About Us

I opened Fourth Street Interiors at 104 Fourth Street, Ocilla, Georgia in
1994. By that time I had over 19 years of experience behind me, working
summers with my Dad, roofing, framing and laying Brick. I renovated my
first historic house at age 21 and began working in 1984 with Nellie Adams
at Nellie’s Interiors in Douglas, laying tile. During that decade My husband
at the time and I built new houses in Douglas, doing most of the work
ourselves. I qualified people for USDA loans and we then built custom
homes for them. We ran an office adjacent to Nellie’s and at our peak, around 1988, we were building 25 houses a year. I painted, hung wallpaper and laid ceramic tile showers, countertops and floors in these houses. I also installed all the Ceramic Tile Nellie sold thru her store.

Nellie’s store was one of my favorite places in the world. She had timeless,

exquisite taste and a work ethic I admired so much. Her store was full of
beautiful things, wallpaper, fabric, flooring of every kind and a Benjamin
Moore paint store inside it…color abounded. My favorite part was meeting
with the clients to design beautiful bathrooms and kitchens. My mother was an artist so I grew up surrounded by beauty and art. Nellie taught me to use my talent to make money and create a career.

I eventually started doing work for Mitzi Lott at Signatures in Fitzgerald,
which led to one of the longer and strongest friendships of my life.
I can not emphasize enough the impact Nellie and Mitzi had on my Life.
So… when I opened my first store in 1994, I patterned it after my favorite
place, the store of my mentor and Friend. As I tell the story of how Fourth
Street Design began and how we evolved over the years, I do so to go full
circle and return to the beginning.

I opened Fourth Street Design in 1994 in the small town of Ocilla, GA and my my store front quickly became a vital part of the very quaint downtown. Our building had a large Glass front window and entrance, which began to be a focal point of everything from nostalgic football memorabililia in the season to a spectacular Christmas tree where everybody made their family pictures. We had an impressive Christmas open house each year, hosting 100s of people with good food and artistic Christmas decorations, representing such brands as Christopher Radco. We even sold the entire Window Christmas tree once to a customer moving it to their new home!

In 1996 we did our first beautifully elaborate wedding, which included catering all the food and flowers, decorating both the church and reception. Wyndi and Todd Damato did not choose us because of our reputation but rather due to circumstances beyond any of our control their only choice . Thus began another era for us, peaking at 24 weddings in 2005. That first one though…we didn’t have a clue what we were doing…about 5 am that Saturday morning when I realized that I wasn’t going to sleep until Sunday, I understood this was harder work than construction. I would not have survived those days without the constant help of Jan Morgan and Jeanie Pujadus, who literaly carried the slack for all the behind the scenes work that made our occasions so special. As the
years passed so many talented women worked beside me at Fourth Street, Rosiland Steed Mann whose creative genius was most often overlooked, taught me some of the best life style tips that I still employ today. Carolyn Meeks ran the store in the early days, we had many a working lunch with our husbands, Harvey and Eddie. Martha Ann Cook followed her, she could handle the store, pick up the girls from school, call every customer by name and keep us looking good. My dear friend Rhonda Thompson Wright spent many days at Fourth Street, creating beautiful settings for our Acessories and even wielding a hammer to stop a theft when necessary. Connie Parrott brought class and style during her time with us there in Ocilla and was one of the hardest working women I have known. (sometimes it’s good to know things about people that might surprise you) Ginny Glenn McCranie and Carrie Ann Turner spent their share of time there as well, they were the best at attracting customers. During these years my daughters literaly grew up at Fourth Street, they filled every role from laying tile to arranging flowers, serving food at weddings, going to market, painting the store..they had to learn it all. In 1999 I sold the retail portion of Fourth Street to Hazel McCranie and Jackie Hudson. They retained the name Fourth Street Interiors, while I continued to operate the Construction and Design part of the business as Fourth Street Design & Construction.

In 2002 my good friend and fellow artisan Terry Crain retired from teaching and we formed Occasions (Two Fools Arranging). Terry had always enjoyed flowers, arranging them and growing them and had owned his own florist in younger days. He brought a whole new dimension to our store and it was fun to watch him learn, as I had so many years before, that you could actually make money at something you loved. As the demand for our wedding expertise grew, so did the glaring need of a
venue for weddings. The Community house had been the stand by for most receptions in Ocilla, but it limited number of guests due to its size. A lot of our clients wanted outdoor weddings and so tents tables were rented everything moved to a location only to have rain set in for days and and then having to move the entire operation back inside somewhere too small
was often the case.