If you’re a fan of HGTV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and other home-improvement shows, you might already know designer Carrie Locklyn.
Born and raised in Cape May, Locklyn set out at age 17 as a professional dancer. Her career was fast-tracked by dancing on Saturday Night Live and on national commercials, as well as stage performances with Jimmy Fallon, James Brown, Mariah Carey and others. “After touring for two years with Mariah, I decided I didn’t want to go back on the road. My friends thought I was ridiculous, but I wanted something different,” she says.
Locklyn explored commercial acting, stand-up comedy and eventually home organizing and interior design. “I moved to California in 2003 and, in 2006, my boyfriend-now-husband and I bought a foreclosed house. We did some pretty interesting things with it, and word got around. Based on that interior-design project, my new career began to blossom. I was known around L.A. as the get-it-done-girl, so that’s how my GIDGLiving business began,” she says.
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Locklyn adds, “I spread my wings after friend, fellow artist [and superstar-musician] Prince’s first wife, Mayte Garcia, invited me to help with her homes. She suggested that I do a home-design show. With that thought, we moved back to New Jersey in 2014. I was pregnant, and my goal was to raise a child while building my design business.” Shortly after, Locklyn snagged her first TV appearance as an interior designer on Travel Channel’s Hotel Impossible. In 2019, she landed a gig on HGTV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
When this tastemaker isn’t on a TV set, she’s designing homes and hotels and staging properties for Realtors. “I’ve been working in North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest and really enjoy going back to my roots. I’m living my dream,” she says.
You can see Locklyn on HGTV, Travel Channel and Discovery+, and join her 22,000 followers on Instagram: @carrie_locklyn.
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