects came to me, they were finished and I had nothing coming in. Team members that I had hired, I had to let go. Office space that I was excited to take on, had to turn into a shared space. But with each challenge, I learned and got better and more resilient. I know now that I can run a lean business, and that clients will come, and I can be picky about who I work with, and what I work on. That shared office space created one of the most fulfilling partnerships of my career.

I think with any small business, there is someone running it, that cares deeply. Not only about the work that we produce, but also about the people that help us make it- be that clients, or vendors, or team members.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Since I live in the Boulder bubble, a lot of it would be Boulder stuff! Ideally it’s summer time, and we can get coffee at Beleza, and then take a hike up Sanitas trail. Lunch on pearl at The Kitchen, and shopping at Cedar and Hyde, Weekends, and Peppercorn. My favorite sushi restaurant in Boulder is AOI and that’s a spot I take almost everyone who comes to visit!

I love to see live music and we try to get up to Red Rocks as much as possible. No better place to see a show, in my opinion!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This work that I am lucky enough to do, is in no small part to the designers who I worked for in my early days, who generously taught me so much. Especially Ruthie Sommers and Steven Gambrel.

Since then, I am endlessly grateful to my clients who have trusted me over the years, and the wonderful team of people in my office who make it all happen, every single day. Also my husband who always tells me that I’m amazing, even when not feeling it.

Website: etuckerdesign.com

Instagram: @emilytuckerdesign

Image Credits
All are David Lauer, except the blue kitchen is Stacey Zarin Goldberg