1. What is Hothouse?
Hothouse is a free professional development group for ambitious interior designers, built around the Hothouse Method of Business Growth: Design – Declare – Deliver.
✨ Design – we plan our businesses with care and creativity
✨ Declare – we set bold goals and targets in public
✨ Deliver – we track progress and celebrate results
Hothouse is for designers who want more than inspiration – it’s for those ready to take action. At the heart of my work is a theory of interior design business evolution. Over time, practices move through four distinct tiers:
Tier One – Startup • Tier Two – Growing Pains • Tier Three – Maturity • Tier Four – Stardom.
Each has its own challenges, mindset shifts, and growth opportunities.
My coaching is designed to help you level up, to elevate your business with intention, so you’re not simply drifting forward, but actively shaping the next stage of your business.
Wherever you are now – starting out or refining a mature practice – Hothouse brings structure, momentum, and community to help you get to the next level. 🌱
2. How to Work With Me
Whether you’re just starting out or ready to level up, there are several ways we can work together:
🌱 Hothouse (Free Membership Group)
A private Facebook group for practising interior designers. I check in regularly to offer input and answer business questions alongside our brilliant peer community.
💬 One-to-One Consultations
Book a focused session to tackle a specific challenge or explore a new opportunity in depth. Available via the Coaching page of my website.
📦 Blocks of Consultations
Ideal if you’re working toward a long-term business goal or want consistent support while establishing your studio and working with your first clients. Ask me about my ‘6 for the price of 5’ offer.
🚀 Business in a Box
A structured, supported 90-day programme designed to help you launch your new interior design business with clarity, confidence, and strong foundations. Get in touch if you are interested in the next run.
📈 Recipe for Success Bootcamp
My flagship business planning course, blending one-to-one coaching with peer group sessions. Designed to help you push up into the next tier of business evolution – with a clear plan, defined targets, and the momentum to grow. Drop me a line if you’d like to join the waitlist.
3. 🧠 Long Read I – AI as Your Thinking Partner
Reflections from this week’s BIID talk… and from OpenAI’s DevDay
A huge thank you to the British Institute of Interior Design for inviting me to speak this week on AI as Your Thinking Partner.
It was a wonderfully mixed audience: some curious first-timers, others already collaborating daily with AI.
Recently, what strikes me most when thinking about AI is the difference between dabbling and developing a relationship.
Real breakthroughs with AI don’t happen on day one, they happen months in, when your thinking begins to sync. That’s when you start to experience what I call AI alchemy: the sparks of creative partnership between human intuition and machine intelligence.
But there’s a conversation we must keep having: about safe, ethical practice. A big piece of this BIID talk - and something for further (URGENT) development - was the considered policies for working with AI that we need to write, particularly where client data is concerned:
- What is appropriate use?
- How and where to advise your clients of this use?
- How to be GDPR compliant?
- How and where to store data?
- How to anonymise data?
- The policies of the various AI platforms?
- The mind-boggling complexities of certain interventions (e.g. recording client meetings - e.g. what happens when spouses start arguing, do we record that)?
Over time, as AI becomes more deeply integrated into how we design, communicate, and manage clients, we need to be sure our use of it is transparent, responsible, and compliant with data protection laws.
And speaking of the future - OpenAI held their annual DevDay in San Francisco this week, laying out their ambition to make ChatGPT the new interface to the internet. So long Google 👋.
Commentators at the DevDay were quick to pick up on the potential for apps built inside ChatGPT: tools that can draw on your data, preferences, and history to perform complex tasks seamlessly within a single conversation. There was some vague distraction around the conflict of interests introduced by this new commercial push and the unprecedented access that OpenAI has to our data: Google and Facebook enjoy acquaintanceship with us; in many cases, OpenAI knows more about us than our families do. And, add to this, we are now also guardians of our clients' data.
Anyway - ahem... temporarily setting aside opportunities for manipulation and data breaches - these apps will mark a real shift in user experience: instead of juggling multiple logins and platforms, we’ll soon be able to access tailored, intelligent support - the kind that once required a human expert or coach - simply by chatting.
For example:
Personal Concierge
You could have a “Life Assistant App” that:
- Books flights, trains, hotels, and restaurants in one chat,
- Keeps track of your preferences (window seat, vegetarian meals, favourite airlines),
- Checks your calendar and warns you if you’re double-booked,
- And suggests itineraries in a conversational, human-like way.
It merges what Siri/Alexa should be with the flexibility of a human PA, minus the friction.
Or,
Small-Business Copilot
For freelancers or micro-businesses, imagine a “Business Hub App” that:
- Tracks income and expenses,
- Issues invoices,
- Drafts emails and proposals,
- Reminds you about tax deadlines,
- And can automatically pull figures into a spreadsheet or dashboard.
I remember hearing about ‘apps’ shortly after the launch of the iPhone, and having no idea what they were, or why they’d matter...brace yourself for another similar step-change in user experience.
👉 And, click here to watch the simple, introductory demos delivered to the BIID audience.
4. ⚖️ Legal Confidence for Interior Designers
with Meriel Pymont, Commercial Lawyer
📅 Thursday 16 October, 1.30pm UK
Are your contracts really protecting you?
Most designers think their T&Cs are fine – until something goes wrong.
Join Meriel Pymont for a live Hothouse session on how to:
✅ Protect your time, fees, and ideas
✅ Avoid client disputes before they start
✅ Write terms that give you peace of mind
It’s plain-English legal advice made for designers – exclusively in Hothouse.
As usual, the link to join this event is under the 'Events' tab in Hothouse.
5. 📸 Blog – Interior Styling for Photo Shoots
Following our inspiring session with stylist Sam Grigg, this week’s blog shares the insider styling secrets that turn good interior photos into magazine-worthy images.
