Liz Clausen is a designer, woodworker, and artist based in Northern California and working everywhere.

As an injured college athlete, Liz discovered her love for art, design and repurposing through a discarded wooden chair. In 2004, out of her college garage, she started a furniture painting business (Pick Your Seat). In 2006, she graduated with a BFA in Interior Architecture and Design from the Academy of Art University. By 2008, Pick Your Seat had transformed into a full-fledged residential design firm. Liz was featured on HGTV’s Small Space Big Style, and had just wrapped a 2-year, 6,000 sq. ft. custom home remodel where she was the lead designer and project manager.

Then the housing marked crashed, and ​Liz had to pivot. She partnered with a local contractor, Mitch Nilsen, and started to lean into the building side of things (read: she had to pick up her tool belt). For a few years, Liz and Mitch completed entire remodels just the two of them. Eventually they were able to assemble a great team of subcontractors, and between 2008 and 2020, Pick Your Seat and team completed hundreds of projects throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

In 2020, as the world changed, so did Liz's direction. She began the process of bringing her focus back to interior design. She started stepping away from some of the onsite construction responsibility and she took over her father’s woodshop. In 2021, that little custom chair business turned residential remodeling company: Pick Your Seat, officially transformed into Liz Clausen Design.

Liz Clausen Design specializes in Interior Design and Custom Cabinetry. It has been anything but a typical path to get here, and Liz promises anything but a typical experience when working with her ;)