By Donna Heiderstadt

Sydney Melnyk’s artistic vision began with her love of drawing. “It started around age five when I made my own novels illustrating my favorite Looney Tune characters,” recalled the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan native who is now a Designer at Redl Kitchens. As a 12-year-old, Sydney thought she’d be a fashion designer as she enthusiastically sketched multiple outfits for her family and friends. By age 13, her eye finally focused on interior design as she selected the palette — brown and robin’s egg blue with fancy throw pillows — for her “very mature” bedroom décor. “I laugh thinking about it now since I run away fast from that color combination,” she said.

By 2016, when Sydney graduated from Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alberta, with a degree in Interior Design Technology, she already had two design awards in her portfolio. She won first place in both the NKBA’s Student Design Competition in the Kitchen Category and the NKBA/GE Appliances Charette Student Design Competition, again in the Kitchen Category. It’s hardly surprising that Sydney says kitchens are her favorite part of the home.

But before she could design custom cabinetry, Sydney made a slight detour through the world of  commercial design. Her early career was spent as part of the design team for Saskatchewan’s first Children’s Hospital. “It’s surreal to be able to tell people that designs I created exist in a building that will last in our province for decades,” she said.

Now 29 and in her first year at Redl Kitchens, Sydney is proud to be meeting her sales goals and assisting her coworkers with 3D modeling. “The two designers I work closely with have worked 15-plus years in the industry, so I feel very lucky and fortunate to be able to pick their brains and learn from their experience,” she said. “Another favorite aspect of my job is the variety of projects and how week after week something new has come along to dive into.”

Sydney’s own personal design style favors the whimsical and dreamy. “It’s probably why I’ve often said I’ve lived a past life in the Victorian era,” she noted. “I’m a big fan of gold hardware, particularly champagne bronze, and my current favorite door style is a stepped shaker. It looks so classy and elevated compared to a standard 3-inch frame.”

A self-described “serial hobbyist” (her latest obsessions are embroidery and reading romance novels), Sydney also did a year-long mentorship with a local astrologer that stoked her passion for astrology and birth charts. (She’s a Leo, by the way.) Sydney is also in a three-year relationship with her boyfriend, Brett, and they live together with their Welsh Terrier, Rylee.

As for future goals, Sydney aims to combine her love for both interior design and astrology and eventually share it with the world. Having one of her kitchen designs featured in a magazine would be pretty awesome, too.