About Olga von Houck
My passion for design began when I was a young girl. Early on, I began sewing dresses for my dolls, and soon I was making fashions to wear myself. Later, I turned my girlhood hobby into a professional business. In the years between, I graduated from Tambov University with a master’s degree in education, specializing in math and physics. But my enduring love for clothing design and construction led to a change in career, and for many years I worked as a designer in two European high fashion centers, Saint Petersburg and Berlin.
After coming to the United States 12 years ago, I turned my creative focus and design expertise to interiors. I graduated from London Metropolitan University as an interior designer and established my business, Atlantis Interior Design. Five years ago I attended a Feng Shui course at the Sheffield School of Interior Design in New York, which transformed my approach to design work. Feng Shui became my specialty, and last February I was accepted into the International Feng Shui Guild as a Red Ribbon Professional. It was through this Guild membership that I learned about Fashion Feng Shui, a field of expertise that brought together my two passions—fashion and Feng Shui design. Recently I traveled to Florida, where I was certified and licensed as a professional Fashion Feng Shui Facilitator.
I have since launched Dress with Feng Shui, a special department of my design business. My company, Atlantis Interior Design, has also been reorganized and rebranded as Living Comfort LLC . This change has allowed me to offer a wider scope of services, serve my clients better and create staff jobs for qualified people who have nevertheless found themselves in difficult circumstances.
I know a lot of smart, highly educated, hardworking women who could not find jobs due to their limited English, inability to drive or other logistical challenges. I myself understand what it is to learn English as a second language, so my staffing focus has been to bring in expert, resourceful designers who are passionate about what they do and are able contribute their diverse backgrounds and collective life and work experience to create positive spaces for people. My staff works primarily at residential houses, though one of our recent jobs was renovating Parish Hall of Saint Spiridon Cathedral in Seattle.
I’ve been fortunate to have many different and rewarding careers in my life: teacher, seamstress, fashion designer and interior designer. Through them all, the desire to create beauty has been a constant theme. My favorite author, Dostoevsky, wrote: "Beauty will save the world." That inspirational quote helps remind me to contribute my share of beauty to the world. What I really love about Feng Shui design is that it creates beauty that’s not just static; it’s there, constantly working in unseen ways to benefit us. It gives us back exponentially more value than was spent in creating it.
The other beauty in my life is my family—my husband and four children: two boys, 22 and 11, and two girls, 7 and 1 ½. My 22-year-old son, whom I home schooled, graduated from UW in computer science at the age of 20, which makes the teacher in me proud.