This week we spoke with the amazing, Carolyn Flannery, founder of Make it Home Bay Area.

“Make It Home’s mission is to furnish homes of families and individuals transitioning out of crisis or homelessness with donated, gently used, repurposed furnishings and household goods. Their vision is to end furniture poverty and bring hope to families while being self-sustaining, creating jobs and protecting the environment.”

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To listen to the conversation, tune into our IGTV here.

Here is an excerpt:

1- How did you transition from being a practicing interior designer to founding Make it Home?

I’ve been in the Interior design industry for 20-ish years, and about five years ago, I began volunteering by providing support services to foster families and kids. I became aware that often when foster kids age out of the system, they end up in a precarious position of lacking support services and sometimes this leads to homelessness

On the other hand, our design industry generates a lot of excess and waste of furniture and discarded stuff that is often perfectly good and just needs a new home. I decided to use my interior design skills in a new direction. My goal is to end furniture poverty and assisting foster kids and families by helping set them up in their homes by using the excess donated furniture, that would typically end up in landfills.

My husband and I decided that I would take at least a year off to explore and figure out if this could be viable. I’m 2 1/2 months into it and it has been a whirlwind, with a terrific response from the community. We have a 1600 sq foot space at the SFDC that is our furniture bank and it is already bursting at the seams with stuff! We have also already installed about 10-12 homes for foster families.

2 – You are currently accepting donated furniture and home goods. What is the criteria for those that want to donate?

We request photos in advance and ask for things to be almost new or gently used because we’re really hoping to have pride of place. I am having a lot of fun with it and it is a new challenge to be creative by curating stuff and making these environments beautiful and making them home, within the parameters.

3 – So what are the biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge is logistics. There’s a ton of stuff out there, it has to get to me at the furniture bank and then getting it to where it needs to go.

It is amazing how much stuff is out there and we really need to start taking responsibility for our belongings. I am seeing a trend of once someone doesn’t want the furniture anymore, they no longer take responsibility. I think part of our mission is getting people to understand and have a mindset of taking responsibility until it’s in a new home being loved by someone else.

4 – How could others get involved? What are your top needs at this point in time?

I’m overwhelmed with stuff! Volunteers that could help with curating, sorting, and organizing everything into viable kitchen kits, or bedroom kits, etc. will be very helpful.

Monetary donations are needed. Because logistics, unfortunately, don’t come for free!

Then the ‘big picture’ stuff. Anyone that would like to help with longer-term planning and ideas. Currently, I’m wearing twenty different hats and do not have the bandwidth for this.

5 – I have to ask, taking you out of your new world, what is your favorite pattern from our collection?

Everything you create is beautiful. I was first introduced to your work a few years ago, at DeSousa Hughes during a Fall into Fabrics event. I love the hand-crafted aspect and my favorite is the Juhu pattern.

And I also really like the Larkspur wallcovering, especially in the pink and orange. I love it!