All-In Design
"All-In Design" is IIDA Alabama's podcast that invites you into the dynamic world of commercial interior design. Immerse yourself in the artistry, innovation, and inspiration that shape the spaces where we work, collaborate, and create. Discover the latest trends, cutting-edge technologies, and timeless design principles that define the ever-evolving landscape of commercial interiors.
All-In Design
Episode #40 - Interview with Amber McKinley
Join us on this episode of All-In Design, where we talk with Ambler McKinley with Handcrafted Interiors (and Trademark Booth Co). This episode is a continuation in our series of speaking to interior designers from the Rocket City. On this episode, we speak with Amber about starting your own design firm, taking every job you can when starting out (hello, Cullman garage!), and the difference between commercial and residential projects. It's a fun conversation with this entrepreneurial, young designer. Give it a listen.
Recorded at the IIDA Studios Huntsville location, this is all in design. Hello and welcome to All In Design IEDA Alabama's podcast. Thank you for listening. My name is Chad Moore here with my co-host Mark Griffo. Hey everybody. And we are back in Huntsville for another round of talking to Huntsville designers here in the beautiful IEDA recording studio in Huntsville. They're very echoey. Yes, it is a little bit more. The acoustics are a little different from where we usually are. They are. I had not, I guess I noticed it now that we're in the room talking. I did not notice it the first time until I heard the two previous podcast. I was like, oh, it's a little bit of a different acoustic element there. But we've got someone else here with us today. Mark, would you like to introduce today's guest? Yes, I am very excited to get this person on the show. We've tried repeatedly to get her on the last time we were in Huntsville and we were not able to. So a very busy person. She went through great lengths to make sure she couldn't come. Yes. Busy is exactly the excuse. Heads up. We might talk about this on the show. But yeah, we're excited to introduce our friend and interior designer, Amber McKinley, who is the owner of Handcrafted Interiors, which is her firm. Amber, great to have you on the show. If you want to tell folks a little bit about yourself, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I just started a business, Handcrafted Interiors.
SPEAKER_00:What kind of business is it? Yeah. Welding. We do
SPEAKER_03:pottery. I guess starting back at kind of ground zero, so I went to school at Alabama, graduated there in 2016, and Bachelor's of Interior Design and did a minor in business. From there, I guess while I was in school, I had the opportunity to work at a couple really influential places. One was Furnishings and Design at Alabama. I interned pretty much the whole time I was in school there and worked under some phenomenal designers that were and still are great mentors to me. So that was a really great experience. And then also had an opportunity to intern at GMC in Birmingham while I was in school and stayed on for my senior year, just kind of traveling back and forth. And that opened my eyes to the world of working at an architecture firm, specifically in healthcare design. So I was real gung-ho about all things healthcare and thought, this is what I want to do. I loved the ability to create a space that had a meaningful impact on people that were using this space. So whether it was designing for wheelchair accessibility or just how a patient feels in the room and it changes their outcome of their diagnosis and just overall outlook on life, that was something I was super excited about. And so I worked there, like I said, in school. And then after that, really, I really wanted to get plugged in an architecture firm, but took a little side turn and worked for a year in commercial furniture right after college. It was really chill. I had this opportunity to-
SPEAKER_00:Chill in a commercial furniture dealership? Well,
SPEAKER_03:it was chill in the sense of I had an opportunity to work in the RSA tower in downtown Mobile, or to work in this little house that was actually where Business Interiors had a location at the time. And I thought, this one seems a little bit more like me. I'm going to try this. But it was completely different than what I had been doing interning at the architecture firm, which is part of what I was intrigued by, that it would be a new experience. But I kind of figured out I didn't really love commercial furniture. It's the worst. You have to love it. I know. I'm like, I should have given you all a heads up.
SPEAKER_00:And even if you love it, it's still the worst.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. All the pieces and parts of cubicles and looking up all the price lists, it was just not my forte. I gained so much respect for people who do this, but I realized I'm more of a big picture thinker. I wanted to be doing floor plans and things like that. It was just not the right fit.
SPEAKER_00:Did you own a new mobile or just moved down because of
SPEAKER_03:the job? Moved there because of my husband's job, actually. I'm originally from South Alabama, so we kind of And I thought, okay, this is still kind of close to family. And it made sense. But long story short, it was not a great fit. And then my husband's job also wasn't a super great fit. So we were like, let's just do something totally different. So both started looking for new opportunities and ended up landing here in Huntsville and have not looked back ever since. But landed at an architecture firm here in town and that did primarily healthcare, but a little bit of everything, schools, churches, restaurants, corporate. It was a good blend of everything. Chapman says that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. We should try to get them on. We should. Yeah. I'll reach out. I'll reach out to them and we'll see what we can do. I'm going to send them just this clip. Perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Should I name drop here? If
SPEAKER_00:you want. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Shoot them a text right now.
