By Donna Heiderstadt

Mickayla Smith spent 2024 perfecting the juggling act often required when forging a successful career. As a Kitchen & Bath Design Specialist at Evansville, IN-based Inspire Design Center for the past four years, she works 8:00am to 5:00pm making new or renovated spaces a reality for clients — and then she divides her evenings between taking classes at Ivy Tech in pursuit of a degree in Building Construction Management and Environmental Design and indulging her personal passion by teaching dance classes at a local studio. She also serves on the Southern Indiana Builders Association’s Parade of Homes board and assists with planning its annual Parade of Homes judging. Somewhere amid that busy schedule, 26-year-old Mickayla also managed to get married this past October.

“A typical day would begin with caffeine, of course!” says Mickayla, who also counts among her accomplishments reaching over $1 million in kitchen and bath sales in 2023. While she enjoys all aspects of her job, from initial meetings with clients to designing the spaces, her top moments are outside the showroom. “My favorite part of the job is visiting job sites, especially in remodels,” says the former house-flipper-turned-designer. “When the space is demolished and new cabinets or anything is being installed, I love to see it changing into the final product.”

Mickayla, who describes herself as “determined,” admits that many homeowners’ preference for white-and-gray kitchens and baths can be frustrating. “We have many beautiful colors and cabinetry in our showroom, but we sell 96% white shaker cabinets,” she says. “While white cabinets are clean and beautiful in their own way, it makes it more difficult to be creative when there is no color happening.” Her most memorable project remains her biggest remodel so far, “The customer and I worked together for a year and a half before cabinetry was finalized and ordered,” she says. “We went through about 12 different floorplan options that could include her kitchen, master bathroom, laundry, mudroom, and master closet until we finally found the perfect floorplan. After that was figured out, we went through many options for cabinet color and countertop colors until we found exactly what she had been wanting.”

Personally, Mickayla says she “typically prefers an eclectic design with all types of patterns and colors together, but recently mid-century modern/Scandinavian designs have really been speaking to me!” When not designing, she relaxes with her calico cat, Emerald, and travels every chance she get with her husband, Shane. They especially enjoy weekend road trips, but a longer journey is definitely on the horizon: “A must do on my list is to travel Route 66 from the beginning in Chicago to end in California!”