I was two years when my parents renovated our family home.

I have no memory of this, of course. It was an old house on Melrose Street in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. This was over thirty years ago. My parents then were much like my husband and I now. Real estate people with a passion for design and a hard-won network of builders, developers and investors.

My dad grew up in a multi-family home on Burling street in Lincoln Park as one of five kids. My mom was one of seven from Orland Park. Neither of them had much but they both came from families who worked hard. At some point, they met, fell in love and raised five kids together.

Somewhere along the way, they developed a knack for investing in property and building beautiful homes. I grew up loving the feel of wallpaper, the smell of lumber, the excitement around a new project. I’ll never forget the first time I watched my mom design a bathroom. She painted it herself in the most fabulous 90’s sponge paint while I danced to Ricky Martin’s ‘Living La Vida Loca’. We never stayed in the same place for long and our family moved every few years. It’s an occupational hazard in the real estate business, as it turns out.

I’ll never forget the year my mom entered our new home into the Holiday House Walk. She spent months (this is not an exaggeration) getting the house ready so that all of our neighbors could tour it. This was, as I understood it, a ‘big deal’. Our house became a Macy’s showroom. Snow globes, reindeer, ornaments, garlands, wreaths and the ‘pièce de résistance’ – the Christmas tree. For the first time ever our family Christmas tree was to be professionally decorated. As an eight-year-old this displeased me. “No one decorates that tree except for me,” I said to myself. “No one.”

And so in the middle of the night before the Holiday House Walk, after all the designers finished their work and the house was still, I snuck out from my room and took down all of the Christmas ornaments and branches and garlands. I started rearranging. I added a few pieces and took down others. I borrowed ornaments from around the house. I picked branches out from the snow outside and draped them on the tree. I turned the tinsel upside down and the pine cones right side up. No decoration was safe. I changed them all.

Once my work was complete I crept back to my room and dreamt of the celebration I’d awake to once everyone realized what an incredible talent I was. I’d saved the Holiday House Walk.

The next morning, I woke up to a bit of a scream. I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

My mom was sort of horrified which, in hindsight, is totally fair. I have a VERY different appreciation for this as a mom today. If my daughter today rearranged my entire house the night before a holiday house walk I’d have myself committed. God bless my mother. Instead of sending me off to boarding school which is almost certainly what I would have done, she found a way to celebrate my “designs”. While the rest of the house was put back together, she let me put the finishing touches on the tree including the angel on top. Truly, a saint.

Years later, I would go on to design and develop my own properties with the support of my entire family. The passion I began developing as an eight-year-old girl would later allow me to retire my husband and I from our corporate jobs and pursue our passion for real estate and design every, single day.

My dad was a real estate industry titan by the time he passed away and so much of who I am is because of him. But it was my mother who first taught me how to design my own future.

Which is something I’ll have to remind myself the next time my daughter colors on the walls.

Hang in there, moms. We got this.