HGTV's Featured Redesigner, NATALIE LEWIS:

You have seen her on HGTV and now you have the opportunity to work alongside her as she “shows you the ropes” and gives you the inside scoop from behind the camera about home staging and interior Redesign. Natalie Lewis is a featured Redesigner on HGTV’s “Decorating Cents” and shoots segments all over the United States that can be seen regularly on Home & Garden Television. Until recently, she spent her days working with clients solving their unique room dilemmas and challenges but in May 2005, Natalie shifted her focus to that of educating and mentoring.

Natalie is a devoted wife and busy mother of four children, ages 15, 11, 9 and 8 but has a passion for one-on-one connection with people and helping them reach their full potential in business pursuits. Thus, LewisStyle^® was inspired. For Natalie, it’s more than a training program. It’s a way to connect with like-minded, passionate people in a fun atmosphere.
Her honest approach is delivered with a sense of humor and your cheeks will ache after an afternoon with Natalie! When working with her, be ready to take notes and learn…you never know what decorating treasure might slip off her tongue! Her philosophy is to surround yourself with positive, energetic people who challenge you to become better in every aspect of your life.



NATALIE’S STORY…behind the camera

“I have always had an interest in interior decorating that I’m sure was passed down from my mother. I grew up in a middle-class home with middle-class furnishings; in fact, most of our furniture was handed down from my grandparents. We had the matching sofa and loveseat with avocado green raised velvet flowers on the upholstery and wood at the arms. The seating group was rounded out with a pair of rust armchairs…to die for. I like to say that we were “eclectic” before eclectic was a style. But my mom had a real knack for decorating and always taught me to make the most of what we had. She was very proud of our home and she felt it was important that our home feel warm and inviting to anyone that might walk through the door. I can recall moving around our furniture several times a year because we got bored with the look or our family’s needs changed. I found myself at 11 or 12 years old hanging artwork for family members as they’d move into new homes or making suggestions for their furniture placement.

When it came time to pick a major in college, I thumbed through the college catalog and ran across Interior Design…but that didn’t intrigue me. Working with clients for months, sometimes years, at a time, lugging around fabric and flooring samples, discussing their budget (or the lack thereof) for the project, dealing with vendor backorders or dye lot changes and spending more time designing sample boards than designing rooms. I just knew that this path would not serve my passion…using people’s existing stuff to achieve great results in a room…just like mom.

So I fell into the arms of the business school! It seemed to make sense that if the creative side of my brain was fully engaged that I should learn some new things to stimulate the other side. With BBA in hand, I set out to redesign the business world and landed at Sherwin-Williams Paint Company, a Fortune 200 company with recruiters that lured me with color decks and wallpaper samples. After 8 years of selecting hundreds of paint colors for both the retail and commercial markets, I set out to redesign my life by staying home with my preschooler in those few precious years before he would begin school.

But who knew that HGTV would land on my television? I was hooked…a verifiable addict! My love for decorating was taken to new heights. I decided that my next pursuit would include inspiring others to love their things without a corporate time clock defining my workday. I sought help to refine my decorating skills and took a training course to teach me the art of interior redesign and home staging. But I left training with a to-do list of business start-up procedures that could deflate an MBA graduate. No logo, no website, no graphic designer, no marketing budget and certainly no marketing direction, no business cards or stationery, no accounting procedures, no tools, no brand, no real help…just a LIST. My colleagues were equally frustrated and most of them ended up doing nothing. All of that time and money invested to get trained only to end up doing nothing? Was my dream ever going to be a reality?

I had stashed my BBA degree in the drawer to be a full-time mommy but found great peace when I put on my business hat once again and found resources. I decided that failure was not an option for me and, in spite of the lack of help from the training organization, I would forge ahead. I slowly but surely crossed off the items on that list writing checks along the way. What started out as a meager investment grew at an exponential rate. Eventually, my business did take off and I even mentored those from my training class. The now defunct organization existed to collect my annual dues. Their office hours were two hours a day and other communications were sparse. I wanted more. My colleagues wanted more. We exchanged lots of advice and, at my colleagues’ request, I wrote a series of seminars to teach/develop marketing strategies. I taught them time management and sales techniques…things we all wished were included in our training. I don’t blame my training organization, I just misunderstood their place in the market. I liken them to that of community education…take your money and teach some techniques so that you can stand around at your child’s soccer practice and brag that you, too, know how to stage and redesign homes…another hobby, nothing more because there’s nothing more to get. They offer the training so that you’ll join the organization…the reason for their existence. They offer suggestions but no solutions. Because they don’t provide you with customized accounting software, there is no accounting help. Because they don’t provide you with a trademarked logo and brand, there is no advertising. Because there is no vested interest in your success, there is no real help…simply suggestions/recommendations.

After 4 years in business and having been discovered by HGTV, I pulled out that to-do LIST from my training and decided that savvy entrepreneurs want more and understand the difference between a hobby and a REAL business. They need a leader with a vision, a staff willing to serve and support and they want to invest their money into a system…a proven way of doing business. Thus, LewisStyle^® Franchising was born. We exist to serve the needs of the real estate market. We achieve this goal by recruiting candidates with strong interpersonal skills and that are motivated to achieve a dream. Our training program is taught through the lens’ (my staging/redesign method that I perfected working on-camera) for the sole purpose of supporting our team members and their businesses.

Franchising with LewisStyle^® isn’t just a roadmap, it’s an on-board navigation system. We’ll guide you turn by turn and keep you on the route that your goals dictate while steering you away from costly, time-consuming mistakes. You can do it the hard way, or you can do it LewisStyle^®!”