Making Homes

Back in 2011, REBECCA MICKLER decided she was done with architecture. The Wilmington transplant graduated from Texas A&M University in 2001 with a degree in architecture, then found herself in North Carolina thanks to her husband’s job with the local fire department. After working in residential and commercial architecture for a few years, she later found herself working for a home staging company after losing her architecture job.

“I love design, but architecture, especially commercial architecture, was a little too rigid for my brain,” she says. “So, when the market bottomed out in 2011, I was laid off and ended up working for a home staging company.”

It was there Mickler learned she loved staging houses. In her role, she’d stage model homes and offer design consultations, which meant she’d work with more colors and finishes instead of concrete masonry units and high beams that are involved in commercial architecture.

“I started working in interiors there and then I decided to start an E-design business, which is an online interior design where I design for people anywhere,” Mickler says. “It started out as an online design and then I started offering full-service interiors, and my business just slowly grew over the years.”

In 2013, Mickler officially founded her own design studio, “A Space to Call Home,” which would later be rebranded as Mickler & Co. in 2022 when she opened her new shop at 2007 Dawson Street.

Now that she’s a decade in business, Mickler offers a variety of services. She and her team offer full-service design, online design, home staging, and consultations.

“We kind of do all things home,” she says. “We do everything from residential design, which is working with floor plans and space planning for people to figure out what kind of addition they want to do or what kind of renovation they want to do. Anything really that has to do with the house, we have some service for.”

Something new Mickler and her team are offering this year are workshops. The workshops are offered to consumers and are geared toward people who are self-proclaimed design enthusiasts and want to learn about color trends and how to put together a design plan so they can do the design themselves. February’s workshop is all about trends, largely inspired by the new year and the fresh start it brings.

“That’s really our big focus this year — interacting more with the community and meeting people and doing what I have been doing in private groups in a more public setting,” Mickler says.

As for trends to look out for this year, Mickler shares that whites and ivories are becoming increasingly popular, as are marble backsplashes.

“Trends that we’ve seen coming are going to be the phasing out of the grays and really working in more whites and ivories,” she says. “Like color woods are making a comeback. Pale oak and kind of, driftwood for a lack of a better term. Not so much the grey woods and not so much the redwoods, more of a really blonde light-colored wood. It’s been everywhere at market.”

As for future trends, Mickler shares, “Trends are interesting. Trends for interior design take a while to get to Wilmington and when they do get here, they last for 5 or 10 years.”

To view more of photographer Aris Harding’s work, go to arisharding.com.

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