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Hey!!

        I'm so glad you are here!

 

I'm Christina, and when I was a young girl I loved to rearrange my room on the regular...I would tire of the way my room looked and wanted it to look like a picture in a magazine. I am still that little girl today.  I'm just guessing that you feel the same way. 

 

I am a former Virginian and at 18, my family and I moved to Southwest Virginia for several years and now I am a rock solid Tennessean. I married a bad-ass dentist.  We have 5 children between us, a beautiful extended family and a big kitty cat named Lily.

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I have made many detours to where I am now. I have created and owned several restaurants, One day I'll share my story but it's a lot!!  Today I am proud to say that I am an interior designer, artist, chef and creative. I own several businesses. One is my interior design and renovations company, Wood and Cotton Exchange.  I came up with the name in 2014 knowing that was the direction my heart was taking me.  It has taken all these years for me to be able to have a platform to share everything I have learned on my journey.

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When my family and I would take our annual trip to see my grandparents, we would travel a full day driving from Northern VA to Southwest VA ( culture shock!!!). I was anxious to go to my grandmother's house but I was also excited.  It was a double edged sword.  I loved the antiques that my she collected, but hated the musty smell.  Well, now I get over the smell because I love things from the past; the workmanship does not compare to things made today.  Also, the TEXTILES she had....makes me swoon just remembering them today.  Sometimes I wonder, if there was a such thing as past lives, then I definitely traveled through many periods of time.  I love mixing new with old, maybe its just something small, but I love pieces that people look at or pick up and say " where did you get that?"

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As a young woman I was so interested in so many things.  My friends had big plans to become doctors, lawyers, nurses, and I thought I was weird because I wanted to be a lot of things.  It was a very confusing time for me.  I wanted to be a doctor, an artist, a business owner.  I loved fashion, I loved decor. I would spend hours pouring over magazines. I loved going to the doctors office or dentist because they would have sooo many magazines and it was an opportunity to see mags that I had never seen before!!! (that was before I became a germaphobe...lol). I didn't know what direction to go. All my friends seemed to have answers and direction in their lives. I didn't.  I always felt very different, kinda like an outsider, sometimes even to myself.  It has taken many many years of self discovery to find my place of contentment in the field of work or vocation as I like to call it. 

I like to call myself a Modern Renaissance woman, because I have loved and done so many things in my life and I am told that I'm good at most of them. Still, insecurity ensues. Will I ever be good enough? 

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At the age of 16, I got my first job at Mr. Donut.  The goal I had wasn't to make the hourly rate but to learn how to put the "Jelly In The Jelly Donuts."  How funny is that?!!  But really, I wanted to know everything about everything that I loved.  

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I had a couple more jobs, but they were still to learn the business and not to make the money.  I finally realized I wanted to own my own businesses someday. What kind of business???  Well, anything!!  I had two small children I had to feed and support.  So I did what I could with limited finances (umm....no money). I'll keep this part short (Reader's Digest version). In the early '90s "CraftShows" were all the rage, and I saw an opportunity to make money.  I had some creativity, I wasn't afraid of work, things I had collected ( I would visit construction sites and ask if I could have the scraps, church quilt ladies for scrap material, I wasn't afraid to ask for things that most people would throw away....I could put them to good use).  So I did!! I worked for about 4 weeks and made so many really cute things and off to the craft show I go, with two kids in tow, of course.  I sold EVERY SNGLE THING.  I had about $5000, I was excited!!! Then, I sat down and said to myself, "how can I do this every week???"  I can't, I said. I looked across the way and there was a concession stand and the line was so long! A light bulb went off in my head.  I need to do a concession business, it would be easy and I could go to college during the week and sell food on the weekends!! Cha-ching!!  Spiral fries and funnel cakes.  My first business.  By the way...it was so hard, not easy by any means of the imagination. I just kept my head down, worked, and took care of my babies.​

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I have since opened 6 successful restaurants, had 2 concession businesses, went to medical school for only a two-year stint

​(I will share the details with you later.) and now own a growing interior design and renovations company.  

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The common thread is hard work and determination and most of all, perseverance. Don't give up even if there is no light at the end of the tunnel.  I am a successful business woman because of those three things. Never be afraid to ask for something that your want, the worst someone can say to you is NO (great story for another day).

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However you landed here, I hope you stay, even if it just for a little while. If you are here for inspiration, motivation, or encouragement, I hope I can do that and not disappoint.

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I hope to make this journey with you. Know that if you can think it, you can make it happen.

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Currently

            I am in the middle of many projects for other clients and myself, probably

            having a hand-crafted cocktail made by my sweet husband after a

            long day at work, dreaming BIG DREAMS, and WORKING HARD.

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