Meet Jamie

My love of design started in childhood. My father, a weekend craftsman, could create any element my mother wanted in our home — whether it was crown molding, wood floors or a new fireplace surround. He was always happily working on projects for her, and I was often his helper.

After two degrees and three decades working in media and marketing, I found my way back to my residential design passion in 2004. While I lack my father’s carpentry skills, he did pass along his love of quality, craftsmanship and proportion that I’ve enjoyed sharing with my clients.

Since then, I’ve earned Certified Kitchen Designer and Certified Aging in Place Specialist designations and three Houzz awards. I also started my own wellness design consultancy, wrote two best-selling kitchen and bath design books, continued to write articles and blog posts and give presentations, and was named to Kitchen & Bath Design News’ inaugural 50 Innovators roster.

Most recently, I earned a Certified Wellness Coaching designation from the world-renown Mayo Clinic, wrote my timely, award-winning WELLNESS BY DESIGN book and have given talks to audiences around the country on healthy home topics.

All of this professional success has meant hours of sitting at a computer screen, (often followed by hours sitting in front of TV and iPhone screens), and I realized that I needed to become physically active again, as I had been in my 30s. I had been steadily gaining weight for a decade and wanted to lose the pounds and keep them off. 

I was looking for ideas and motivation in 2013 when I discovered obstacle course racing. I found that I really liked working out on local trails, running, conquering fears, and challenging myself in ways I never had. I trained with a coach, got pretty fit and completed numerous endurance events since then, including a Spartan trifecta, two military style Goruck challenges, a marathon and summiting Mt. Whitney, (the highest peak in the Continental US).

This former 233-pound couch potato and workaholic found my inner athlete and a healthy career-life balance in my 50s.

In training for these events, I realized that having a well-organized kitchen made meal prep a whole lot faster and easier, that having my running and hiking gear properly stored and ready to toss into the car made me better prepared and focused for training and events, and that a hand-held showerhead with a massage setting made muscles screaming from exertion a whole lot quieter, (and cleaning grit from hard to reach places simpler).

I also learned that my design clients and readers could benefit from my active home-health connection discoveries, and so I started sharing them in consultations, projects, blog posts, speeches and articles. Readers, audiences at events like the International Builders’ Show, Coverings and the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show, and design clients have been excited to learn about ways to make their homes support their active lifestyles — and editors have been giving me more opportunities to share articles with this information. You can see some of their compliments here. 

You can also read articles I’ve written as a regular contributor to Forbes.com here, as well as to other top publications like CNN.com, House Beautiful, Design Milk, HuffPost, Apartment Therapy, and others here. 

I’d love to share these insights and more with you! Please let me know how I may be of service.

JAMIE GOLD, CKD, CAPS, MCCWC

Wellness Design Consultant and Author