AUSTIN — For 12 years, Kris Betts was behind the news desk and in front of the action every chance she could get during natural disaster events and more as an Emmy-award winning journalist whose career has stretched from Texas to New York. But for the last three years, she has taken that passion for storytelling and transitioned it into doing it through a different medium in her own interior design business.
For Betts, she got the “bug” for journalism after watching the towers fall during 9/11. Only in junior high at the time, she remembered streaming the news for three days straight, watching the recollection and aftermath of the tragic event: “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, when this epic historical event happens or any event happens like this at that point, everyone was watching their TVs,’ and it seemed so important.”
She went on to be the editor-in-chief of her school newspaper when she was a high school senior and, ultimately, won awards doing so. According to Betts, it was the satisfaction of putting the paper together and telling other people’s stories that kept her going.
“A lot of people like TV because they're on camera. Some people hate being on camera and they're still doing it. I didn't love the on-camera part. I loved the storytelling part and getting to meet people and getting to tell really cool, interesting stories,” Betts shared. “It was never boring, that's for sure.”
She studied broadcast journalism at both Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin, while paving the way to her eventual career. Betts worked at a handful of stations over the years, including KTEN Media in Texoma in 2010, Fox 51 in Tyler in 2011-2012, KVUE in Austin in 2013-2021 and 13WHAM ABC in New York in 2020-2021.
While she did a mix of everything, Betts was on the night beat for the majority of her career, where she did a lot of hard reporting in relation to crime, breaking news, exclusives, political issues and more; she also did some red carpet reporting with South by Southwest in Austin.
“I love covering natural disasters, so like during Hurricane Harvey and afterwards, meeting those people and seeing their resilience was incredible, really incredible. People say that, but it's honestly incredible because you watch all their stuff just get swept away and then, they're still happy,” Betts explained. “Being part of the coverage of the Rodney Reed stay of execution — and that's what I won the Emmy for, that in-depth report of investigation — [was] definitely one of the most impactful moments of my career. I broke the Greg Kelley story in Cedar Park and obviously, he's got this huge series on Netflix now about his wrongful arrest … So, covering that from the beginning to when he got released was really cool to see.”
Though she loved the storytelling and the fast pace of it all, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic started to become a heavy weight, leading to burnout, and Betts decided to transition into doing something else: creating an interior design business.
“I thought I would do this 'till I died. Like I had fully planned on being Diane Sawyer on the desk forever, right? And I just didn't see anything else for myself, but this. But I have two kids and as they started getting a little older and I was working holidays, weekends, evenings, mornings, this crazy schedule, I realized that it wasn't really serving my family anymore and therefore, not serving me,” Betts explained. “COVID really killed the joy of reporting and storytelling. It just became so hyper-focused on the doom and gloom of COVID every day and I got burned out.”
Interior design is not new to Betts, as her mom was a designer when she was growing up in Dallas and she would often frequent the job sites. Also, throughout multiple moves, due to her TV news career, Betts would also buy houses and fix them up.
“When I was trying to figure out what I was going to do outside of journalism, I thought, 'Where do I want to see myself?' Like, 'where am I happiest in 10 years?' Because I'm not getting younger and I need to figure out what I'm doing now before it's too late,” she said. “I kept thinking about how happy I was on job sites. That’s, in a dream world, where I'd love to be full time; if I could get paid to do what I love to do as a hobby then that's, to me, the secret sauce to finding longevity in my next career. And I want to be just as passionate about whatever I do next as I was in my journalism career because I was not willing to settle for something just because it was like Monday through Friday, nine to five and paid decent.”
Betts started her path into interior design at the end of 2021 going in 2022. Throughout those three and a half years, she has already done dozens of remodels from bathrooms to kitchens and even an entire house.
To her, being able to work an entire house and build it back from the ground up is a favorite aspect of the job because she is able to really envision the result of the client’s house based on how they live and what their needs are in terms of storage and functionality.
“I have younger clients who need lots of storage for their kids and all their stuff and making sure things are durable, so they don't get damaged or broken easily. Then, I have quite a few older clients who want a home that they can grow old in and that they've worked really hard, they have a lot of money, but they don't want to keep remodeling every 10 years. It's a lot to go through. It's stressful under the best of circumstances,” Betts said. “So, I do full service remodeling, new builds. I've also worked from blueprints to full ground up finishing of a new construction home — a multi-million dollar home in New York that I helped design and build, and so, that was amazing and super satisfying. Knowing my client hired me to build their forever home is so cool because I feel like I made a lot of differences in people's lives in TV helping share their story, get their story out, find justice, etc. And I feel like I get that satisfaction now in a different way, by knowing people live in the things that I helped create that make their lives better.”
Looking at merging the two worlds together, Betts said that the two skills she is bringing to the table of interior design from reporting are listening and project management. Designers don’t always listen to their clients’ needs, interests and budget, so Betts said that she always ensures that she is there to fill that gap.
For those who are looking to change career paths, whether that be something that they have invested 10 or more years in or something that has just begun, Betts encourages them to make a concrete plan on what that’s going look like, consider what sacrifices might need to be made and then look at where they want to see themselves in the next five to 20 years.
“Do you want to still be doing what you're doing or is it worth making the change now and going through some really uncomfortable moments to start over? Because when you're in your 20s starting, it’s expected to be new and not know what you're doing and to be uncomfortable. But it's hard being in your 30s and 40s starting over because people expect you to kind of know what you're doing at that age and it's ‘Wow, I'm new at this,’” she said. “If you're not happy, then make a change because otherwise you're going to be there in 10 more years still being unhappy. After a while in the news, I stopped seeing myself doing this for the rest of my life and that's how I knew I didn't want to do this anymore, so I needed to make a change.”
Kris Betts Designs serves the southwest Austin area, including Driftwood and Dripping Springs in Hays County, for full service design and designer on demand, which is an option for those who do not want to commit to a full-scale design package. To learn more, visit www.krisbettsdesigns.com.
