‘WE CREATE THE MOST RELEVANT FORMS OF BEAUTY’: Keith Miller, Interior Designer | Principal MILLER INTERIOR DESIGN

“We are a bespoke service, inspired by our clients’ highly specialized queries and conundrums, reinventing new and unique solutions every single time we’re called onto a project.”

Interior design has a strong impact on how people live, move through space, and interact with interior environments daily. Far beyond merely having a space made aesthetically beautiful to admire, and more than just selecting fabrics and paint colors, interior designers work out getting to the heart of issues to design spaces that have the function, aesthetic, and quality the client truly needs to not only survive life’s journey but thrive in it regardless of circumstance.

MILLER INTERIOR DESIGN is one such firm that has been designing remarkable and deeply personal interiors for over 25 years that celebrate its clients’ unique identities. By collaborating with the finest artisans and craftsmen, the company tailors interior environments that function properly, look beautiful to their clients, and result in exclamations from their family, friends, and colleagues. Keith Miller and his team strive to see the beauty in the adventure, inspiring innovation and camaraderie with endless dedication to successfully complete every project they create. To highlight and further understand what Miller Interior Design stands for and seeks to explore in this segment, I sat down with Keith Miller, who serves as the company’s Interior Designer/Principal. Below is an excerpt.

Q. Tell us what inspired the foundation of Miller Interior Design?

I have learned never to swear against anything since a moment in design school. I attended a student organization meeting featuring a panel of professionals. The one running her own business spoke sharply about the difficulties of doing so and instructed emphatically that we not take her path. I swore that day I would never run my own business. Then it turned out I would be graduating in a recession and found meaningful work difficult to cultivate. A mentor insisted after just one small year out of school that I had what it took to start a design business. Learning it would be taxing yet conquering my fears, in 1995, I launched Miller Interior Design with absolutely nothing but a solid foundation in design, a bright and willing spirit, and an unfair mass quantity of ebullient energy.

Q. Setbacks are a part of every growing business. Tell us about a few roadblocks and learning lessons that helped you and your company grow through the years?

As I stepped into my role taking great delight in bringing joy to anyone willing to receive it, I found the necessity for boundaries I didn’t initially perceive as essential. Making promises I couldn’t keep because I was relying on undependable colleagues and setting unrealistic expectations for my performance, in general, were the first hurdles to overcome. We called it “mislead optimism”, and I worked hard to recognize it in advance of interactions as we grew. However, once I gathered enough years’ experience combined with new strategies to uncover real possibilities, I mastered communication to alleviate the strain of compromised expectations to find the swiftest route to the heart of those I serve and to draw from it the richest stories we tell in their surroundings.

Q. Splendid. Would you like to elaborate on this quotation a bit more?

This is an ancient proverb I found on the wall of a family friend, something she arranged to have inscribed over her back entry doorway after we remodeled her kitchen to remind her of how we create the most relevant forms of beauty. It’s all true and soundly articulates the rigorous and attentive process to our service. You see photographs of the most inspiring interiors, but you can’t possibly comprehend the wealth of knowledge carefully disseminated to crews of specialists to bring all the many variables into one cohesive, properly functioning space filled with beauty, wonder, and delight – essentials to a life that has elevated beyond mere survival and on to thriving exhilaration.

Q. What marked the beginning of your success? What do you regard as your greatest achievement throughout your professional journey?

Success emerged from a long pilgrimage coming to terms with my vocation. I bring joy to soul sanctuaries. That’s my truest work in its most concentrated form, and I do it with the very complex vehicle of interior design filled with avenues to turmoil at every turn. Once I harnessed the power of goodwill towards all people in every circumstance, the drama commonly associated with this kind of work found no root in our practice. To walk away from every project knowing absolutely every person involved has experienced adventure, kindness, satisfaction, and resolve has been the greatest reward for all I’ve developed to serve my clients, my colleagues, and my community to the best of my abilities.

Q. How do you keep abreast with the increasing competition in this industry? Please share an overview.

I make room for our fine reputation to speak for itself. That reputation is materialized from the careful cultivation of relationships. Architects, realtors, wealth managers, our presence online and in trade magazines, and prospects who witness our care for our treasured clientele are the very best sources for maintaining and expanding our state in the industry. We visit design exhibitions and create our own virtually every quarter in our seasonal blog, ‘Form Follows Fashion’, where we unpack a season’s trends with invigorating visuals and intelligent content relevant to our target market. I spend very little time analyzing others and stay focused on what we are doing with our work for those unique individuals who find us. We have meetings quarterly with advisors who speak into our lives and inspire us to grow and improve in both challenging and prosperous times.

Q. How do you plan to transform your company into a future that is unfolding before you?

The singular goal and reason you’ve elected to recognize us with this honor is summarized in our culture-defying guiding principle: Relationships First. Not me first. Not even client first. Relationships: All of them. Of course, it includes cultivating an inspiring relationship with our greatly valued clientele, but meaningful work performed with unsinkable passion starts from a core understanding of the value of every person we encounter in the process of executing a design. From the part-time laborer brand new to the industry to the most seasoned Ivy League independently wealthy world changer, we concentrate on every relationship with equal and highly esteemed value. We truly believe all people are made differently equal; equal being the operative term. The worst attitudes and most harrowing challenges are instantly mitigated when everyone understands that the culture of the experience is based always, no matter what, on kindness and dedication. Our shared experiences then, which could take a promising project straight to the gallows, instead become the greatest stories to share for years to come. It is this drive to care well and consistently that brings the best clients repeatedly to our door.

A Relentlessly Reliable Leader

Keith Miller, ASID NCIDQ Certified Interior Designer | Principal:

Since 1995, Keith and his team at Miller Interior Design have researched and developed authentic personal surroundings that applaud each client’s unique identity and purpose. Enlisting the finest artisans and craftsmen, Keith assembles inspired cadres who love working together to create intimately relevant solutions.

Keith Miller is radiant with enthusiasm and empathy. He has developed richly intuitive listening skills alongside a creative prowess that forges the elements and principles of design into environments that enwrap each client in reverent celebration. Acquiring a four-year CIDA accredited degree in interior design, passing the NICIDQ examination, and joining the United States Green Building Council fosters his passion for place and respect for health, safety, welfare, and environmental stewardship. Be it historically referenced or forward-thinking, each project he and his team design tells the sacred story of its intriguing inhabitants.

"I make room for our fine reputation to speak for itself. That reputation is materialized from the careful cultivation of relationships."

“BY wisdom, a house is built, and through understanding, it is established; through knowledge, its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.”