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 - startup, growing pains, maturity, stardom - each with 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 designers and architects. 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. Learn more.
📈 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. The Day I Realised My Confidence Could Be a 9
Last weekend, making breakfast, I had a sudden realisation: I could imagine a day when my confidence could hit 9/10. (See 'My Week In Hothouse' below - I measure my confidence from 1-10 every week.)
That thought was astounding. It went against everything I thought I knew about myself.
I believe that self-confidence is magic. It’s what separates the great from the good. And when your buoyancy is strong enough, you can dream bigger about your business, plan more boldly, and carry it further.
All of this came from one simple shift: I started measuring my confidence every week - and taking steps to grow it. This week I've written about it on the blog.
4. The Designer’s Quest – Business is Personal
A fairy tale for ambitious designers…
I shared this short story on Instagram this week, offering a poetic take on the interior designer’s journey - not just toward a profitable business, but toward becoming a more embodied, self-aware, and courageous founder. Because half the work of growing a business… is growing yourself.
👉 Read the post and see if it feels familiar
5. 🎯 Coming up in Hothouse: Styling with Sam Grigg
📅 Wednesday 24 September • 1:00 pm UK time
I’m so excited to welcome interior stylist Sam Grigg to the next Hothouse session.
If you’ve ever wondered how to style your interior design projects so they sing in photos - or how stylists work with clients to bring warmth, soul, and personality into every room - this one’s for you.
✨ Why styling matters
• Styled interiors communicate your standard and reinforce your brand promise
• They build trust with future clients by making your value tangible
• They sharpen your creative eye and deepen your grasp of composition and light
• A single photoshoot creates a bank of evergreen content for your marketing
• They make your projects press-ready and boost chances of being featured
• Styling clarifies your signature style and attracts the right clients
• Above all, styling dignifies your work and celebrates completion
👤 About Sam
Sam Grigg is an interiors designer and stylist celebrated for soulful, characterful spaces layered with colour, texture, and heart. With a long background in shoot styling for our favourite interiors magazines, she brings an editorial eye to residential and boutique hospitality projects - designing not just for today, but for how spaces will be seen, felt, and remembered.
👉 Save the date – Wednesday 24 September, 1pm UK. The link will be in Hothouse.
6. 🚀 Business in a Box Launches Monday
This is your last chance to join the inaugural run of Business in a Box - the 12-week programme designed to take you from qualified designer to trading design business.
Inside you’ll find:
📂 A complete filing system, pre-loaded with the documents and spreadsheets every studio needs
🗓 Weekly live lessons to guide your launch step by step
🤝 A supportive peer group to keep you accountable
🌿 My eyes on your progress - this run only - not to be repeated.
The first class is Tuesday morning - and the window to join is closing fast.
7. ✨ Hold on to your tape measure: The Big Push is Coming...
One bold goal, one strong finish — more next week :-)
8. A Favour 🙏
Each week I send this newsletter off into the void - and honestly, I have no idea if it’s landing. 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. 🌱 My Week in Hothouse
This summer has tested me more than most, with competing calls on my attention from family and from work. To come through it having mostly kept the balance - and to still be here, delivering a new blog, another newsletter, and even a brand new course - feels like a quiet but meaningful victory.
What has made the difference is: being accountable to all of you (!); being intentional about boundaries; and letting my values guide the choices I make. It hasn’t been perfect, and there have been costs - guess what, I still have work to do - but I’m learning that holding space for my priorities is the only way to honour both my business and the people I care about. My mother is on the road to recovery, and I’m reminded that progress often looks like small, steady steps - not perfection, but perseverance.
10. Final Thought
🔥 Over these past weeks, I’ve felt my confidence grow, my boundaries strengthen, and my values crystallise. Together, they’ve built a fire in me for Q4 - and during the Big Push, I’ll be unleashing that energy on my own business.
You are invited 🙂
More next week.
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
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