Reflections on 2024

2024 has been one of the most extraordinary years of my professional life, while at the same time being interspersed with many moments of anticipatory grief.

I know that some of you reading this will know what I mean by anticipatory grief…. the grief you feel when someone dear to you is losing their hold on life and you are powerless to stop it.

In my case, this has been the anticipatory grief I feel surrounding my 94 year old Mom, shown with me below at Christmas, who [despite being in good health overall ] is rapidly losing her hold on her memory. I think 2024 will have been the last year my Mom will have been able to remember my name, although I hope I’m wrong.

To all of you reading this who are also dealing with anticipatory grief…or who have lost your own parents [ or someone else close to you - human or pet - this year ] my heart and deepest sympathy goes out to you. It’s not easy to cope with this while also running a business, and taking care of all of the other details of life that must be taken care of during this phase of life.

Thank goodness for my morning walks in this park near where I live, where I indulge my love of photography. The below two images are raw: no filter was used.

These walks restore my sense of balance and peace and allow me to re-focus on the day ahead.

I took this one on my vacation this summer to Nederland, CO. On this one, I used a filter to enhance the sun’s rays as they were shining down into this valley.

But, even while coping with this emotional roller coaster on a weekly basis, 2024 was filled with some of the most extraordinary moments of my professional career and I am so deeply grateful for all of them.

AI AND THE METAVERSE - COLLABORATIONS

Primary amongst those moments was my collaboration with Thompson and the introduction of my AILA sink for them at the National Kitchen and Bath Show in Las Vegas this past February.

This is the world’s first kitchen and bath product designed by AI, via my text prompt to Midjourney, and then manufactured for real life use by the coppersmithing artisans employed by Thompson, using the same tools and techniques that have been passed down to them since the 16th century.

To see AILA now for sale on the Thompson website here is a true thrill as, in all my life, I never dreamt of having a kitchen and bath product available for sale!!

The first AILA sink to have been specified by an interior designer for a client will be installed in that client’s home in Manhattan in January of 2025. It thrills me no end that this first one was specified by my very good friend, Robin Baron.

Robin: thank you! I can’t wait to see and share the images!

What makes AILA so special for me, really, though, is my friendship with the family that brought the idea to life - the Thompson family. They are the most generous, loving and hospitable family I’ve ever known.

I love this picture of all of them together this past Thanksgiving, looking relaxed and happy.

L to R: Alex, Samantha, Alejandra [ founder and Creative Director ], Cliff, Sr., Cliff, Jr., and JJ.

Here we were, all dressed up { + Andrew Holben, whose idea AILA was in the first place ] for the unveiling of AILA at Thompson’s exhibition space at KBIS.

Having my close, real life girlfriends, Peggy McGowen and Ilse Benard [ who live nearby me ] in this pic from AILA’s introduction at KBIS was another moment I will treasure.

Most of you know that Peggy, on the far left, was a past National President of the NKBA and this coming year, in 2025, I will be working professionally with Peggy’s daughter, Micqui McGowen, who now owns the showroom that Peggy founded, Kitchen and Bath Concepts.

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about and invitations to Peggy’s big retirement party - happening at Kitchen and Bath Concepts in the Houston Design Center on April 1st. No matter where you live in North America, we’d love to see YOU there to honor Peggy - an icon of the kitchen and bath industry.

And if you’re attending Maison et Objet in Paris in January 2025, be looking for Ilse, who will be there with her son, David.

The other momentous career highlight of this year was the world premiere of the Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse at Dallas Market Center’s Lightovation tradeshow that took place in January of 2024. This was an enormous undertaking that I’ve written about extensively in this post:

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/first-sneak-peek-into-metaverse-lighting-trendhouse

Laura Van Zeyl, Vice President Of Marketing For Lightovation, thank you for your many years of friendship and support. Without you, the ability for me to even present the beginning of this idea to Allison would not have been possible.

This project was incredibly rewarding and exciting for all of us involved, and would not have been possible without Allison John, who expanded upon an idea I presented to her in June of 2023, Cole Daugherty, who shepherded the project through the budget approval process, Annilee Waterman, who said “Yes* when I asked her to be a part of it and who then designed it, 3d modeled it, rendered it and created both the virtual walk through and metaverse versions of it and Shay Geyer, who also said, “Yes” and who chose the 21 highlighted lighting fixtures and who provided the design direction with respect to the furniture and finishes used throughout.

