Korte Designer Meaghan Daiber Dreams Big
Date Posted: December 28, 2021
Posted In: Organizations, People, Workforce,
From Korte: Meaghan Daiber never broke 5’2”, but she’s got the kind of presence that makes people say, “Huh, I thought she was taller.”
Maybe it’s because the sheer force of her bubbly personality contradicts her size. Her tenacity drove her to become a long-time basketball player, height be damned. And that same spirit didn’t flinch over a childhood stumbling block — some unusual bones in her feet — that might’ve tripped up someone with a weaker constitution.
“The doctors said it was a genetic thing. My sister Karaghan had it, too, but her bones were trying to grow together. Mine were trying to grow out in each foot. When we were kids, we had to have surgery.”
These days, the extra bone story is almost a punch line, the kind of thing Meaghan might say at a party to spark chatter when conversation lags.
But it’s an event she can’t forget — not because of any lingering trauma, but because of the fact that it led her from her tiny Southern Illinois hometown to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
“I remember looking around and being like, ‘Wow, this place is so cool,’” she recalled.
It looked like this: A cafeteria so open and bright that it felt like it was outside. Colorful flooring with whimsical paths that brightened up the hospital’s hallways. Parking garage levels defined by animals and colors.
“At the time, I wasn’t like, ‘I want to design hospitals.’ But now that I’m an interior designer, I realize why I liked it. That cafeteria? It brought in biophilic design. As I’ve gotten older, I understand why it made me feel the way it did.”
Today, Meaghan is CIDA-accredited interior designer and the newest addition to Korte Interiors, a department within Korte Design. It’s important to her that people get the terms right.
“Interior decorator” is often used interchangeably with “interior designer,” but they’re not the same thing.
“Yeah, even my family still doesn’t fully get it. My grandpa always makes jokes like, ‘What kind of pillows did you pick out today, kid?’”
It makes her laugh, even though it’s not accurate.
“Interior decorating is just decorating. Interior designers study and understand human behavior —how spaces affect people mentally, emotionally and physically. So, I’m looking at all the acoustics ratings, the comfort level of furniture, the cleanability of the floors. Intelligent design handles all the aspects of the end users, not just what the client tells us.”
Turns Out, Just Over Five Feet Is Tall Enough
Like her family, Meaghan speaks with a soft, open-voweled drawl she can’t hear.
“People are like, ‘Wait, where are you from? You talk funny.’ I say ‘y’all’ a lot. And apparently, I say ‘boots’ funny.”
She does. It sounds like a two-syllable blend of “boats” and “bouts.”
This accent is typical of where she grew up: Okawville, a southern Illinois village of less than 1,500 people near the meandering Kaskaskia River.
“There was no stoplight. There’s not even a four-way — it’s a three-way. If I’d graduated from that high school, my class would’ve had 32 people.
Though she moved to Trenton, Illinois at 16, she still calls Okawville her hometown. It’s where she grew up. And it’s the place where she first fell in love with sports, when she was just a third-grader.
“I loved basketball, 100%. I went to all the high school games when I was a kid, I did Little Dribblers, and then once I got more into it, I was doing six or seven basketball camps every summer.”
Though she never grew taller than 5’1½”, she earned a position on the team year after year.
“I’ve never been able to touch the net. And you wouldn’t think I could block, but I could push people. I was a very aggressive basketball player. I understood all of the details of the sport.”
She attributes her athletic success to a keen spatial awareness and a unique talent for visualizing movement. And off the court, these qualities pulled her closer and closer to interior design.
After high school, she decided to major in interior design with a minor in construction management. Ever an overachiever, she arrived at Illinois State University having already completed most general education requirements. This meant starting in advanced junior- and senior-level courses. And to the plucky upstart, this was a kind of adversity she’d never experienced before.