De Leon’s River Road studio puts her close to her many clients in the borough’s high-rises and across the Hudson River, she said. The 29-year-old appeared on HGTV’s "Design Star," and has been featured in several magazines and newspapers.

She got her start in her father’s furniture store by helping his customers with designs. De Leon graduated from Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and worked in display design for Ralph Lauren. But after deciding interior design was her real passion, she attended Berkeley College.

"I went back to school to really learn the trade," she said. "It just grew from there."

Her five-member firm mostly works on high-end residential and commercial projects. She also made over a Trenton battered women shelter and a classroom for a national program on safety. 

She calls her style "Glamilistic," a combination of minimalism with glamour.

"Everyone kept asking me to narrow down my style and I really couldn’t," she said. "I had to come up with a name for it so I chopped the two [glamour and minimalism] and made the one."

When De Leon works with clients she tries to get a feel for their own sense of style.

"Not everyone’s the same," she said.

Her designers talk with the clients to see their personality and then use magazine pictures to get an idea of what the clients find attractive.

"Then we come up with a game plan," De Leon said.

She says it’s important to attend trade shows.

"I like to be a step ahead of the game and they’re already forecasting the new trends," De Leon said. "A lot of designers don’t go [to trade shows] and I think that’s a disadvantage because you don’t see what’s out there."

After demonstrating creative ways to use tiles, she won a trip to Italy for a tile show, giving her an edge on new designs.

A current popular trend she’s seeing now is "Green Design."

"Everyone’s worried about the ecosystem and the environment," she said.

A lot of paints, glue and other elements can be made with natural materials, she said.

"It’s a bit more expensive at the end of the day," De Leon said. "But in the long run they’re saving the environment, so people liked that."

In reality

In addition to passing along new trends to clients, De Leon teaches at Bergen Community College.

"It’s been very rewarding," she said. "I would like people to one day look up to me as a mentor."

The first advice she gives aspiring designers is to stay focused.

"I have my ‘3Ds’ that I always talk about; drive, determination and discipline," she said.

Those three points are important to her because being a young business owner hasn’t been easy.

"A lot of people of people don’t think you’re experienced enough," she said. "A preconception is that if you’re older you are better."

De Leon said people don’t realize she’s been in business more than eight years. Her profile got a boost in 2006 when she competed with nine designers to host an interior design show on HGTV.

After her elimination, a media commentary Web site said the show’s loss could be another network’s gain because of De Leon’s "funny, hip, vivacious, personable, and just downright cool" personality. The Web site said De Leon was portrayed on "Design Star" as just loud and obnoxious, and didn’t show her full persona.

"I learned that reality TV is not real," she said.

De Leon wasn’t turned off by reality television completely. She’s creating a reality show that goes behind the scenes of interior design to show situations designers deal with.

Being able to take criticism is very important since her staff deals with a lot of bossy personalities from homeowners and contractors, she said.

"If you’re not thick-skinned, you’re not going to make it in this business," De Leon said.