See more from Annilee about our collaborations and her work on this project here: https://www.designerannilee.com/metaverse-lighting-trendhouse/

See this post by Shay re: her work on this project: https://shaygeyer.com/lightovation-metaverse-trendhouse-ibb-design/

LIVE WEBINARS

This year, Annilee and I continued educating designers on all things metaverse and AI and the possibilities this technology makes possible through a series of live Zoom webinars.

These are over now, but Annilee is still teaching designers, 1 on 1, and I encourage you to contact her if you need training on anything related to metaverse activations or AI.

To all of you in the below image who were a part of one of these: thank you!

CLIENT WORK

2024 was also filled with lots of work with individual interior designers and kitchen and bath designers, too, beyond my work for tradeshows in the realms of the metaverse and my AI collaboration with Thompson.

Starting in January of 2022, I’ve worked with Robin Burrill, NCIDQ - the CEO and principal interior designer of Keller, TX based Signature Home Services.

Robin and I have met every 2 weeks, via Zoom, for the past 2 years and have worked together on strategies for her business with respect to lead generation and digital marketing initiatives. In addition, I’ve provided her with national public relations services and brand amplification services.

It’s been a genuine joy to work with Robin and her chief marketing officer, Alex Borzo, who executed so brilliantly upon so many of the ideas we discussed.

Robin’s a wealth of knowledge about all things kitchen and bath and interiors, and also a VERY SMART businesswoman - which you know if you know her.

She and her husband and business partner, Rob, have developed a business model that allows them to travel extensively - while still working with their clients - by putting in place a brilliant team of employees and outside consultants.

Our time working together professionally was completed last week, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the testimonial Robin wrote for me, shown below.

Robin, if you see this blog post: thank you so much. It’s been a true joy to work with you.

Helping talented, smart designers like you is my WHY. I wish you every continuing success in 2025 and beyond.

I invite all of you to follow Robin on Instagram, here, if you’re not already:

https://www.instagram.com/robin.burrill , especially since she is an official Style Eye for the upcoming Total Home and Gift Market and Lightovation tradeshows taking place Jan. 7th -11th at Dallas Market.

You won’t want to miss Robin’s informative videos, which were such a hit with Andmore’s audience when she was a Market Pro for ANDMORE at this past Fall’s High Point Market.

In addition to working with Robin on a bi-weekly basis for the past 2 years, I’ve worked with a number of additional interior designers/kitchen and bath designers over this past year on a one time consulting basis and have been truly blessed by these testimonials I’ve received from some of them.

LEAD GENERATION WORKSHOPS

In addition to my client work, I’ve also been delivering live workshops this year on how interior designers/kitchen and bath designers can use LinkedIn for lead generation.

I’ve developed a lead generation SYSTEM for designers that works well when executed consistently.

For those of you who have taken this workshop, thank you. For those of you interested? I will be delivering this workshop monthly in 2025 - and will start including Instagram as well - with the next one being on Thursday, January 30th from 2-4 CT.

Below this image are two of the testimonials I’ve received from designers who have taken it this year.

They are $249.00 and I will update this post with the link when I have it ready.

EDUCATIONAL SPEAKING

While I love helping my clients with developing speaking opportunities for themselves, I also continue to be blessed by those who hire me to educate their audiences on topics relating to digital marketing and/or artificial intelligence.

I am a strong believer in educating our industry through my speaking activities, and have been doing so for the past 22 years I’ve been in business for myself.

This year, those speaking engagements included one in May where I spoke to the attendees of the Midwest Design and Furniture Fair about AILA and the use of AI in product design with Andrew Holben, who had the original idea for this collaboration with Thompson.

It was such a joy to speak to the attendees of the Midwest Design and Furniture Fair, held in Kansas City, about the story of AILA - with Andrew. I loved meeting the Kansas City area designers I didn’t already know, and getting to see all of the talent that exists there.

Keith Sauro, publisher of Design KC Magazine, is in the image on the far right bottom with Andrew and I.

While there, Keith and his executive editor, Andrea Darr, asked me if I would be a judge in their 2025 Design Awards, and I said, “Of course, I’d be honored.” I wrote a blog post containing more about the backstory on that here, if you’d like to read it.

Watch for their winners to be announced in a grand gala ceremony, open by invitation only, on January 23rd.

In September of 2024, I was one of two keynote speakers for Buy BKBG’s national conference in San Diego.

My presentation was on AI And Its Impact On The Kitchen and Bath Industry.

Buy BKBG is the nation’s largest business buying group for major kitchen and bath showroom owners.

This was the first time I’ve presented anywhere where I didn’t know a single person ahead of time. I was honored to have been hired to deliver this presentation and had a wonderful time in San Diego, where my accommodations were first class all the way.

