For Keleigh Cleveland, design rarely starts with a blank slate.

More often, it begins with an heirloom tucked away in a closet, an overlooked chair waiting for the right room, or a husband determined to keep the giant television—no matter what is arranged around it. “I want each client's home to reflect their history, personality, and the energy they bring into the world,” Keleigh says.

That understanding of home as something built in layers over time traces back to her childhood in Mississippi, where she spent years tagging along with her grandmother through antique stores, fabric rooms, and houses in various stages of becoming beautiful. Her grandmother was an interior designer whose projects stretched from small-town Mississippi to Jackson, the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans. She sewed draperies by hand, hung wallpaper herself, reframed artwork, and pulled entire homes together one thoughtful detail at a time.

“She had an impeccable eye and immaculate taste,” Keleigh says. “I just adored her.”

Every room in her grandmother’s house had its own personality. There was “the plum room” and “the fern room,” each layered with antiques, fabrics, and collections curated over years. The rooms were all different, but somehow they still belonged together. Nothing felt too precious. Everything felt lived in. Watching her shaped the way Keleigh still approaches design today. Not as a formula, but as a story unfolding room by room.

Keleigh launched her business in 2017 after helping friends transform a former bakery space in Homewood into a jewelry store. Shortly after she designed a friend’s nursery, then another space, then another. “From there, projects just kind of got bigger,” she says.

Today, her work ranges from layered living rooms and bedrooms to powder rooms wrapped in wallpaper to homes filled with texture, softness, and pieces that feel gathered over time rather than ordered all at once.

And if there is one thing Keleigh loves unapologetically, it’s wallpaper. “I’m kind of obsessed with it,” she says, laughing. “It’s like instant art for the whole room. It warms a space and transforms it.” Curtains, too. “Curtains are what make a room settle in,” she says.

Still, Keleigh’s approach has very little to do with imposing her own style. Before selecting fabrics or paint colors, she spends time understanding how a family actually lives in a space and the pieces that already matter to them. That often means shopping inside the house first. Keleigh lights up talking about repurposing forgotten furniture, reframing sentimental artwork, or finding a better use for pieces clients were ready to part with. One client had been using a square table as a bedside table. Keleigh saw something else entirely. “That would make an excellent game table,” she told them. It eventually found new life downstairs, becoming the center of a gathering space.

Other times, the solution is simply finding a fresh way to incorporate a piece a family already loves into a new design. “Sometimes it’s problem solving,” she says. “Sometimes it’s just finding a new way to use something.” That flexibility is part of what keeps clients coming back, often from one home to the next. “I’ve done people’s homes, then their lake houses, then the next house after they move,” she says. “It just keeps going.”

In her own home, Keleigh gravitates toward softer palettes and layered textures. Muted blues, faded greens, softened corals, patterns with movement and warmth. She favors rooms that feel calm over those that are too polished.

“I don’t have a one-size-fits-all design process,” she says. “Every single project is different because every person is different.” She also does not believe beautiful homes require unlimited budgets. “I can work within whatever your budget is,” she says. “I have an eye for finding inexpensive things that look expensive.”

Still, there are a few elements she believes are worth the investment. Lighting, rugs, and hardware top the list. “Cheap lighting looks cheap,” she says, simply. Other elements can be more flexible. Accessories, vintage finds, and meaningful pieces collected over time are often what give a home its character in the first place.