Design Meet Cutes: When Finding Furniture Leads to Love

Everyone who loves design knows the feeling of falling in love with a house or lamp or a particularly nice teapot. But what about falling in love with the person who makes that furniture, who chose that lamp, or who designed that home? 

That’s what happened to Bob Butler and Melody Geer, who fell for each other when Geer hired Butler, an architectural designer and founder of Profile + Principle, to devise her Finnish-inspired salon and spa business, Holiday, in East Nashville, Tennessee. She’d seen Butler’s then home featured in a 2018 issue of Dwell and loved it, only to discover he was the guy she’d often see walking his dog around her neighborhood. "I used to walk six miles every day on the same route with my dog, Goya," says Butler. "From what she says, her friends used to tease her about how she had a little secret crush on the guy walking his dog."

Geer reached out to Butler via Instagram, wanting to meet about potentially designing her business. While Butler says he doesn’t normally do commercial projects, something about Geer’s idea intrigued him—especially after he looked at her Instagram. "I was like, ‘Whoa,’ because I recognized her from a square dance I went to a few years prior," he says. "I was going through a divorce at the time, and I told my friends I thought she was super cute, and they said, ‘Oh, don’t bother with her. She’s dating this other guy,’ and whatever."

By the time the two actually connected, though, they’d both been single for a bit and, being out of their twenties and with a few serious relationships under their respective belts, had come to know what they wanted in a partner. The pair met to talk over the project and started dating soon after. They’ve since designed and built a number of projects together, including a 60-acre compound outside of Nashville with a new midcentury-inspired house for themselves, and a mini-wellness retreat with saunas, cabins, and even a tree house (which was also featured in Dwell). They’re working on a couple of perfumes now too, as well as a potential second Holiday Salon and Bathhouse location.  

"Our styles are very complimentary," Butler says. "I’m very focused on the bigger shapes, so when it comes down to the interior design or choosing the textiles or getting creative with finishes, I’m all burned out, but that’s where she really excels. Our home is a lot more well-rounded now than it was when I was just making my own houses."

Cupid’s arrow also struck Megan and Todd Walsh, owners of the Asheville, North Carolina, restored vintage furniture shop Atomic Furnishing and Design. The two met in 2013 when Megan, an artist, reached out to Todd, a furniture reseller, about a midcentury ottoman he’d listed on Facebook Marketplace for $40. She’d been working on the interior design of an Airbnb for a client and had been scouring Craigslist and local listings for unique pieces. "I was like, ‘Wow, that thing is cheap,’ so I messaged right away," Megan says. "He wrote back, like, ‘Sorry, someone’s coming, but if for some reason they don’t show, I’ll let you know.’ Normally, I’d just let that kind of thing slide, but this time, I was like, ‘Yeah, let me know. I want it.’"

Come morning, the other interested buyer flaked and Todd reached out to Megan. He was frustrated, because he’d delayed a trip to Atlanta waiting for the original buyer. He told her if she could come to his cabin in Hendersonville in the next hour, the piece was hers. "I dropped everything, because I lived about 45 minutes from where he was, and I drove all the way out there," Megan says. "I pulled up this gravel road out in the middle of nowhere, asking Todd’s neighbors if they were Todd." Eventually, she says, she found Todd’s house. The pair ended up talking for about 45 minutes before she took off with the bench.

"I think we hit it off because his cabin was full of amazing midcentury furniture," Megan says. "We just connected about what we did. I said, ‘If you get any more midcentury pieces, please contact me.’" She also managed to mention that she had a boyfriend, which Todd jokes came up because she didn’t want him to think no one would notice if she went missing in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually, the two decided to team up professionally, with Megan selling Todd’s furniture in a vintage booth she ran in Asheville. They started picking furniture together and doing various side projects, and Megan stopped mentioning her boyfriend. "One day," Todd says, "she asked if I could pick up a sofa for her in Greenville, South Carolina. I said sure, and I thought, ‘I’m going to ask her out today.’ Like, I put on a blazer and I was better dressed than I’d ever been in my entire life. So I picked up the sofa on my way back from painting all day, after I’d gotten changed, and I went to drop it at her place. I knocked on the door and her boyfriend answered."

Deciding the situation had become too weird, Todd decided to stop working with Megan. "I went back to my cabin and just forgot about it," he says. "I didn’t contact her anymore, but then she saw me posting stuff I’d refinished and reached out, like, ‘I need some more pieces for a project.’"

Megan says she felt a "close connection" to Todd: "At one point when we were working together, a friend of mine asked, ‘Do you think it’s normal to meet a man you feel like you’ve known your whole life and not have it become an intimate thing?’"

Things really came to a head when Todd offered to join Megan on a last-minute road trip to Charlotte to pick up a couch she needed to finish a project. "I had to get back for my sister’s birthday that night, but when we got to Charlotte, it just started snowing," she says. "It hardly ever snows in Charlotte, but we were looking at the weather report and it said there was going to be a blizzard so we thought, ‘We gotta get home.’ We didn’t bring the sofa back, because it was going to get damaged in the back of the truck, and the trip that was supposed to take two hours ended up taking about four or five."

"Once we were in the car with all that time to talk, she told me about what her friend said about her feelings and knowing someone her whole life," Todd says. "I looked at her and said, ‘I’m going to be really honest with you right now. I think you’re my soulmate.’"

"Things weren’t great with my boyfriend at the time," Megan interjects. "I felt like a terrible person for feeling that way, but I wasn’t expecting or wanting to fall in love with someone. We just really enjoyed each other’s company. I felt like we were on the same path in so many ways."

When the two got back to Todd’s cabin, where Megan had parked her car, there was a foot of snow and she wasn’t able to dig herself out. She called her then boyfriend and said unless he could come get her, she was going to stay at Todd’s. He declined. The pair stayed up all night talking. 

The next morning, with the snow starting to clear, Megan dug her car out, went home, and broke up with her boyfriend. Within a few days, he’d moved out. After a brief trip to clear her head and confirm what she felt, Megan called Todd. "All my fears were gone after that," she says. "I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I’ll come live with you,’ which was so not me." Once they moved in together, the pair quickly decided to start Atomic Furnishing and Design using $1,000 they made at a yard sale and a logo the two designed. A few months later, they got engaged and opened their retail showroom. A few months after that, they were married. 

Now, the pair have been married for 10 years, have two kids—Hawk and Bear—and work together every day. "It’s funny," Megan says, "whenever we pick up heavy, awkward furniture from people, [they’ll] joke and say, ‘Man, if my wife and I ever picked up furniture together, we’d end up divorced.’"

Related Reading:

The Complicated Love Story of Modernist Design Duo Aino and Alvar Aalto

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