From The Bend magazine, April 2015 by Ronna Braselton
When I moved back to Corpus Christi in 2001, I started a new life and a new job. I began working with my mom who owned her own interior decorating company on the south side of Corpus Christi off of Staples Street. Every day on my way to her house I passed this sad excuse for a building (the former Roger’s Flooring). It was a dilapidated eyesore. This route down Staples was becoming the corridor to the new high end homes and developments in this area. I felt frustrated and upset that this building sat there in its sick and hopeless condition in this otherwise improving area. I remember my mom saying to me one day, “Ronna, you should buy that building and make it your design company.” I laughed her into the next century of course. A business that size? A design business in Corpus? NO WAY. Corpus would never support design in the way I saw it. That’s what I thought.
Fast forward 14 years. Learning about building budgets and materials from my family over time was a truly incredible education for me. After some time, however, I found myself wanting to make my own mark in a bit of a different direction. My mom had taught me so much about space planning related to furnishings over the years. Yet my desire to create space beyond filling the inside of homes got to me. I got the itch to design space, inside and out.
I realized I had one big problem. Most people think that hiring a designer isn’t accessible – that it is cost prohibitive to the masses. I knew that with the business model my mom had in place that there was a way to create comfortable, warm spaces AND provide the pricing needed to stay on budget (okay, sometimes we go a little over budget.) I was determined that if people found their way to the idea of more holistic design that they would learn to love the process of creating it and more so, living in it.
My main goal was to excite and encourage people not to fear the building or renovation process that we commonly see in our business. These fears are related to not only the process but the bottom line. Knowing this, I wanted to create an environment where dreams are encouraged and great design supports those dreams. A non-intimidating showroom where creative juices flow freely. I knew I just had to find the right building to use as a model to show people that creating space was something I can do. I really hate to say this, but guess who knew just the place? MOM.
My strange fascination with all things involved in good design made me constantly look for ways to build creatively with as many green materials (that’s the hippie in me) as possible. As we look on the building project at SPACE we implemented this perspective. We derived this “industrial chic” design that encompassed the theme for our building. It’s what we could afford, so we created a name and a brand for it. We do this for every project now. Name it, fill it and make it great.
Transformation is a daily process for all people. Transformation is an art. It’s the heart and soul of who we are at SPACE. We listen, absorb and guide our clients to transform their SPACE to complement their lives. We want to make this otherwise maddening process and exciting journey. We have the expertise and product knowledge that sets us apart. We aren’t a furniture store, we aren’t a flooring store, and we aren’t a design or decorating team. We are all of that.
Alas, Corpus Christi, we bring you SPACE. Now as you drive southbound on Staples we hope you will stop by and see who we are and what we are made of. By the way, the upside down A is a Delta, from the Greek alphabet. The Delta signifies transformation. Yes, we planned it that way. Similarly, when we install a project for a client we are likely to hear something like, “wow, this looks like someone actually planned this”. I get such a kick out of that. Yes, someone did. That was team SPACE. We transformed this place.