Here’s a video testimonial I received from Nancy Muller after she listened to this presentation. Nancy is one of the senior members of Buy BKBG and sits on their executive board.

[ Side note: Nancy came up to me after my presentation and shared how much my presentation helped her, and I asked her if she would be willing to share with me on video what she told me to my face. She said she’d be happy to do that, but what she shared in this video is NOT what she shared with me face to face. ]

What she shared in this video is what it means to support another woman.

Nancy, if you see this: thank you again, so very much! I wish you and your team there at CR Cabinetry in IL every success in 2025.

In addition to being asked to speak about those topics, this year I was asked by Caroline Hipple, Chief Creative Officer of Hooker Furniture, to facilitate a conversation with designers, for designers, at Hooker Furniture’s showroom during Fall High Point Market.

Joining us was Cameron Cook, Hooker Furniture’s Marketing and Retail Programming Director.

Here’s some of the designers who attended this, milling about afterwards, with Caroline Hipple’s smile lighting up the room. If you see yourself in this image, thank you for taking time out of your day to come. We all appreciated it so much as we know how busy you are when you’re at market.

PRESS MENTIONS, INTERVIEWS AND PODCASTS

This was a banner year for press mentions, press interviews and podcast appearances, especially due to the introduction of the AILA sink.

The Thompson family and I are grateful to all of these publications for their coverage of AILA and I am especially grateful to the members of my private Facebook community for interior designers and kitchen and bath designers, Design Wealth, for their support of AILA on their blogs and social media channels.

The introduction of the Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse was covered beautifully in this article by Allison Zisko in Home Accents Today.

https://www.homeaccentstoday.com/industry-news/want-to-see-lighting-trends-in-a-new-way-check-out-the-metaverse-lighting-trendhouse-in-dallas/

This interview I did for Forbes, re: my thoughts on how AI will be used by homeowners, which appeared in December 2024, is one I think all of you will enjoy reading. Unfortunately, it’s gated for their subscribers only, but if you’re a member of my Facebook community, Design Wealth, I’ve taken screenshots of the entire article so you can read it there if you’re not a Forbes subscriber.

If you are a subscriber, here’s a link to the article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiegold/2024/12/24/design-and-technology-industry-pros-predict-top-ai-trends-for-2025/

AWARDS/RECOGNITION
This year, for the 4th year, I was honored to be chosen for Fixr’s 2025 Top Interior Design Experts list. Many members of my Facebook community were also on this list, which I was thrilled to see for all of us!

See the entire list, here.

The report I mention in the below graphic is the 2025 Top Color Trends Report that Fixr asked us each to participate in, which I wrote a blog post about here:

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/top-interior-design-experts-discuss-color-trends-for-2025

SPONSORSHIPS

Each year, I choose one organization to sponsor financially, and this year I chose Vacation Rental Designers, founded by Jessica Duce. Jessica and her team really understand how to make their brand partners shine, and I was so pleased to see this blog post they wrote, unbeknownst to me, about my business.

https://www.vacationrentaldesigners.com/post/digital-marketing-public-relations-influencer-marketing-for-interior-designers

In return, I wrote this blog post about how Vacation Rental Designers is not a buying group, but so much more. I encourage all brands to sponsor this & more designers to join - it’s been a great investment for my business this year.

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/buying-groups-the-difference-with-the-vacation-rental-designers-collective

Thank you, Jessica and team!

I could go on, but by now you’ve gotten the idea that this was an extraordinarily rewarding year for me, although one marked by personal sadness, as well.

But, that’s what a lot of you are dealing with, too, [ and worse, I know ] and resilience in the face of adversity is what we all learn as we grow in age and wisdom, right?

However, without our friends who hold us up during these hard times, where would be be?

As much as I’m enmeshed in the online worlds and all things virtual, it’s my real life friendships that sustain me and this picture, taken by Patrick outside after our conversation at Hooker Furniture, is my favorite of the year.

Thank you, all of you, for being there for me in ways large and small, all year long. You are all amazing women, and I wish each of you every professional success in the year ahead.

I am so deeply grateful to have had a year like this one, and I cannot wait to see what 2025 has in store.

Exciting things are brewing for brand new Savour Partnership clients and for myself, and if you’re attending January Lightovation in 2 weeks, I look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you, loyal blog subscribers, for being here with me. I appreciate each of you who take the time to read my posts and comment or share them. It means the world to me.

With Every Wish For A Very Successful 2025 For All Of You, Professionally and Personally,

Leslie Carothers, Principal
Savour Partnership

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