SPEAKER_00:We're talking about you and you're not
SPEAKER_03:here. No, So they're seriously great. I worked there for eight years, had an opportunity to join the leadership team, which is something that I truly just never even imagined possible for myself. And they're still like family to me. I mean, I truly loved working there. I got so much broad experience getting to work on all the different project types and different types of clients, which was interesting because in one given day, I may be working on a restaurant and I healthcare facility and a school, which are so different problems you're trying to solve, right? Both from the design aspect and the client aspect. And it was awesome. So really loved working there. But earlier this year, I just really probably a couple years back, but earlier this year is when I really took the leap of faith and just felt this desire to do something a little bit more. I've always been entrepreneurial minded and felt like fear was holding me back. And finally, I had to realize that life's too short to live in fear and I've got to try it and so went out on my own in March and started Handcrafted Interiors and the funny thing is so I called it Handcrafted Interiors because I thought if I'm going to make this big life change then I'm going to create a business where I can like kind of combine all of my passions into one so I also like I used to have a side business doing calligraphy painting I also love quilting like I have this little group that occasionally meets at my house do quilting and so all these things that I thought what can I name this that like it keeps it very flexible right I can add in all these things later and if I want to offer a quilting class once a month I could but I can also do like commercial construction drawings you know like all this can somehow still work and I have not even thought about quilting since starting so
SPEAKER_00:yeah so unlike a name like business interiors right yeah we're pigeonholed exactly
SPEAKER_03:yeah very general
SPEAKER_00:yeah um you know amber we've known you for a long time and but looking at your questionnaire and hearing that uh i just want to say good for you because and i mean that sincerely because you know going to school at alabama you graduated 2016 people who come out and they and they work whether it be alabama auburn they work in these facilities departments it's amazing how much experience they get right interning at gmc i didn't know that um you know having experience some dealership moving to the south Alabama coming to Huntsville working in Chapman system getting on the leadership team at such a young age trying furniture and saying hell yeah I'm out of here and then you know after eight years being like I'm gonna go you know do my own thing you know that's what was that nine years we'll call it 12 years
SPEAKER_03:it sounds a little crazy
SPEAKER_00:that's a pretty awesome potted bio right there of like industry experience and so I hope our younger coming on the podcast yeah that's a wrap I hope our younger listeners and designers and the interns out there like listening to that. Cause it's, it's cool that you've done all those things. I honestly didn't know. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's inspirational when people do like go out on their own, like to, you know, it's, as you were saying, fear was holding you back. Cause it is, it's, it's comfortable when you get a job and you're working there, you're like, okay, I've got this. I know what I'm doing. You know, there's a, there's a routine to it, but going out on your own and starting your own business, there are so many unknowns. What's been the biggest surprise or is there anything where you've gotten into it and you're like, wow, okay, I didn't even think of that, but.
SPEAKER_03:Well, so again, doing primarily commercial before, now I'm doing a blend of small commercial and residential. And so you say all these things like, yeah, I've done this or that, but like in terms of starting a business and doing residential, I hadn't done a lot of it at all. Like, I mean, I've like helped flip a house, but I haven't I haven't worked on large scale, high end remodels for residential. So that's a whole new ball game. So my commercial jobs, I've realized I can crank them out really quickly and things I used to stress about, I don't as much anymore on the commercial. But on the residential side, it's taken me three or four times as long because I'm having to build a team for getting plumbing fixtures and light fixtures and finding a tile installer that's good and hardwood flooring. is a whole different ball game and how
SPEAKER_00:to specify who to work with. Chad just gave me eyes. We're not talking about your floor.
SPEAKER_03:But it's just so much that goes into it, which is exactly what I've been excited about because it's very much in the details and very much holding the hands of the clients, which is the relationship part that I was wanting a little bit more
SPEAKER_02:of.
SPEAKER_03:But it's all new. So I feel like I'm starting kind of back at ground one in a sense of I know how to do the pieces of the puzzle, but on some things I'm having to work two, three times as hard to execute it to make sure that I'm checking all the boxes so that it's done correctly. So it's been a learning curve for sure. I knew that starting a business was going to be a learning curve. All the things you've never done as far as setting up an LLC and a business bank account and finding a lawyer to write a contract and getting insurance, all these things I've never done, I've knew those things were going to be hard I didn't know just how hard it was going to be like as far as capacity and keeping up with work like because I truly thought I'd have like three to six months to just start the business but instead I've had projects pretty much from the get-go which has just been something I truly never predicted
SPEAKER_02:right
SPEAKER_03:so trying to get all those things set up and then also do a good job on my projects has been keeping me working nights and weekends lately and I just I just didn't
SPEAKER_00:see that coming. It's kind of comical. The business owner life. Yeah. It's different. Yeah. It is different. It is different. You minored in business at Alabama. Did that help?