Sam’s practical advice on shot planning, prop curation, and creative direction is pure gold – and her warmth and humour make it a joy to read. A must before your next shoot.
6. 🚀 The Big Push
We officially launched The Big Push this week – with 21 designers each committing to one small, focused change to move their business forward before the year ends. We are off now, working from a private area on my website - but I'll report back periodically.
From tackling visibility to raising fees, everyone’s targets are different – but the principle is the same:
Small changes create leverage.
If you’d like to play along, here’s the four-step process:
1️⃣ Identify a roadblock
2️⃣ Define one small change to remove it
3️⃣ Describe the metric you’ll track to measure progress
4️⃣ Set your target to hit by 16 December
Q4 is the perfect time to move with intention – one decisive push before 2026 begins.
7. 💬 Long Read II – Authority Bias: Retraining Your Tongue
(Subtitle: Get a pin and jab it in your leg every time you hear yourself softening a perfectly good opinion).
This week on Instagram I asked: why you end up playing ‘mum’ to the architect’s ‘dad’?
Answer: because of authority bias. It’s frustrating, but it is a known effect and one that you can push back against. Authority bias isn’t going anywhere, so why not make it work for you?
Here’s one angle you can adopt immediately - I’m in the habit of rereading my emails to hunt and kill undermining, confidence-draining DEFERENTIAL PREFIXES.
Female interior designers (and many women in collaborative professions generally) often use deferential prefixes out of habit, empathy, or social conditioning, the instinct to keep harmony rather than assert hierarchy.
Here’s a list you could draw from - things an architect would NEVER say 🤦♀️:
🫖 1. Permission-seeking openers
These imply you’re asking to speak rather than taking your rightful space.
Common phrases:
- “Would you mind if I just…?”
- “Can I just add something?”
- “Do you want me to…?”
- “If it’s okay with you…”
- “I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but…”
Authoritative alternative:
“Let’s add…” / “I’ll include…” / “Here’s what I suggest we do.”
💭 2. Hedging or qualifying language
These suggest uncertainty, even when you’re right.
Common phrases:
- “I think maybe…”
- “It could be worth considering…”
- “I’m not sure, but possibly…”
- “It might just be me, but…”
- “I wonder if perhaps…”
Authoritative alternative:
“The best option is…” / “We should…” / “This will achieve…”
🙈 3. Apologetic prefaces
Apologies are useful when genuine - but disastrous as defaults.
Common phrases:
- “Sorry, can I just say…”
- “Sorry, this might be a stupid question…”
- “I’m probably overthinking this, but…”
- “I’m sure you’ve already thought of this…”
Authoritative alternative:
“A question to clarify…” / “Here’s another angle we should consider…”
🌸 4. Deferential reassurance
These aim to protect others’ egos but dilute your own impact.
Common phrases
- “Of course, you may feel differently…”
- “I totally get where you’re coming from…”
- “You’re the expert here, but…”
- “I’m happy to go with whatever you decide…”
Authoritative alternative:
“My professional view is…” / “Experience tells me…” / “The design will work best if…”
🪶 5. Diminutive tone-softeners
These are the “justs” and “littles” that shrink your sentences.
Common phrases:
- “I just think…”
- “It’s just a thought…”
- “It’s only a small change, but…”
- “I’m just checking…”
Authoritative alternative:
Remove the “just.” Say it straight.
“I think…” → “I recommend…”
🪞 6. Architectural contrast
Imagine hearing an architect, electrician, plumber, or builder say:
- “I hope this isn’t silly, but…”
- “Would it be awful if we tried…”
- “I don’t want to be difficult, but…”
- “Is that okay with you?”
- “We could always change it later if you prefer…”
Architects say:
“This is the solution.”
“That won’t work.”
“Here’s how we’ll handle it.”
“We’ll resolve it in the next revision.”
So, here’s how to overcome these tendencies - get a pin, and jab it in your leg every time you find one of the phrases above pass your lips.
And never, ever let them loose in an email 🤨.
8. 🌱 My Week in Hothouse
If you’ve ever wondered whether all this planning, posting, and persistence really works, the answer is a tentative… yes.
This time last year, I set my business on a scary new trajectory: preparing to take leaps in January 2025 that demanded, most vividly, “Who on earth do you think you are?”
Now, 41 weeks in, the bold actions and the consistency - especially the consistency - are starting to pay off.
This week I had one of those forehead-slap realisations: I haven't been funnel marketing, I’ve been doing flywheel marketing all along. Following my curiosity, creating materials that interest me, sharing them freely, and doing it again. And again.
Along the way some of you have asked me: what's in it for me? Well, the answer is emerging... momentum. Real, tangible, slow-build momentum.
I am definitely jumping the gun in declaring victory - maybe it’s just a flash in the pan - but the whole spirit of Hothouse is transparency, experimentation, and collaboration. There’s no such thing as failure here. Only feedback, learning, and growth. So I am quietly celebrating small wins that seem to show proof of concept.
A FAVOUR: Your feedback makes all the difference. Once you’ve browsed this copy, could you hit reply and tell me: what in today’s edition did you find most useful or interesting? And what didn’t resonate? Your thoughts will help me shape content that genuinely supports you.
9. ✨ Final Thought
Success rarely comes from seismic moments. It comes from compounding small acts of courage, applied consistently over time.
Whether you’re learning to use AI responsibly, rewriting your contracts, or practising authority in your client meetings, the same truth applies:
Tiny, steady shifts change everything.
As the philosopher James Clear wrote, “You do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems.”
In the Big Push, in Business in a Box, in Bootcamp, we're building those systems together, patiently, intentionally, one well-chosen action at a time.
Hope you have a great week ahead,
Julia
Founder - Hothouse.
Responses