This year, we celebrate 20 years of interior design at my California firm, Kerrie Kelly Design Labs. Each year has brought expansion and growth, but nothing like the transformation we experienced these past several months.

With five ASID designers on staff, we are always looking to give back to the industry by mentoring interior design students. However, that requires space—especially on days with a full house, when presentations, fabrics, finishes, and clients are flying all over our Design Lab. When welcoming two new interns for this past summer, our team had no place to go but up!

Here are five lessons we learned when adding 200 more square feet by building a loft.

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