Jason A. Smith | The Valdosta Daily TimesCallie Shaw, interior designer and owner of Tin Lily Design, started doing interior design at the age of 15. 

VALDOSTA — Callie Shaw, interior designer and owner of Tin Lily Design, started as an interior designer at the age of 15.

Since high school, Shaw has worked with many different companies that sold products ranging from retail, fabric, bedding, furniture, flooring and accessories. She said the different design industries honed her skills as an interior designer. By the time she was in college, Shaw acted as a consult for homeowners.

After a while, Shaw said it began making “sense for me to branch out and do my own thing.”

So, in 2014, she opened her design business.

“It’s pretty much been non-stop since then, which has been a blessing,” she said. “It’s never, thankfully, been slow. I’ve worked with some people the whole time and other people with some smaller stuff. I’ve helped people build houses and I’ve helped businesses. It’s been steady growth.”

In late 2017, Shaw decided to open a storefront for several reasons including an expansion of resources for her design business.

“I felt a need to have more resources on hand, more readily available where I wasn’t driving all over creation trying to find something,” she said. “The fabric really started it because Valdosta has never had a good place to find a lot of fabric. So that’s what really drove me to do it. The furniture and the accessories just fell into place nicely. I’m not looking to be a big furniture store by any means, but it’s nice to have those resources.”

Because the fabric was a large part of why she opened the store, Shaw said the fabric is often used for reupholstery, custom bedding, drapes and pillows. Shaw said she regularly works with local seamstresses such as Whitney White with Whitney White Drapery Design, “but there are other seamstresses that we work with or shop with us from time to time.”

Shaw stressed her store isn’t just a resource center for her. It is for seamstresses, interior designers or residents.

“I have people who come and buy their own fabric and work with it themselves or have someone else do it,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be just something that goes through us.”

Another reason she opened a location was to move her business out of her home, so she has a regular place to meet clients.

“My business started in my home,” she said. “My mom always had her business in her home. I decided to have a place that was outside the home – not that my mom did a bad job with it – but for me, I wanted to keep them separate.”

Shaw keeps her storefront stocked with fabric, some furniture, art, lamps, knick-knacks, mirrors and other items, but said the store’s inventory is always rotating.

“Things are really moving out of here pretty quick, so things don’t stick around too long,” she said. “I’m either taking them out or other designers are getting them.”

Shaw said she makes it a point to work with other designers because she thinks “we all need to support each other.”

She also shops with other designers and décor stores around town as a way to support other businesses and ensure she is keeping her inventory diverse.

“I had those relationships before I had this store,” she said about shopping at other local stores. “I wanted to continue to have those relationships, and there are other things they have that I don’t have. I try to get different things, so we don’t all have the same stuff. But if I need something and I don’t have it, I can get it or vice versa.”

Shaw is an interior designer first and a store owner second.

She spends most of her time working with clients to either build a house from the ground up, remodeling a room or just making a few changes.

When Shaw begins working with a client, she will meet them at their house or the store and learn what the client needs and the nature of his or her style.

“I’ll meet them in their environment and get a better idea of what they need or what their style is,” she said.

After learning more about the needs and wants of the client, Shaw schedules another meeting with the client either at her store or another store in town to review possible materials and begin putting a plan together.

Before placing the finishing touches on a project, Shaw said she prefers for any custom work to be done.

Custom work includes tailored drapery, bedding, new rugs, flooring and painting.

“I would like to do my finishing touches like hanging art or putting in furniture – essentially staging the environment. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that is how I like to do it,” she said.

Tin Lily Design, 515 N. St. Augustine Road, Suite F, is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call (229) 563-1689 or (229) 262-4817.

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1257.