In 2018, Melissa Fields of San Antonio, Texas retired from the Air Force after 20 years of service. Even while serving as an officer, she knew she had a passion for interior design.

“We move like every three years depending on your job, but you still wanted to feel like your house was a home,” Fields said of life in the Air Force. “So I would just try to help people do little things to spruce up what would normally be a very vanilla and boring place, because it wasn’t yours. It was government housing.”

After offering her services for free in the Air Force, Fields has been running Shades of Gray Design Studio for more than seven years. Now, some of her clients are veterans who specifically choose her to design their homes.

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