A Seasoned Interior Designer Navigates a New Business, Motherhood, and a Move During the Pandemic

It was the first week of March, and interior designer Abigail Marcelo Horace was welcoming some big changes: Not only had her family just moved into a new rental home in northwest Connecticut, but she’d also left her job at a boutique interior design firm after years in the industry to start her own business. "I was literally starting fresh in many different ways," she explains. 

Then came a major curveball in the form of COVID-19. Suddenly, her husband, a youth football coach, and her three-year old son, Ezekiel, were home all the time, and Abigail realized that she needed a separate space to focus and work, whether it be communicating with clients, tuning into webinars, or selecting furnishings and finishes for a new project. 

The duplex the family currently lives in comprises a historic, original home and the unit they rent, a renovation completed by builder Thomas Vigeant of Cedar Creek Wood Works LLC. This meant that character-defining features, like the ceiling rafters, weren’t original to the home, but they were definitely a big draw for Abigail.

New construction also meant that the home was filled with "natural light, a great stain on the wood floors, clean trim and baseboards, a modern look, and insulated windows," explains Abigail. She ended up selecting a space off of the dining room for a substantial office for her and her husband, prioritizing practicality and affordability in some cases (the desks, for example) to suit the temporary arrangement. On the other hand, items like file cabinets and drawers that she uses every day and see a lot of wear and tear needed to be long-lasting and durable, she notes, and were worthy of a splurge.