Rather than applying the same design language from one residence to the next, Susan Jomha allows each client to set the project’s course. As Founder and Principal Designer of Distinct Interior Design Inc., she listens closely to their priorities, daily habits, and aesthetic preferences, using them to guide decisions about space, materials, furniture, and architectural features.
This approach gives her work its lasting distinction. Each home carries the refinement expected of luxury design while retaining the personality and practical ease of a place meant to be lived in.
Building a Career on Creative Instinct
Susan came to interior design after already living through two very different professional and personal chapters. She first worked in marketing, developing skills in communication, positioning, and presentation. She then spent years centered on her family and children, an experience that gave her a practical understanding of what makes a home not only attractive, but workable and comfortable in daily life.
Once Susan’s children entered school full-time, a new professional chapter became possible. Rather than simply returning to her previous career, she chose to pursue a field that brought together interests she had cultivated for years. Interior design offered what she was seeking: close client collaboration, hands-on involvement at project sites, thoughtful material and furniture selection, and the chance to transform an initial concept into a fully realized space.
That curiosity eventually became formal training, followed by the launch of Distinct Interior Design in Edmonton. The company grew steadily beyond its original scope, transforming Susan’s creative interests into a full-fledged design career and giving her a platform to combine strategic thinking with a deeply personal approach to interiors.
Seeing More Than a Finished Room
The idea behind Distinct took shape while Susan studied design and worked in a furniture store. She could help clients select furniture, fabrics, colors, and layouts, yet she often saw the same problem: individually attractive choices didn’t necessarily create a cohesive finished interior.
Lighting, window treatments, art, wall treatments, accessories, and countless other decisions remained disconnected. Susan saw an opportunity to guide clients through the entire environment instead of solving one portion of it.
At the same time, she noticed how easily residential design could become repetitive when homeowners relied heavily on prevailing trends or replicated interiors they had already seen. Susan wanted to take a different route. “I created Distinct because I wanted my clients to walk into their finished home and feel that it could belong to no one else,” she says.
A Different Measure of Luxury
Susan’s definition of luxury is equally deliberate. Expensive products alone do not create it. For her, genuine luxury emerges through thoughtful planning, craftsmanship, comfort, functionality, quality, and details selected specifically for the client.
That outlook is particularly relevant to the large-scale residences Distinct Interior Design frequently undertakes. On projects of this complexity, hundreds of interconnected decisions can arise, making consistency increasingly important. Susan’s role is to interpret what clients value and clarify those choices without imposing a predetermined visual identity.
“I don’t want clients to walk into their finished home and see my personality; I want them to see the best expression of their own,” she explains. This philosophy makes listening as important a design skill as selecting materials or composing a room.
Looking Beyond the Local Market
Some of Susan’s most valuable research takes place while traveling. European fairs and design destinations, along with markets farther afield, expose her to independent makers, specialist suppliers, and objects that may never reach conventional local outlets, expanding the possibilities available for each commission.
Her selections are guided less by status than by what a piece contributes to its surroundings. Whether she is considering furniture, artwork, lighting, or a particular material, she looks for sound construction and an expressive quality that will remain relevant beyond one season.
Clients benefit from a sourcing vocabulary shaped across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. These varied references are never gathered indiscriminately; Susan edits them carefully so that every addition belongs within the larger scheme, helping the completed home feel collected rather than commercially assembled.
Recognition and a Growing Voice in Design
Industry recognition has followed her practice’s growth. Susan’s Sehg Residence received Gold recognition in the Living Room & Family Room category at the 2025 International Architecture & Design Awards and Platinum recognition in Kitchen & Dining Room Design. The award listing describes a project incorporating extensive custom detailing while balancing luxury with functionality.
Susan’s public profile has expanded through editorial features and television appearances. Both Edify and Canadian Home Trends have covered her work, while broadcast opportunities have given her room to discuss the thinking behind it. Her 2024 Edify interview highlighted one of her strongest convictions: good design must hold up in everyday use. A room’s appearance matters, but so do movement, comfort, storage, durability, and the ordinary routines it needs to accommodate.
Susan additionally returns to the educational side of the profession through her involvement with students at the University of Alberta, sharing lessons from building both a design career and a business. It completes an interesting circle: the institution connected to her own career transition is now somewhere she can help others consider theirs.
Growth Without Losing Individuality
Looking ahead, Susan Jomha wants Distinct Interior Design to deepen its position within luxury design while developing more international opportunities and relationships with manufacturers, artisans, and design houses. Yet expansion does not appear to be changing the principle on which she built the company.
From a marketing career and years centered on family life to an award-recognized design practice, Susan’s path has reinforced her belief that luxury interior design can be highly personal. For her, a successful home reflects the people living within it through considered choices in layout, materials, furnishings, and details, creating an environment shaped specifically around their lives.
