Anyone who’s building a new house, redoing a kitchen, even freshening up a lowly mudroom knows the process all seems straightforward until it’s time to make decisions. Then it’s what fabric should the sofa be? What will the backsplash look like? Should the flooring be hardwood or bamboo or luxury vinyl tile?
It’s enough to make moving into a yurt seem more appealing. Interior designer Linda Greco knows the telltale signs of stressed-out homeowners. Her clients range from 30 to 70 years old, usually married couples.
“Most of the time when they come to me, they don’t know what they want,” she said. “I ask them to do a questionnaire, which helps them focus.”
Greco launched Linlocks Finds and Designs, a design-build firm, in 2013. She takes on smaller projects such as redesigning laundry rooms and color consultations, and bigger undertakings such as an entire home renovation, but she primarily focuses on kitchens.
“I’ve done kitchen remodels for as little as $25,000, but typically they’re more likely to range from $40,000 and $100,000 all in,” she said. “When you’re spending that kind of money, you want it to last.”
Greco grew up in Cranston as an only child. “I was always looking for ways to keep myself occupied,” she said.
She took art as a kid and developed a love for it; it immediately tapped into her creative talent. From there, she took classes at the YMCA in drawing and sketching. “The teacher provided cards and we’d copy them,” she said.
After high school, she continued to take art classes at the University of Rhode Island, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in teacher education. “I’ve always loved kids, and being an only child may have had something to do with it,” she said.
She moved on to teaching first grade in Johnston and after 26 years, she now teaches kindergarten in the same school system.
It’s a profession that’s allowed her to combine her creative instincts with her love of educating.
“When my kids were little, I always went above and beyond with their birthday parties. The cake, the decorations would have a theme,” she said. “One time, I did a garden theme for my daughter. I got pots and the kids planted daisies, and the cake matched the flowers. I did a crime theme for my son when he was 9. We had a chalk outline on the floor and yellow caution tape and I asked a Johnston police officer to come.”
Her talent for interior design blossomed in 2001 when she decided to build her own house in Alpine Estates in Cranston. She’d never tackled a big project like that before but she was undaunted.
“Back then, you didn’t go on Pinterest for inspiration,” she said. “But I knew what looked good. I chose my own kitchen cabinets, my countertops, my flooring.”
Years later, she divorced and then her fiancé died in 2012. She needed to do more, and that impetus led to Linlocks Finds. She put the word out on Thumbtack, an online directory that allows users to hire and rate local businesses, including interior decorators in Rhode Island.
“The majority of my work still comes that way, as well as with repeat clients,” she said.
Over the years, she’s built up her design-build team with contractors that include tile installers, painters, electricians and plumbers.
“I’m very confident in the group I have. The business has really taken off,” Greco said, noting that she handles about 40 jobs a year, occasionally hiring colleagues to help but does 95% of the work herself.
Greco agrees there’s a straight line between the talent it takes to be a successful designer and that of a gifted teacher.
“In a classroom, you need creativity to keep kids’ attention. You can’t just use a manual; you have to be organized. Whether you’re dealing with 25 5-year-olds or two 40-year-old adults, the same is true. I’m managing a project. A classroom has to look appealing and functional, and the same is true if I’m designing a house,” she said.
That instinct for making spaces attractive can blend into her day job. While she was a first grade teacher at Thornton Elementary School in Johnston, she painted giant murals representing the four seasons along the school’s hallway, based on the children’s book series “Henry and Mudge.” It took 200 hours and she did it for pleasure, she says. She also designed the teachers’ room with new furniture. “I wanted it to be uplifting,” she said.
Greco may be an empty nester now, but her life is busy, she says. She leaves for school by 7 a.m., home at 3 p.m. to walk her labradoodle, Nashville. She might slip in a game of pickleball. “I’m obsessed with it,” she said.
Then it’s working in the evenings on her business, talking to vendors. “Things are good,” she said.
