Hollywood’s New Go-To Decorator Dishes on Working with Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter and More (Exclusive)

Hollywood has a new go-to design guru!

These days, Francesca Grace counts Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, Hilary Duff, and Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz among her clients, but she spent years hustling behind the scenes before becoming a designer to the stars.

In 2020, she was working at a staging company in Los Angeles, outfitting empty homes with a limited selection of what she dubs "the worst possible" furnishings to help prospective buyers envision living in the space. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the uninspiring gig became a blessing in disguise. "Everyone filed unemployment, including my boss. So I was basically running her staging company," she tells PEOPLE.

But the company's warehouse of chrome furniture and Paris-themed art she had to work with left her uninspired. "It just wasn't my type of design in general. I was so uncomfortable with what I was doing to these houses," she recalls. So Grace, who also appeared on HGTV's Fix My Flip, set out on her own, staging homes with an eclectic mix of feminine, vintage-inspired pieces and custom furniture of her own design.

"I called every top real estate agent in L.A. and was like, 'You don't have a choice. You don't know me, but there's no one else working and everyone's selling their house, so I'll stage yours.' And they were like, "Okay, great,'" she recalls.

Her staging clients — among them a handful of celebrities — took notice that the homes they were selling suddenly looked super inviting, or the ones they were touring while house hunting were full of pieces that they wanted to keep after moving in.

"Sabrina Carpenter hired me from a house that she bought that I had staged [for the previous owner]," she explains. Now she's designing an L.A. mansion for the Short n' Sweet singer, who gave a sneak peek of her Grace-designed breakfast nook in a recent Instagram, below.

While she and Carpenter are a design match made in heaven — "I love her style, and she trusts me because it's the same that I would choose for myself," she says — another celeb left her far more in awe.

"My favorite one was Hillary Duff. That was probably the only time I've been starstruck," she admits. "I was like, this is everything I ever dreamt of. I was her for Halloween when I was little. This hits home."

She staged a home that Duff and her husband, songwriter Matthew Koma, were selling and while she never came face to face with the singer, she worked with Koma and says she still remembers the moment Duff followed her on Instagram. "I was super excited. That was a good one."

Her commissions grew in scale (and star power) and she soon got the call to design Justin Bieber's Drew House for his clothing brand of the same name.

"They own this house that they shoot all of their content in, and I got to design the entire thing, she explains. "It was so fun because the inspo was like grandma's house, and so I just decked it out in different kinds of vintage wallpapers and did monochromatic rooms."

"It just was my dream to be able to create something that was like that. And it was one of the biggest ones in the beginning for me, for sure," she adds.

Designing for Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats was another career milestone. "I did their bedrooms," she explains of her contribution to the music moguls' world famous Razor House in La Jolla, Calif. "Just going over there, they'd make me drink, and they're just super homey. I did a puzzle with their kids. It's very family vibes," she says.

Most recently, she staged the home of "You and I" songstress and The Notebook musical songwriter, Ingrid Michaelson, featured exclusively by PEOPLE.

"I've gotten lucky. I know people who get unlucky with their celebrity clients, but mine are pretty great," she admits.

A few of her upcoming celebrity design projects are still under wraps, but will no doubt be gracing magazine pages in the near future.

"What's amazing is just feeling like my work is that good, for it to be able to be seen by these people who choose you when they could choose anybody," she says. "That feels good. I feel like that's the best part about it."

Read the original article on People