FAMILY MATTERS

Interior designer Laura Hodges nails that work-life balance.

- JANELLE ERLICHMAN DIAMOND

LAURA HODGES IS passionate about her two greatest accomplishments—being a mom and running a design firm. They weave together like a beautiful tapestry— each satisfying on their own, but even more beautiful when intertwined.

Her business, Laura Hodges Studio, a boutique interior-design firm, and Domain by Laura Hodges Studio, her home décor shop, share a storefront along Catonsville’s Main Street—not far from where Hodges lives with her husband and two sons. Hodges was born in northern England (to a British mother and Jamaican father) and lived there until she was five—you can still catch a slight accent when she speaks—but grew up in Montgomery County before heading to New York for college to study business, followed by the New York School of Interior Design. Hodges interned for award-winning designer Jamie Drake and worked as a design assistant for Thomas Jayne of the renowned Jayne Design Studio. “But I always knew I wanted to do my thing,” she says. That entrepreneurial spirit was kicking in, even when she was a design novice. One of Hodges’ first solo projects was a client she found on Craigslist. The woman was looking for a trade—someone willing to help design her Manhattan apartment without charge, but in return the designer would have free rein. “I could get my feet wet with her,” Hodges says. “She gave me complete creative freedom and the freedom to not worry about getting things wrong or all the liability when someone is paying you.” They crafted a headboard together and shopped the local flea markets. She loved working one-on-one with a client outside the design firm. “I definitely want to do this on my own,” she remembers thinking. The end result was a happy client. Twelve years later and “we’re still friends,” she says.