We’ve all gotten used to the quarantine theme of being trapped in our homes forever embracing our personal space, and shows like Netflix’s The Home Edit and Reno My Reno have provided inspiration for how we can better use our homes for personal enjoyment while pretending we know about design. Our current obsession is the new Netflix show along those lines is Dream Home Makeover, featuring the husband and wife team of Shea and Syd McGee, owners of Studio McGee, an interior design firm that aspires to “make life beautiful.”
A native of Texas, Shea McGee began working as an interior designer in 2013, she explains in the first episode of the show, and her official bio calls her one of the first design influencers on Instagram (@studiomcgee), having built a following of 1.4M followers from the work she would post to her social media page. McGee is a 2007 graduate of Brigham Young University, receiving a degree in communications. She married Syd shortly after college in 2008 and ended up living in Laguna Beach, CA. After renovating their own home in 2010, Shea’s social media posts gained momentum and they launched Studio McGee, now based out of Salt Lake City, as well as McGee & Co., the retail arm of their company which is sold at Target.
Syd McGee serves as the CEO at Studio McGee. You can try to friend him on Instagram but he is one of those fascinating people whose account is private. Shea has written (in her book, Make Life Beautiful, which comes out October 27, 2020) that she met Syd because he was a friend of her brother’s and when she went to help her brother move into a new apartment one day, “there Syd was on a skateboard, wearing the skinniest skinny jeans I had ever seen. We went on our first date the next night.”
Over ten years later, the two have built a thriving business than employs over 70 people, two daughters, Wren (6) and Ivy (3), and a brand new TV series that is sure to make you want to paint all your walls white and install some decorative wood beams on your ceilings.