Conversations with Ashley Walsh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Walsh.

Hi Ashley, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was working for a high-end furniture company in Connecticut in 2018. There, I met my now best friend and business partner, Maddy. We would talk about owning our own business one day and how cool it would be to start something together. Maddy moved to Arizona, and a few years later, I followed suit, although at that point she was living in Utah. Yet we both reached a point where we felt we had gained all that we could from the design firms we worked at, so we decided to take the leap into starting something together. Now, we’re nearly five years into Morgan Design Studio, named after our shared middle name.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Being self-employed comes with lots of risks. It seems our projects often come in waves, which is less of a struggle and more so seems to be the nature of the industry. There are times when we’re working on 10 projects at a time, but then there are other points when numerous projects come to a close and you have to start thinking about where your next paycheck is going to come from. Early on, we were juggling this along with still figuring out how to run a business. There are a lot of areas you won’t be an expert in, yet you wear all the hats before you get to a point where you can hire people for the things that aren’t your strong suits. At the beginning, we were handling all of our admin work: accounting, billing, procurement, etc. For us, that was a tricky season because we were trying to understand areas of the business we didn’t have experience in, nor did we particularly enjoy, until we could eventually outsource.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
At Morgan Design Studio, we’re interior designers. We create functional living spaces for our clients. People who are unfamiliar with interior design think we spend our days shopping for pillows and selecting paint colors– which we do. But more importantly, we’re designing a home that feels custom to our client, a space that caters to them. Whether that’s reconfiguring a bathroom layout, incorporating certain colors and materials that accommodate pets, or designing a kitchen based on how they and their five children intend to use it. To us, our clients’ homes should function the way they need them to first, while also making them beautiful.

Any big plans?
We have our 2026 planning session at the end of this week! No big changes at the moment, but we’re excited to wrap up a few awesome projects and expand our clientele in North Carolina, where Maddy is officially based!

Pricing:

• Everyones home is different, and everyones goals for their home is different. We create custom estimates for each of our clients based on their project scope.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.morgandesignstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morgan.designstudio/

Image Credits
MDS – Sorta Scandi SL images: Christina Zolotaia
MDS – Order Up Oregon images: Betsy Blue