SPEAKER_03:Honestly, no.
SPEAKER_00:Wouldn't recommend that. Don't worry about it, kids.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. I think there was pieces of it, sure, that opened my mind to, like I took an accounting class and a statistics class, which was good for nothing. But I mean, it did surround me with those people and kind of opened my mind to, I remember having a class on like business structures and it kind of was the taste of here's the lingo of business. But I feel like to actually run a business, I'm realizing it so much in life is just the ability to put in the effort to call people and ask questions and try things and fail. You know, I think so much of it is that more than what you learn in school. And I think that goes to say for interior design is well I mean it gives you the foundation but the really successful people that I've seen are the ones that they don't know how to do stuff and they just keep trying they keep asking trying to figure it out I think that's been the the biggest key for me to just keep that mindset
SPEAKER_00:yeah I there was a conversation I had with Stephen Smith so Stephen Smith was a designer in Birmingham that had been in the business for a long time I think his last commercial job was with Williams Blackstock. And then he went to work for Christopher Architects. And so he'd moved from commercial to residential. And I remember asking him, I was like, what's the biggest change that you've seen going from one to the other? And he was like, and I think it was kind of what you were saying as far as there's more handholding or there's a much closer relationship with the client when you're doing residential. He was like, okay. So for instance, like the shirt you're wearing, it's blue, right? He goes, that's how you'd look at it. It's blue. He goes, but that's in commercial, it's like, okay, he's wearing a blue shirt. He said in residential, oh, actually, you've got little dots on your blue shirt, you know, and so the client's looking at that little dot, you know, whereas in commercial, it's just a blue shirt. He's not looking at the little details. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's an interesting analogy, and I think that is true. I will say to kind of counter that, though, 1,000% is that very much in the details, you hone in on things at a much more minute level than we did in commercial but I feel like for the longest I heard so many people tell me like residential is the worst the clients are terrible to deal with and they're constantly calling and texting and just a pain in the butt to have to work with and I have not had that experience whatsoever I've had truly the best clients knock on wood hopefully it stays like that but don't jinx
SPEAKER_00:yourself she just knocked on a glass top right where's
SPEAKER_03:the wood but the interest thing that I realized is like on the commercial side, I worked with a lot of committees and we may have eight, 10, sometimes 15, 20 people sitting at the table for a presentation. And a lot of times these are people from all different walks of life and backgrounds, careers, everything. They don't always know how to work super well together. So you get a hundred different opinions and it's not always easy to get to the end result versus a husband and a are usually used to making decisions together, and so it's just been kind of interesting to me to see how the decision-making part has been easier than I thought
SPEAKER_00:it would be. It's much more streamlined. Yeah, it is
SPEAKER_03:definitely more in the details, like you're saying, but I feel like as far as making decisions, it's actually been moving a lot quicker than some of my commercial jobs are. I'm working on a few right now that they're actually moving much slower because of the committee aspect than the residential projects
SPEAKER_00:are. Do you work with your husband?
SPEAKER_03:Yes and no.
SPEAKER_00:She made a face. He will tell you. You made a face. Again, another pitch for the cameras. I know. Caught that facial. It's a
SPEAKER_03:small business. Again, life of a small business owner.
SPEAKER_00:Everybody's involved. How many people are, is it just you?
SPEAKER_03:It's just me. I do have an intern that joined me this summer, which was a gift from God. She's amazing. And so she's finishing her senior year in Auburn and still does some kind of contract work on the side for me. And then my husband, so the reason I said yes and no, he will tell you he is a W2 employee and he is, and he's very invested in his career and is amazing at it. But I've also realized he's very good at floor plans. And so that's part of what I like. Somebody will come to me and say, hey, we want to get the whole house. Like we may even move the kitchen from here to there. Help me come up with new ideas and I'll have two or three plans to show them. He is very good at that. And I didn't realize it. Well, he's an engineer. So he does things like that. But it's a hidden skill that it's to the point he knows AutoCAD. And so I've had to tell him like, hey, can I send you these plans? And you do these
SPEAKER_00:for me and send them back. We're not quite there. Then he submits his hours. Yeah, I was going to say, it's free labor. This is smart.
