Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Clark and Bethany Struble.
Hi Ashley & Bethany, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Our meeting wasn’t so much about a “how” as it was about a “who.” This particular “who” was a mutual friend who didn’t realize it was in poor taste to hire two different interior designers—who had never met—for the same project.
To start from the beginning, Bethany and I share a mutual friend named Danielle. Back in 2022, I was working as a Home Stager/Interior Designer and Bethany was working as a Production Designer/Interior Designer. So when our friend Danielle and her fiancée purchased their first home, she called both Bethany and me separately and asked if we would design her home.
I didn’t know Bethany, and she didn’t know me. We also weren’t aware that Danielle had planned for us to do the project together. Naturally, we both had the same rational internal questions: “Why did you do this?”, “Do we share the same taste?”, “Is she going to be bossy or nice?”, and most importantly, “Do I even want to do this job with someone I don’t know?”
Thankfully, we hit it off right away—so much so that after Danielle’s project was complete, we decided to join forces and merge in a business venture we lovingly named Totum Home, Latin for “whole” home.
Danielle’s chaotic choice to hire both of us led to what makes Totum Home special: how we learned to merge our differing tastes to gain a broader perspective and a more well-rounded approach to every project.
While we have different tastes in home design for ourselves, where we meet when staging and working with a design client is a really cool sweet spot.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
With anything—especially starting and running your own business—growing pains are just part of the deal. For us, one of the biggest challenges with staging has been figuring out how to store all our inventory. Around the holidays, it gets even trickier because most of our items come back—no one’s really selling then—so we’re stuck wondering: do we bite the bullet and get a bigger space, or just rent a few extra storage units to make it through?
More space would allow us to carry more inventory, which means we could take on more jobs—but we need more jobs to afford the bigger space. A classic chicken-and-egg situation.
We started out with four meticulously stacked storage units and a borderline genius level of organization—and now we’ve got a small warehouse that’s filled to the brim. In just two years, we’re already outgrowing it!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a full-service interior design and home staging company. We like to say, “Anything home, we got it.” We decorate and furnish homes that are on the market for sale or lease. We also handle full renovations and interior design projects.
We’re a small company, which means we can take on new and exciting projects and give each individual client our full attention from start to finish.
Brand-wise, we are both proud of the work we do and are happy to have happy clients turned friends—and friends turned clients. If you truly love what you do, that’s something to cherish on its own.
What sets us apart? We bring a great attitude to every project, and our different design styles give us a fresh, well-rounded perspective on each space.
At the end of the day, it’s not just about making something look good—it’s about making it feel right for you.
Any big plans?
We’re proud to say we’ve outgrown our current warehouse and are gearing up to expand our inventory—an exciting step that will allow us to take on more clients and bigger projects!
We’re also looking forward to reaching a point where we can grow our team and bring on more designers to keep up with the growing momentum. We’re even thinking there may be a home décor line in our near future.
We’ll let you in on a little secret—we’re constantly out shopping for art and décor, and we always end up saying, “We could make this.” So don’t be surprised if a Totum Home décor line pops up in the near future.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://totumhome.com
- Instagram: @totumhome
