For Chioma Udunka, home is not simply where life happens. It is where a woman should be able to exhale.
That belief guides Chi’s Nest, the design company Udunka built after years in corporate leadership while raising four children and developing her eye for interiors. A first-generation Nigerian American, she brings discipline, culture, and an understanding of real life into every space she creates.
Her approach goes beyond furniture and decor. It focuses on how women live, work, parent, and recharge. In this conversation with Urban Magazine, Udunka discusses entrepreneurship, motherhood, cultural influence, and her vision for creating spaces that bring peace.
You describe a home as something that should reflect the woman living in it. What does that look like when you begin working with a new client?
Everything I do at Chi’s Nest centers around the woman—how she moves, how she operates in her home, and how her home can become a place of peace. I look at her daily patterns. Does she work from home? What kind of aesthetic does she want? How does she need her home to function?
I truly believe that what happens in your home can set the tone for the rest of your day. So, it’s really about understanding the way she moves, the way she lives, and how she wants her home to work for her.
Before moving into interior design full time, you built a career as a healthcare executive. What lessons from that world still influence the way you run your company today?
I was a vice president at Resource Health Services, a healthcare company with locations in several cities in Texas. I oversaw business operations, and I took everything I learned from that experience into Chi’s Nest. I feel like that background put me several steps ahead when it came to running a business. Business operations are really about execution and details. You have to be able to show that what you’re doing behind the scenes is helping the company grow.
Everything I learned from managing operations in healthcare could be applied to growing Chi’s Nest.
You spent nearly six years balancing your design business with your corporate career. What finally gave you the confidence to make the leap?
I wouldn’t necessarily say I was building the business during all six of those years. I was doing more of a balancing act because much of my time was still going toward my corporate job. On the side, I was working on Chi’s Nest, refining my craft and learning. My big leap of faith happened a little less than two years ago. That’s when I can honestly say I began building the business.
What ultimately gave me the confidence was client referrals and realizing that this was becoming something real. I started getting busier, and people were responding to the message behind my business, which is about serving women.
That’s when I decided to take it on full time so I could grow it the way I wanted.
As a first-generation Nigerian woman, how has your culture influenced your approach to design, family, entrepreneurship, and the way you define home?
Growing up in a Nigerian household, I always describe it as growing up in Nigeria while living in America. Very little was adjusted to fit the American way. My parents raised us very much the way they had been raised. There was a lot of discipline in our household. Igbo is our native language, and I understand and speak it. My parents always emphasized a saying that essentially means, “If you’re going to do it, do it well.”
There were high expectations, whether it involved sports, academics, or anything else. I can genuinely say that much of who I am today comes from that upbringing. My interest in design also came from my mother. She was a nurse, but she was always interested in design. I remember going to stores with her as a child and helping her choose things for our home, even when we lived in an apartment.
Those were some of my earliest experiences with design, and my interest grew from there.
You’re also a mother of four. How has motherhood changed the way you think about creating spaces that are both beautiful and practical?
Having children does not mean your entire home has to look childproof or that it can’t be aesthetically pleasing. A woman can live in a beautiful home that reflects her while also raising children. It just has to make sense. That’s where details such as fabrics and what I call “zones” come into play. I believe children should have their own zones, and parents should have theirs. Everything doesn’t have to be merged together. One misconception I often hear from clients is that their entire house has to work around their children, but that isn’t necessarily true.
Everyone should have spaces in the home that feel like their own. You’re probably not going to put a white couch in a child’s zone, for example. Those decisions can be simple, but they allow everyone to have a space that works for them. As a mother of four, I also know that children enjoy having their own spaces just as much as adults do. I love creating areas children can fall in love with while also creating spaces where the parents—and particularly the woman—can feel at home.
Many of your clients are professionals, entrepreneurs, and mothers carrying a lot of responsibilities. What do you pay attention to when designing a home around the realities of their daily lives?
One thing many high-performing women appreciate is that I initially tell them the process will be collaborative. But once they explain what they envision and what they like, I find that they often enjoy having me take the lead on many of the decisions. One of the most common things clients tell me at the end of a project is, “Thank you for taking the lead on this.”
They’re overwhelmed. They’re overworked. They wear a lot of hats, and they appreciate having one thing taken off their plate. In the same way people delegate other responsibilities, they can delegate this to me. One of the first things I think about is how I can make the process less of a burden for them.
Your work includes residential homes, physician offices, and wellness spaces. How does your approach change when you’re designing a space meant to support health, comfort, or well-being?
I actually use many of the same principles across those spaces. Whether it’s a home, a physician’s office, or another type of wellness environment, I’m thinking about the people using the space. In a doctor’s office, that might mean the patient and the provider. My goal is still to create a space that feels calm and welcoming.
It should be aesthetically pleasing, but it should also provide a sense of comfort and well-being. It should be somewhere people actually want to be. One of the main things physicians tell me is that they want patients to feel comfortable in their offices. They want the space to look good for themselves and for their patients. Some have even found that the environment can affect how patients feel about returning.
My goal is always to make people want to come back to the space.
What are some of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to create a home that feels personal rather than simply following current design trends?
The biggest mistake is trying to copy and paste someone else’s design. The whole purpose of hiring an interior designer is having someone look at your space, determine what works there, and create something that reflects you. You can look at another design and identify elements you like, but when all the pieces come together in your home, they need to make sense for you and your space.
I once had a client who was determined to copy a particular design. I warned them that it might not work in their space. As we started bringing in some of the pieces they wanted, they began to see that it wasn’t working the way they expected.
That’s the point. A design has to work within the space, and it also has to reflect the person living there.
Chi’s Nest is expanding beyond interior design into lifestyle and home products. What is the larger vision for the brand, and where would you like to take it next?
Udunka: I recently started creating and designing pieces that I hope to bring to my website. My design vision includes muted tones, browns, nudes, and other elements that reflect the feeling of Chi’s Nest.
Right now, I have ideas for pieces such as a chair and a lamp that I’m designing. Eventually, I want people from anywhere to be able to shop those products and bring a little bit of Chi’s Nest into their homes.
Beyond products, I would also love to share what I do with a larger audience one day, possibly through television. I would love to teach people different aspects of design, show what I do every day, and share my work with the world.
That would be an ultimate goal for me.
When a client walks into a completed space for the first time, what do you hope they feel before they even notice the furniture, colors, or decor?
I hope they feel peace and relief. The moments that give me the most satisfaction are when clients become emotional. It’s not necessarily the tears themselves that move me. It’s what those tears represent. Walking into the completed space gives them a chance to exhale. A lot of times, people have been carrying the stress of their home for a long time. They haven’t been able to make decisions, or they’ve been worried that they’re making the wrong ones.
When they hand that responsibility over to me, it becomes about much more than making the room look beautiful. The satisfaction comes from seeing them release the tension and stress they’ve been carrying while trying to do everything themselves.
When they walk into the finished room and become emotional, they’re not only happy because it looks good. They’re relieved because we made it to the finish line. That feeling of peace and relief is what I want them to experience. I can usually see it in their eyes when they see the finished space.
Be’n Original | Photo Credit: Carla Taylor Photography @ctshootsu
