The Design House that Hustle Built

Jessica Hannesson’s eye for design is sparking expansion and grabbing national attention

For Jessica Hannesson, home has always been more than four walls and a roof.

“It’s special to me. It’s the one place where I feel like we have control over our environment,” she says. “It’s a sacred space. It’s a place where we get to raise our families.”

From the first steps of her childhood to her role now as a business owner and interior designer, home has been the common thread.

“I always joke with my parents that my childhood home was my first love,” she says. “There are just so many great memories in that space — family gatherings, holidays, simple everyday things that make life feel full.”

She’s built two businesses around that feeling. Hannesson Home is a full-service interior design and cabinet studio. Made for Home is a home décor and furnishing store downtown.

“I think the number one thing I wanted to do with Hannesson Home was to build a brand. I wanted people to walk into a house and say, ‘Oh, this must be a Hannesson house,’” Jessica says. “A good brand should make you feel something.” It’s why her brand statement is, “Design you can feel.”

Growing up in Glendive, Jessica was surrounded by strong women who poured their hearts into their homes.

“I remember my aunt buying these custom curtains and putting them on layaway,” Jessica begins with a smile. “It was never about how much money you had. It was about how much care you put in.”

While her mother and grandmother taught her how to be a homemaker, her father, who owned a tire store in town, taught her what it looked like to be an entrepreneur. 

“Whatever age you could legally work, I was there selling tires, cleaning the store, meeting with the farmers. It taught me a lot about people,” Jessica says, “How to talk to people and not be afraid.”

If you ask 18-year-old Jessica about her future, she’d tell you she had her sights set on becoming “the next Beyonce.” After high school, she moved to Los Angeles to attend a small performing arts college. She lasted one year. “To be frank, I hated it.” When her dad told her she didn’t have to stick it out and could just come home, it was her mom who suggested the interior design program at Montana State University.

“She just knew,” Jessica says of her mom. “When I didn’t know what I’d be good at, she did.”

That’s where Jessica discovered that creating an emotional connection is what sets her work apart.

“That’s why you’ll see me close my eyes as I’m talking with a client,” Jessica says, adding that she’s trying to see the vision before it’s even drawn into plans. She’ll ask, “What are the memories we are going to create here?”

Christian Hannesson was Jessica’s high school sweetheart. After college, the two got married and when his job brought him to Billings in 2013, Jessica found herself applying for every design opportunity in town. She found just the right fit with a budding new business, The Cabinet Center.

“I don’t even know if it had been open a year when I started,” she recalls. “It was like a startup in a lot of ways.” Randy Mostad, who owns Carpet One, opened The Cabinet Center to expand his offerings.

“The minute I interviewed, I told Randy, ‘I would love to open my own business. That’s my goal. That’s what I want to do,’” Jessica says. “And he really encouraged that.”

She became instrumental in growing the company — launching the website, expanding cabinet lines, and helping shape the brand.

“We really built this thing,” she says. Seven years in, she told Randy, “I’m going to come to you every single day until you sell it to me, or else I’m going to have to start my own.” Two months later, they had a deal and Randy handed her the keys.

She renamed the company Hannesson Home and spent the last five years creating the company’s identity.

“I want to sink our teeth into this community and show them that great design is here too,” Jessica says.

That’s why she’s investing in a brand new 14,000-square-foot building near Shiloh and Monad. 

“We always knew we would outgrow this space,” Jessica says as she points to the 2,000-square-foot design studio she operates out of now. “So, we’ve been looking for a new home for probably two years.”

Half of the building will be used as the new headquarters for both Hannesson Home and Made for Home. The other half will be available to lease. Inside the new home base, there will be a library space perfect for dreaming up new concepts, a rooftop patio, a big resource room and even a private area which could be used as a nursing room for new moms.

“We are going to have gas lanterns,” she says pointing to one of the building’s renderings. “And over here will be a skylight.”

As she looks at the next exciting chapter, she vividly remembers the blood, sweat and tears that went into getting to this place in time. 

“When you first start a business, the word I embodied was ‘hustle’. Everything is riding on this,” Jessica says. “Just get up and go to work and work your butt off every day, all day.”

She laughs about the early days of Made For Home and humbly shares a story about how she launched the décor business without a lot of retail prowess. She decided immediately to jump into e-commerce and ship orders nationwide. The rest of the story involves an online order to Nebraska and a bathroom scale.

“The first time we shipped out a package, I didn't even know how to weigh it,” she says with a laugh. “I got my scale from the bathroom, which is a very humbling experience to sit on a scale without the package and then get back on with the package and say, ‘Okay, this is a nine-pound package.’”

Today, the founder and creative force behind Hannesson Home has found balance and knows what she needs to do to level up her business.

"We run Hannesson Home like a media company," she says. "We're documenting the designers, the in-between, the process. We're shooting video during installs and at the final reveal. It’s extra work, but it pays off."

The extra work has grabbed the attention of not only Martha Stewart Living, Southern Living and House Beautiful, all of which featured her work on their magazine and web pages, but it got her nominated for HGTV’s Designer of the Year award in the kitchen and bath category.

“They found her,” says K.J. Blattenbauer, Jessica’s publicist. “Jessica has both the talent and that unmistakable spark that sets true visionaries apart. I have no doubt what we’re witnessing is the rise of the next Joanna Gaines.”

As voting continues for the HGTV honor through September 25, one nominee will win the People’s Choice award; the other will be chosen by HGTV’s editorial team. Several of the winners and contestants have gone on to host their own shows on HGTV.

“Just to be able to say that we were an HGTV Designer of the Year nominee? I love that!” Jessica says.

She knows the nomination will open doors.

“A brand collaboration, like designing a rug line, is a major goal of mine,” Jessica says. “I’m drawn to the creative process behind it and the opportunity to bring my design perspective into people’s homes in a new way.” She’s already had talks with a few potential partners so, of course, it’s her mission to focus on the things she needs to do to make that kind of collaboration happen.

For now, breaking ground on the new building consumes much of Jessica’s time. She knows however, even with the blueprints still crisp in her hands, there’s always room to dream about bigger things down the road.

“This will not be the last thing we do. It can’t be,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll lose my mind.”

She and her husband just bought a window and door company and hope one day to potentially meld that into Hannesson Home. “We have big dreams,” Jessica says.

It’s been 12 short years since Jessica earned her interior design degree. The fresh-faced girl hoping to make a name for herself has done that and a whole lot more. She never takes any of it for granted.

“I always want to come at things from a place of gratitude,” Jessica says. “When you first open a business, you feel like one day it will just go crazy. It doesn’t.”

Success, she says, involves showing up every day and being consistent.

“It’s a bunch of losses and then some mini wins,” Jessica says. “When you get those wins, you hold onto them.”

TO VOTE FOR HGTV’S DESIGNER OF THE YEAR, visit hgtv.com/decorating/hgtv-designer-of-the-year-awards. You can vote daily through September 25 to help Jessica Hannesson earn the title of People’s Choice in the kitchen and bath category.

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