Victoria Sharkey

Specialty Appliance

Rocky Mountain Chapter

Victoria Sharkey, a 2020 graduate of the NKBA-accredited design program at Front Range Community College, already knows the thrill of winning — her primary bathroom design took first place in NKBA’s 2019-2020 Student Design Competition — and once she earns her NKBA design certification, she plans to enter more competitions. In the meantime, Victoria enjoys her sales role helping clients at Specialty Appliance find the perfect ranges and refrigerators, and seeing how their kitchens come together. “My favorite design is good design,” she says. “When I see it, I just know it’s perfectly executed, it’s unique and it makes you stop and think.”

“My favorite design is good design. When I see it, I just know it’s perfectly executed, it’s unique and it makes you stop and think.”

Victoria’s personal preferences, however, fall somewhere between Art Deco and Transitional. She loves well-thought-out designs that aren’t afraid to take a risk or use color, texture or pattern. “Think of the Trevi Fountain, mixed with plants and natural stone slabs, a splash of color, in the middle of Manhattan,” she says. Her creativity took root during a childhood spent sewing, painting and “drawing up my next big idea.” One creative moment she now regrets: painting all four walls in her bedroom in different patterns of lime green and Crayola blue. “It was terrible,” she says. “I don’t know what I was thinking or why my dad let me do that, but wow.”

These days, you’ll find Victoria designing spaces in Chief Architect and Sketch Up, creating art pieces in mixed media or building light fixtures and furniture — all in the company of her feline design assistant, Kiera. “The art I create is a way I get to still do things with my hands like I used to when I was young,” she says. As for the future, Victoria’s goals are lofty: be her own boss, live in another country and have one of her designs on the cover of a magazine. “Life is just too short,” she says, “to aim for anything less than the best possible version of yourself.”