My college and early professional working years were spent in social services. I've worked with people who have cognitive, physical disabilities and/or mental health issues living in the community and I've assisted in providing reproductive healthcare to underserved women. These experiences shaped my ability to be empathetic and to work well with all kinds of personalities. However, emotional burnout from those positions led to me trying my hand at the corporate life. I got my foot in the door at Target Corp as a receptionist and spent the next 5 years working my way up to a couple positions in Merchandising/retail.

Following Target, I worked for one of their merchandise vendors as a Product Manager for artificial christmas trees. This experience taught me the Product Design life cycle and took me to China to visit first-hand the factories making my product. It was a great job and I loved it, but I was also a mother of an infant and 3yr old and I found I couldn't make the time commitment required of the job. I put my kiddos first. Best Buy Corp was next, working in the technology sector for mobile devices. I didn't hate this job but neither was I fulfilled in any meaningful way. I was also nearing 40 at this time, my mortality was in sight and I realized I was looking towards a future I didn't want; a continuation of the daily grind of a corporate jobby job with no personal fulfillment. It was hard for me to stomach.

Through a series of mishaps and kismet involving a lost wedding ring, a failed adventure with a metal detector and young kids in a jewelry studio, my partner signed me up for an upholstery class I had been wanting to take. Will Pfifer was the owner of Blue Sky Galleries, a furniture upholstery business in NE Minneapolis. He also taught instructional classes once a month for a fee. My grandmother's channelback chairs were screaming at me to reupholster them, but I didn't have the skills and I didn't have the money to pay someone else to do them. I had found the class online and it seemed an affordable way to get those chairs reupholstered. That class led me to take another class and then another class. Finally, I resorted to flat-out asking Will for a job as an apprentice. To my surprise, he said yes! I went to part-time at Best Buy and began my journey of working 3 days a week for 3 years learning the fine trade of furniture upholstery.

Will was planning on retiring and the pandemic accelerated those plans. When the gallery closed I was able to continue doing furniture upholstery out of my basement. However, like many women, I had to fill the role of teacher to my elementary aged children and that was my priority for the next couple years. After successfully navigating through the challenges of the pandemic, I embraced the realization that time is precious, prompting me to dive in headfirst into creating Restyled by Jeni.