5 Years of 204 Park!

Well woohoooo! Holy cow you guys, today I’m celebrating a bit of a milestone - 5 years of 204 Park! (Okay, so it’s a bit belated by a couple of months but better late than never, right?!) It’s true, time really does fly when you’re having fun and I cannot believe it’s been over 5 years now since I first hit publish on this website!

A lot has changed over the past 5 years… what started as a blog with three ladies quickly dwindled to my solo venture and I won’t lie, it was rough going here for a little bit as I struggled with how to recover. 204 Park first came about over 5 years ago when I was in the midst of going through a few pretty major changes in my life….

After over 4 years of running my own interior design business I found myself in a place where I was frustrated and uninspired by the work I was doing. That coupled with a very difficult breakup and personal time left me feeling unsure of the direction I wanted to go with my career and had me doubting if I wanted to carry on with my business. After long thought and deliberation I made the difficult decision to take a step back from my business and press pause for a bit to refocus and recharge.

After stepping back from my business I took a 9-5 which was QUITE the adjustment (understatement of the year! haha). I loved the business I was working for and while it was still related to the world of interior design, it was very different from what I was used to and I quickly began to miss the creativity and freedom that came with running my own business. Only a few months into that job I decided I wanted to start a blog with the intention that it would become my career through the blog, taking on select design projects and hopefully, one day an online shop! When two of my girlfriends at the time suggested we start the blog together I was thrilled and to this day I’m so thankful for their support and encouragement as the three of us worked our asses off starting 204 Park.

When the other ladies decided to take a step back to focus on their careers and family, it took me a little bit to get back on track with my goals… One of the reasons I had taken a step back from my design business was I didn’t want to work alone anymore in interior design. Running a business on your own can be a very lonely gig and with a creative job like design, it’s always better in my opinion if you can have someone else around to collaborate with and bounce ideas off of. So, when I found myself running 204 Park on my own I began to question my original plan for the direction of this blog and business. I spent a bit of time trying to decide if I wanted to take on interior design work on my own again (not really), if I wanted to work in the world of social media (which I love but wasn’t what I wanted to do full time) or if I wanted to stick to just blogging 100% (which wasn’t the long term plan that I was hoping for)…

It wasn’t until a few years later at Blogpodium when Kristina and I found ourselves chatting about our goals and realized that we had the same hopes and goals for our blogs and businesses. I am a big believer in community over competition and we both realized that working together would be SO much better than trying to grow the same business separately. From there, Kresswell Interiors came to be and I cannot tell you how incredible it feels to be fully living the dream and goal I set out for myself over 5 years ago! Hard work really does pay off my friends!

As Kresswell Interiors has grown I have had to slow down over here a bit but I still love 204 Park and plan to continue over here with this blog and space for as long as I can! As an interior designer I started this blog to share the pretty things that make me smile and I LOVE being able to do so. I’ve been on the receiving end of a bit of criticism for only sharing ‘the pretty’ but right from day one I wanted to share what makes me smile, in the hopes it will do the same for you. 204 Park is a happy escape and I plan to keep it that way.

I want to say thank you all SO much for your support and encouragement over the past 5 years! There have been a lot of changes over that time but for those of you who continue to support and encourage me by visiting this page, liking my photos, commenting, DM’ing, whatever - your support means the world to me! I’m so grateful that I was able to take my passion and turn it into my career! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart - here’s to another great year ahead! XO