Annie Elliott, Associate ASID, Principal Designer and CEO

Annie is recognized as an expert on color, residential design, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible. She developed her eye and aesthetic sensibilities working in some of the nation’s top museums and studying 20th-century art.

After graduating from Milton Academy in 1988, she received a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She holds an M.A. from the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art (during which time she completed an internship at New York’s Museum of Modern Art) and studied at the Corcoran College of Art + Design.

Annie has held senior staff positions at Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum & Library, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

Seeking a more personal relationship with art and design “consumers” and believing that people’s environments directly impact the quality of their lives, Annie turned to interior design in 2004 and started bossy color.

Hallmarks of bossy color’s work include fresh color palettes, a healthy mix of old and new objects, rich fabrics, and artwork. “We do whatever it takes to bring order, beauty, and joy to a space,” she says. Clients appreciate Annie’s design sensibilities, her ability to listen and communicate, and her sense of humor. But most of all, they value Annie’s ability to craft design solutions that work for them.

Annie has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Real Simple, Family Circle, and by the Associated Press, and she extends bossy color’s reach through bossy color blog. Her designer’s guide to the drafting program Sketch-Up, co-authored with Bonnie Roskes, was published by Pearson in 2012. She is an Associate member of ASID, the American Society of Interior Designers.

Annie lives in a 1910 Wardman townhouse in D.C. with her husband, twin daughters, bass-playing brother, socially challenged cat, and a tiny turtle called Penny.

 

Katherine P. Quigley, Designer/Project Manager

Born and raised in Louisville, KY, Katherine came to DC in 2000 to pursue a degree in Political Science from American University. But when she found herself willingly devoting all of her energy to the office redecoration for the Member of Congress for whom she worked, Katherine decided it might be a sign that her interests had changed.

So 11 years after picking politics, she realized that it’s not poll numbers and policy that makes her tick, but fabric and wallpaper instead.

Katherine joined bossy color in the fall of 2011 and is known for her love of saturated color, having just painted her living room a very dark charcoal grey. She’s currently negotiating a balance between her grandma chic aesthetic and her husband’s current obsession with industrial design.

In addition to her work as a Bossette, Katherine also co-authors a lifestyle and design blog called 75th + Sedgwick.

Katherine lives in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, DC with her husband, Jeff, and their cat Atticus. Katherine may be reached at katherine [at] bossycolor [dot] com.

 

Mallory McDonagh, LEED Green Associate, Design Assistant

From the time she was little, Mallory knew she wanted to be an interior designer; she was described at the age of four as having “a great sense of color.”  Her desire to transform and perfect even the smallest of spaces was evidenced by the many shoe-box homes she built for her dolls and the intricate, ethereal forts created with friends.

After finishing high school at Maret in 2008, Mallory graduated with honors from Miami University in Oxford, OH with a B.F.A. in Interior Design and a concentration in Sociology. At Miami University, she thrived in her studio classes and learned to value the intensive design process from research to presentation.  After spending the fall of 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark, studying graphic design, philosophy and European sustainable building practices, Mallory was inspired to incorporate the Scandinavian chic aesthetic into her projects.  Her desire to travel still not quite fulfilled, Mallory spent the summer of 2012 as a teaching assistant for a professor from Miami University travelling throughout Turkey, visiting ancient sites and countless carpet stores.  Needless to say, she is no longer fearful of big, bold, beautiful patterns!

In addition to her work as a designer at bossy color, Mallory is a coach at Girls on the Run at Maret. Mallory may be reached at mallory [at] bossycolor [dot] com.