MELODY DAVIDSON - CO-FOUNDER, DYI INC.

Melody Davidson, DYI, Inc., founder, was born in Birmingham, Alabama and attended Auburn University, where she majored in Clothing and Textile Design, minored in Interior Home Furnishings, and received a Bachelor of Science in Clothing, Textiles and Related Art.

Now living in a suburb of Kansas City, she owns a design firm called Interiors by Melody.  Serving the Kansas City area for more than twenty years, the firm has both residential and commercial design clients throughout the area, as well as a number of clients in Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; and Houston, Texas.

It was this design business that first brought Melody and her partner in DYI, Kathy Wagner, together. After meeting in 1991 they formed a partnership which thrived on design work for businesses, hospitals and high-end residential projects.  Early in this partnership Kathy brought up the subject of life size templates.   After checking to see if anyone was producing such a product, and finding none, the two decided to pursue developing templates themselves.  Melody drew the schematics for four different rooms and a local graphic designer put them in a computer format that a printer could use to print the templates. A copyright was obtained in 1995.

It was not until 2004 that printing technology made it financially feasible to print such large templates.  In October of that year, shortly after seeking patent protection for the product, the pair introduced their Life Size Furniture Templates at the Kansas City Home & Garden Show.

Home owners and designers alike have raved about the templates ... how easy they are to use ... how they save time and mistakes ... why hadn't anyone done this before?