Laguna Beach Designer, Builder Tears Down Walls In A Man's World

LAGUNA BEACH, CA — On a Friday afternoon Julie Laughton walked me through her 30-year story. A Laguna Beach builder and designer, she has created over 300 spaces for clients across southern California and the Orange County coast. Her works have landed her spreads in magazines, and high acclaim. Best of all? her client list continues to grow as does her chance to keep beautifying the world.

Her secret is helping people, and always starting with a good plan.

It's the start of Women in Construction Week, and also International Women's Day, and there's no better way to spend that than with a woman who's gone through the fire to get to where she is today.

With every project she comes out of the gate, her feet hit the ground and she goes to work. “I love what I do,” she says. Another secret of living the good life.

Laughton has a passion and inner fire for helping others beautify their worlds. She has heard horror stories from her clients, seen the bad plans doomed to fail, and heard of contractors running off with money or showing up intoxicated. As a general contractor, designer and builder, she is in charge from the moment her boots hit the sand.

“I’m in charge of a client’s project from start to finish,” she says. “I take all the blame and all the credit.”

Laughton grew up in a small town in Iowa, a population of about 10,000 people.

“My parents never held us back. My sister played boys baseball,” she said. “I was a golfer, played tennis, still do. Everyone knew everyone back there.” And the kids learned from their parents and grandparents about the notion of hard work.

“Designing is fun, and that hard work? It's in my DNA,” she says.

She studied engineering, architecture, and design in New York in the late 80s and early 90s, never imagining that interior design would be her main focus. Still, she fell in love with learning how people lived in their dwellings and helping them make the most out of their homes and best interact with their space.

Laughton has seven jobs at various stages of construction, mostly in South Orange County. The past 12 months have been the busiest and most challenging of her career, during the pandemic. The biggest trend she’s seen this year is the recreation of the home office, beautifying outdoor spaces and helping people purge and change their homes to accommodate the growing kids that live there, or by adding on living suites for extended family.

“I’ve helped clients reinvent their outdoors as living space or dining areas,” she says. “We manage every square inch of a house, maximizing storage and function. We take a look at the big picture and then learn about the clients and what they love, then we create a plan.”

Laughton is a one-stop-shop, from creating plans to architecting and implementing them. She provides her clients with the entire service.

She was recently named one of the “7 dynamic women of Orange County,” women who show strength and success in their field.

“My success - me giving back to my community,” she says. “It’s not just about being successful.” She lives a few doors down from where she spent summers as a child in Laguna Beach, but studied architecture in New York City where she learned construction and engineering.

“I kept my mouth shut until I knew enough that I could speak with confidence,” she says. “You have to know what you’re doing before you do it.”

Learning the business from the planning side, she knows what it takes to tear down walls and rebuild them, stronger than before. Also, "don't make a move until the plans are all done, as specified. Period."

"There are so many opportunities in construction for women,” she says. “You need to understand how it’s built, understand structural engineering in order to make these massive remodeling projects work. I know what is possible before you design it - the worst thing is to design something without looking at the end game.”

Her passion has always been designing, to go with her artistic flair. Of her favorite projects, she recalls a home that needed a wall-hugging staircase.

The client wanting something free-flowing. She drew the design, by hand in a swirling motion, and they built the conceived design to fruition.

“The fun part is I making people's ideas bulletproof,” she says. “We do superior quality, and often my budgets are unlimited. It’s awesome what we can do.”

Recently, Laughton joined an HGTV pilot “Frozen in Time,” with Dan Vickery and Maureen McCormick.

“The contractor bailed at the last minute and I stepped in the middle of a pilot,” she says. She and her team completed the last 4 projects of the show, which airs on Discovery + and in the spring on HGTV.

"I fell into it. I never imagined having a tv show - no one ever asked and I'm too busy working,” she says.

Now, she has another television show in development. She is only getting started.

When asked what advice she would give someone just starting out in life, Laughton had this to say.

“Always have the drive and focus on where you want to take your life,” she says. “Set your goals every day. When things get tough, set your goals. Live your goals minute by minute on tough days. There’s no option other than to give it all your very best.”

Learn more at www.julielaughton.com