80 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {home & design} first career job left her craving a more creative outlet, she moved to Chicago, working in multimedia for seven-plus years. Then, when friends found jobs in California in 1998, they beckoned her to “just try it.” She made the leap. A few years later, marriage and motherhood begged another transition. “I needed more flexibility over when and where I worked,” the designer says. “I didn’t want to ask permission to take time off … I wanted to be my own boss.” In making the shift from full-time employee to company owner, Kate zeroed in on her joy in making her own home “more beautiful and more functional.” Confident that “the skills you learn you can leverage down the road,” she crafted her business plan. Kate had already reworked her kitchen and decks. “I tried Designer Kate Handel sits in an airy room at home, afternoon sun filtering through the sheers. In Half Moon Bay—embraced by a sparkling coastline, agricultural fields, grazing cows and towering coast redwoods—Kate says she never imagined this life. Growing up on a Wisconsin cattle farm, Kate shrugged off the bovine-scented air—letting her brothers work outdoors while she kept to household chores. When together, they played computer games like Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand. Despite perils of dysentery in one and bankruptcy in the other, Kate’s gaming whet her appetite for technology. The seeds of self-reinvention took root, sprouting by her teens. No barns and boots for Kate. “I wanted the corporate world and a fancy office,” she asserts. Degree in hand, she eyed big city opportunities. But when her PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF SHANTI MINKSTEIN
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