Inspiring Conversations with Susan Yeley of Susan Yeley Homes

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Yeley.

Hi Susan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Thank you for the opportunity! It was a twisty path that led me to this place, and I love when people ask me the story, because I hope it encourages others whose paths may also look like a series of zigs and zags. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I even considered design as a career: I call it my quarter-life crisis. I was actually a graduate student in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Chicago. With an undergrad degree in English and Spanish, and experience in Change Management at Accenture, when grad school didn’t feel right, I was grasping at straws trying to figure out what I was meant to do. Somehow I had forgotten how happy constructing dioramas in shoe boxes had made me in elementary school, or how I used to spend every cent of my birthday and Christmas money to furnish and accessorize the miniature rooms my dad built me as a child. What Color Is Your Parachute became my bible, and the sign I was looking for came when one of many career personality tests listed Interior Design, right after Flight Attendant. (Which always did sound like a fun career to me, to be honest.) I left the Div School for an unpaid internship in a furniture and fabric showroom in the Merchandise Mart, and soon after, enrolled in the Harrington College of Design and took a job in high-end residential design at a firm in River North. My husband and I returned to Bloomington, Indiana, where we met, a few weeks before our first daughter was born in 2005, and I dubbed the little design business I did on the side while my kids were little, “Gravity and Grace: Design that Grounds and Uplifts”—after a Simone Weil book I read in Divinity School. We’ve left that name behind, of course, but the spirit remains, and I like to give a little nod to that time in my life when everything felt unsure, because ultimately, it all led me right where I needed to be.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Yes! Unfairly smooth, in fact! (I’ll just knock on some wood over here.) After our first daughter was born in Bloomington in 2005, two other children followed, and they absorbed most of my time (and all of my sanity) for several years as my husband was building his career at the Indiana University Foundation. During that time, new friends would hear about my design background and ask me to help with this or that. The asks got larger and more frequent over time, until I needed childcare, and eventually part time help, and later, multiple employees and a dedicated studio space. It was very organic growth that allowed me to continue to dedicate time to my kids and my community, even as the business was gaining traction. I recognize and am incredibly grateful for the privilege that made space for SYH’s slow maturation. Today, the kids are bigger and the job is full time, and I have to work to keep it from becoming all-consuming! There are five of us on staff, and we have a consistent waitlist that keeps us enaged on homes from North Carolina to Los Angeles, and of course in the midwest too, on everything from primary residences to condos and vacation homes and airbnbs.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Susan Yeley Homes?
There are so many things! We design for the particular humans (and non-humans) who live in our projects. We are expert jugglers. We guide, organize, and prioritize. We sweat the details, and we help manage clients’ emotions, which can run high during a build or renovation. All that said, I think there are two main things about us that I would stress: how wonderful the SYH staff is, and that we offer a full range of architecture-to-decor services that is special and, in my mind, essential to making a home feel like home. The women with whom I get to work — an Architectural Designer, another Interior Designer, and two Project Managers who double as Administrative Geniuses — are exceptionally skilled, knowledgeable and conscientious, not to mention very funny, people. Together, we shepherd clients through finding the perfect piece of property all the way to hanging the art above the sofa. We offer “should I stay or go gut checks” and “manage it yourself” design concept projects, to try to help clients at a variety of price points, but what we really love is whole-house renovations and new builds, and—our specialty—filling the homes we design architecturally with the right furniture, art and accessories. That is where SYH goes beyond the offerings of many architectural and design/build firms. As vital as architecture and architectural finishes are to the way a home feels and functions, so too are furnishings, art, and accessories. You’ve probably been in architecturally beautiful homes that have all the wrong things inside. They are uncomfortable – a letdown when you step over the threshold and frustration when you’re looking for a good place to sit, where the sun and the chair and the view (and the throw, within arm’s reach) are all just right. When we design an open kitchen, we choose the tile backsplash to balance the velvet sofa across the way. We envision, specify, purchase and install furniture and accessories that complement a home’s architectural design and make it a place you really want to be.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
As a Creative, I find that what I listen to, watch and read must feed and recharge my soul. I love Krista Tippett’s On Being and This American Life, and I tend to read well-written novels and books about Buddhism (hearkening back to my lifelong love of Literature, Religion, and Philosophy). Tedd Lasso and Ricky Gervais restore my faith in humanity. Abstract: The Art of Design, the Netflix series, never fails to inspire me. And of course, I have a list as long as my arm of designers and architects I love to follow.

As a business owner, I always find something useful in LuAnn Nigara’s podcast, A Well Designed Business.

Contact Info:

• Email: contact@susanyeleyhomes.com
• Website: susanyeleyhomes.com
• Instagram: @susanyeleyhomes
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanYeleyHomes/

Image Credits
Gina Rogers, Sara Shields, and Eric Rudd