Community Highlights: Meet Amanda Purdom of AsterHouse Design & Furnish

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Purdom.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story… I’m a mother of two daughters (senior in college and senior in high school), married to my soulmate of 25 years, and mother of two adorable puppies. I attended William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, and received a degree in art and art history.

In 2010, my business partner, Eryn Smith and I launched AsterHouse Design LLC. Our goal was to love people well and make people feel comfortable in their own homes. We felt that people were embarrassed that their homes didn’t look like the home décor magazines they received in their mailbox once a week.

Our mission was to give our clients permission to be uniquely themselves… which isn’t found in the page catalogs. Good design is personal, is meaningful to the individual- we wanted clients to feel at peace and unapologetic in their own homes!

We spent years investing in business classes and surrounding ourselves with leaders in our industry. We poured into our processes and refined our services and created a niche in our market for commercial and residential design for the remodel and new construction market within a two-hour radius of Manhattan, KS.

We have gotten to do so many incredible projects throughout the years that we have truly left our fingerprints on the lives of our community and have built life-long friends in the process. Eryn and I both felt we needed to expand our brand by having a brick-and-mortar store.

In 2019, we opened Furnish which is a curated home and lifestyle store offering unique and vintage goods, furniture, art, personal, and home accessories. We knew that not everyone needed or could afford a designer, but there was a market for boutique furniture stores and we wanted to maximize our reach to a broader audience.

Shortly, after opening Furnish Eryn and her family moved to Dallas. This was devastating to me personally and professionally. I was at crossroads for the first time in my career. Shut everything down and call it a good run or continue without my business partner and best friend.

After months of soul searching and loving support and encouragement from my husband, I decided to buy Eryn out of both businesses, remodel a 120-year-old building in the heart of downtown, and relocate Furnish, AsterHouse Design, and our warehouse.

During the remodel process and pandemic I decided to downsize projects and staff to survive 2020! Thankfully, in April 2021, we reopened both businesses and have seen tremendous growth! We have expanded design services to include in-store consultation, in-home furniture consults, and styling!

Our team of four has now grown to 18! We have an incredible team of designers and stylists making homes and businesses within our community beautiful…and that in itself is a dream. If anyone would have asked me 12-years ago I’d be in this spot living my dream, I wouldn’t have believed it!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
My best friend and business partner leaving were one of the biggest struggles in my career to overcome. Was I enough? Was I a “good enough” designer to stand on my own?

Was I enough to be the boss and mentor my team needed? Was I strong enough to handle the hurt if I failed? Could I still be the wife and mother my family needed? It was tough… all of it was hard and I’m so very thankful I took a leap of faith and didn’t listen to the inner voice that said, “you’re probably not enough!”

Other struggles along the way were learning how to run a business; how to be a smart businesswoman; how to be wise and know when to grow and expand and when to stay in a given place for a minute and wait. I’m a designer, my gifts are “seeing elements” that aren’t there or don’t yet exist.

Learning how to be a boss, leader, mentor, and businesswoman has given me some of the biggest challenges of my career- but every struggle was for a purpose and worth it in the end. Running a business is hard, you’ll never work harder for anyone else as hard as you work for yourself and those who depend on you… but with that comes a great reward!

We’ve been impressed with AsterHouse Design & Furnish, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
AsterHouse Design www.asterhousedesign.com

We are a full-service design firm. We specialize in residential and soft commercial design. We love the design-build process and have refined that process that clients love and the contractor appreciates. What sets us apart from other design firms is that we’re client-centered. Most designers have a unique style and if you like that style, you hire that designer.

Given we’re located in a small-Midwest town in the middle of Kansas, I knew to survive I couldn’t limit myself to just one design style or look. I need to appeal to anyone that walked in my door. That has its challenges because as a firm we needed to understand architectural design elements for contemporary, farmhouse, Mediterranean, traditional, etc.

AsterHouse Design is known for elevating the expectations of architects, builders, and the trades in our community. We believe in over-communicating to the entire team understanding the scope of work and objective, meeting and exceeding client expectations throughout the construction process, and being an advocate for the client in every situation.

AsterHouse Design is not just a design firm but a feeling, a standard by which to measure quality. Quotes we use throughout the years: “good design has no zip code” and “there’s no such thing as a design emergency.”

Furnish www.furnishmhk.com

Furnish is the causal and fun little sister of AsterHouse Design. All are welcome to shop and experience unique and affordable home furnishings. Our goal is to inspire you and get you excited about your home!

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up I was a kid that lacked athletic ability, probably because I didn’t like to sweat! Instead, I had a pad and pencil in my hand drawing the world around me.

I have one younger brother who still lives in Kansas City and is very close to me. I was a pretty quiet kid that kept to myself and didn’t need a lot of friends growing up.

Once I reached high school, I became very active and joined every club. I loved participating in something that was bigger than I was and help make a difference in my school, this is something that is still important to me today!

Contact Info:

• Email: info@asterhousedesign.com info@furnishmhk.com
• Website: www.asterhousedesign.com and www.furnishmhk.com
• Instagram: @asterhousedesign furnish_by_ahd
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Asterhousedesign https://www.facebook.com/furnishAHD/