Need to refresh or update a single room or entire home? There’s a new spot in downtown Colorado Springs aimed at residents who want to make spaces uniquely theirs.
Love Your Space is a business name, but it’s also the goal of owner Nicole Hammond. She’s been in the interior design business for 25 years and has run Love Your Space for 10 of them. Now she’s opened Love Your Space’s first brick-and-mortar store at 18 E. Rio Grande St. Her store continues a string of business openings in the city’s core.
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Hammond constantly works with the idea of interior design being for everybody.
“When you say ‘interior designer,’ it has connotations to it,” she said, adding that people may worry about the cost of hiring someone. “If you have the right interior designer, (they) should save you money. You’re not going to make as many mistakes, you’ll get things right the first time and you’ll get it done with confidence.”
Nicole Hammond, owner of Love Your Space, helps client,Barb Bucksath with options for the ceiling colors of Busksath’s bedroom in Colorado Springs on September 9, 2026. (Michael G. Seamans, The Gazette)
On Aug. 31, Hammond threw a grand-opening party to celebrate her customers from the past 10 years and give visitors ideas for how they can spruce up their spaces.
While the store carries furnishings, Hammond will continue to do professional consultations.
Generally, she will let clients lead the way, she said. People know their spaces and what they like — as well as the vision of what they want — but may not know how best to tie it all together in a way that works for them.
Hammond starts with a lot of questions and learns her client’s personal style. Many don’t know, she said ,and after uncovering it, Hammond works to create an endearing and functional space.
“I am here to facilitate good design, to make sure the function is good and that the design is good based on what you want,” she said. “To me, functionality is most important, how it works is the most important thing. Then we start layering things.”
These layers include the texture of fabric or upholstery used on a couch or the color one paints their walls, she said.
Chelsea Gondeck, the CEO of the Downtown Partnership, celebrated Hammond selecting downtown for her store.
In the new space, Hammond created a shop that is “inspiring, welcoming and distinctly her own,” Gondeck said in a news release.
“Celebrating entrepreneurs who invest in Downtown is one of the best parts of what we do,” Gondeck said in the news release. “It’s businesses like this that strengthen Downtown’s unique character while giving everyone another reason to shop local.”