Get Inspired! HGTV’s Michel Smith Boyd will appear at The Minneapolis Home + Garden Show for a Q&A

Designing a home can be a daunting task, especially with constantly changing trends, never-ending options and, of course, the prices. While interior design may not come easily to everyone, it sure does for Michel Smith Boyd, an interior designer and star of multiple HGTV shows.

Boyd found that interior design combined all of his interests: architecture, fashion, painting and entertaining guests. He says it allowed him to make a difference in people’s lives at home, introduce families who don’t entertain that much to that lifestyle and take it to the next level for those who do.

Each designer’s experiences shape and show up in each home. For Boyd, his experiences living in culturally rich cities like New Orleans, where he is from, New York City and Atlanta inspired and evolved his design style. New Orleans was about entertaining, jazz and rhythm, but when moving to New York, he saw the difference in the purpose of the space and needing organization and efficiency.

“If there’s a stamp on my passport, it somehow influenced my design point of view and it shows up in different ways,” Boyd says. “The more I learn about the world, about cultures outside of my own and evolve as a person, the better designer I become.”

Boyd will attend the Minneapolis Home + Garden Show for a Q&A on March 7 and 8. The Home + Garden Show will return to the Convention Center March 5-9.

Boyd has starred in HGTV shows “Luxe for Less,” “Rock the Block,” “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge” and “100 Days Hotel Challenge.” His unique approach to creating luxury in its expanded definition shines through as he was recognized as one of the Top 10 African American Designers in the country.

Some of his new projects include his MSB Bespoke Rug Collection, MSB X Crate & Barrel and MSB How to Luxury e-commerce. He’ll also compete in the “Veterans vs. Rookies” edition of HGTV’s “Rock the Block,” which he was a previous champion of. Some of his competitors include Chelsea and Cole DeBoer, who will also be at the Minneapolis Home & Garden Show in March.

With all these successes under his belt, Boyd says he’s recently been recognizing how impactful they actually are after working hard for a very long time. It not only helps share design with people who can’t do it themselves but also has visibility and creates representation.

“I don’t know if I truly understood how important the representation is and how much of a difference it made in our [design] space as well as in every other space,” he says. “It’s a really big deal that I’m in those spaces. I don’t take it for granted, and I wear that proudly.”

Even though Boyd never expected to end up where he is now, he knew he wanted to build a brand, similar to influences like Tom Ford and Martha Stewart, when he was in design school. His main goal was to use his natural talents to contribute and affect culture in some way.

“My brother sings and my mother cooks, but I design. We all contribute in some way and use our natural talent to create and add value wherever we are,” Boyd says.

One of Boyd’s personal goals is making design accessible and bringing it to groups that may feel left out of the luxury conversation. He expands the definition of luxury to represent what each person feels is their personal luxury. For some, that may mean an expensive piece of furniture, but for others, it may mean a quality mattress.

“How you define your luxury is up to you,” he says. “We create hacks to save money in your budget to make more room for your indulgences, for the things that you love.”

Approaching design in this way allows Boyd to merge the small-town Louisiana kid with the modern influences in his adult life, having lived in New York City and now Atlanta. He also loves how romantic design is, being a romance lover himself.

“I think it’s one of the last romantic professions; design is incredibly romantic,” he says. “The idea of taking a thing that you need and making an enjoyable experience, I think it’s pretty special, and being able to customize it specifically to the bodies that dwell there, that’s a cool job to have.”

Aside from the personal customization of homes, trends play a huge role in the designs people may choose for their space. At the moment, Boyd says the ‘70s are making a comeback. Colors like avocado, maize yellow, gold and burnt oranges are showing up in kitchens, even his own.

“It’s really nice to see it because it’s very warm as opposed to the white kitchen and the green and white marble that everybody’s had for such a long time,” he says. “It’s a lot more character and, of course, since I love fashion so much, it’s fashion-forward and an opportunity to play.”

Boyd says he’s excited to explore the Minneapolis design scene and connect with local designers, which he hasn’t experienced before. For him, seeing what kind of design a city embraces tells him a lot about the city in itself.

“I only visited once, and I love passion, and local vendors are full of it because typically it’s handmade or its family involved. That kind of lineage is a real character and a great way to get our clients involved in discovering new things too,” he says.

The show offers him a chance to help new clients, open a window to service his own clients better, and get a perspective from people who don’t use designers while also being able to interact with the community at the Home + Garden show.

“Everybody has the same issues, it doesn’t matter the price point, designing is always hard and making decisions and budgeting is hard, but we’re all excited to do it and it starts to feel like a community in the Q&A,” Boyd says.