About
Sarah Kirkpatrick
Interior Designer & Home Stager
Interior Designer
Hello! My name is Sarah Kirkpatrick.
I am the owner and principal designer of Unshelf Design & Boutique, an interior design and home staging firm with a
brick-and-mortar design lab in Calgary, AB.
We specialize in cosmetic redesigns that spark joy, and create spaces that ‘hug’ you when you walk in.
After losing my mom in my 20s, and experiencing burnout which led me to closing down my successful 6-figure marketing company at the height of its success, I quickly discovered the power of your environment and the impact it has not only on your mental health but the rate at which you can achieve greater success and fulfillment within it. This premise is how Unshelf Design was born.
Professional
Interior design is two fold to me.
1. Life gives us lemons, and it is up to us to create spaces that wrap themselves around us when we walk into them. Healing us and nurturing our families no matter what we face through that front door.
2. Life also gives us lemonade, and by designing your home to reflect where you want to be, and the life you want to live, you set the stage to bring those goals to life.
What differentiates me is my experience managing my own advertising agency for 9 years, and the masters course in project management, vendor relations, and systems and processes that was. The business side of design is 80% of what makes a project go smoothly, and our clients rave about how seamless a process our design projects are.
I bought my first house when I was 24 and took it down to the studs, redesigning it from the ground up. I also flipped my husbands rental property before we sold it so he could break even in the down market he was selling in (and he came out ahead!). This experience paired with my staging and decorating certifications, as well as my impecable design taste, have formed the other 20% of design projects (our clients rave about that too!).
Personal
I am a firm believer that you have to ‘click’ with your designer, and I wanted to introduce myself on a personal level as well (without it sounding too much like a dating profile… though I do like long walks on the beach).
Family: My husband and I have 3 dogs – Elsie (Great Pyrenees mix we adopted through AARCS), Bella & Gracie (West Highland Terriors – Gracie was my mom’s dog. When mom passed away we welcomed Gracie with open paws).
Travel: I love to gain inspiration for my designs through the textures and concepts I encounter around the world. I visit 1 new country a year, having visited 34 countries to date.
Locked Rooms: I love solving problems and am the ‘search and find’ person on escape room teams. I guess thats why I love occupied staging! Looking around for items we can use to complete the puzzle. Board games are great too!
Thrifting: I get a rush from finding modern decor at thrift stores. I could spend all day going to every thrift store in the city and scouring the shelves for hidden gems – in fact, I created a of my favourite thrift shops in Calgary! Sustainable and affordable decor keeps your space fresh and joyful as your tastes change, and that is my primary goal as a decorator.
Textured.
Raw. Classic.
Interior Design
Occupied Staging
Education
Unshelf Team
Liberty Maki
Design Assistant
For as long as Liberty can remember she has been a creature of creation – Painting, drawing, and drafting since she could hold a pencil! After studying art history and design, she pursued further education in the Interior Design program at The Visual Collage of Art and Design.
Outside of the studio, Liberty loves thrifting, coffee shop scouting, content creation, and traveling with her sweet pup Maesie!