SPEAKER_03:Do what you got to do, though. I mean, the first, I don't know how long, first whatever that I'm going to say, this is like you do what you got to do to get it done. But right now, it's like all hands on deck and So he's been willing to help out. He's kind of quality control, so he reviews all the plans, and he'll occasionally come do site visits with me to help make sure I'm not missing anything, things like that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's good that he's in the industry. Yeah. If you had been like, oh, he's a restaurateur, I'd be like, oh, that's interesting that he's got this hidden talent. It's like, oh, maybe you should have done this. That's cool. So how are you finding clients? How does that process work?
SPEAKER_03:So... It's all word of mouth right now. But the funny thing is.
SPEAKER_00:You're going to go huge after this podcast. You're really going to blow up. Waiting for
SPEAKER_03:that. So I left my former job at the end of February. And like a week before that, a week before I left, I hadn't even told you all this part. So I have a little side business. It's a photo booth rental. So random. Wait, what? So random. I realize it's a plug for Trademark Booth Co. If anybody needs a photo booth for your party.
SPEAKER_00:What is
SPEAKER_03:it? Trademark Booth Co.
SPEAKER_00:Trademark Booth Co? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's a vintage style photo booth and it prints out the strips. It's so fun. My sister's a wedding photographer, so when I started it, it was kind of like, oh, we can do events together. It'll be fun. But I'll find myself at these random, sometimes weird parties on a Tuesday night at midnight. I'm like, what am I doing? I'm
SPEAKER_00:making money.
SPEAKER_03:random fun fact but I say that to say somebody at the Holman Garden Show reached out to me like second or third week of February saying hey would you come to our show with your photo booth but we this is a non-profit like we can't pay for it but we'll promote you on all of our socials and
SPEAKER_00:exposure yeah exactly
SPEAKER_03:so my husband said well you should ask them if they'd be willing to do a swap you get a booth for your business you're about to launch for exchange for the photo booth and at that point I didn't have a name I didn't have a logo didn't have business cards literally had nothing and he was like just ask like the worst they can say is no and so I asked and they said yes and then I was like crap I have to get all this stuff together in like two weeks and so deadlines
SPEAKER_00:good it was good deadlines are good it
SPEAKER_03:was good because there wasn't a whole lot of overthinking the name or logo I just kind of said I got to do it and we'll tweak this a year from now if we need to so I did it and literally was at the show a week after I left my job which was like just madness but in return I got a handful of clients from that so that was really great to get the business like up and running and then since then it's just really been word of mouth so I'm
SPEAKER_00:still so if I understand if someone else wants to do the same thing get a photo booth business first pretty much pass the success trade to A secret revealed on All In Design.
SPEAKER_03:Somehow it was this real snaky path that worked. But yeah, I'm doing some work with a couple of architects as well. So some of it's been industry partnerships that I've had as well. Because I'm still doing commercials, so it's not all residential. The residential's been word of mouth, but the commercial work has been, like I had a former client that asked for help on their church. So So that was one. And then an architect that I used to work with, I've helped them on one. So it's been a mixture of people
SPEAKER_00:that are in there. What's the percentage, do you think? What's the mix?
SPEAKER_03:As far as the workload, probably 50-50. If you would have asked me a couple months ago, I would have said heavier on the residential side. But just in the last two months, I've had several commercial jobs pick back up.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Do you have a preference now that you're doing both?
UNKNOWN:No.
SPEAKER_03:That's, the verdict is still out. Okay. Commercial.
SPEAKER_00:Again, cameras would have caught
SPEAKER_03:that
SPEAKER_01:face. Yeah. A little
SPEAKER_00:bit of like, I don't want to call it apprehension, but like, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Maybe.
SPEAKER_03:I have started to learn the things that I don't want to do. Like, in the early days, you say yes to everything. So, like,
SPEAKER_00:I did a garage addition. Okay. I mean, I would think still you're still in the early days, kind of. Still helping on the garage addition. It's going to be a really sweet garage.
SPEAKER_03:It's pretty basic. How big is the garage? It's pretty basic. Okay. So there's things like that that I've realized, okay, this is not a good fit. But I said yes because it paid the bills on day one. And so now I've been able to kind of pinpoint like what is a better
SPEAKER_00:fit. Did that come from that show that you did, the booth?
SPEAKER_03:That came from a husband's coworker.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I was about to ask, are you related to this person?
SPEAKER_03:No. No, but they were a friend. So, again, it's like we wanted to help them out. Still friends. I said past. That was past tense. They were a friend. They are. They were a friend. They are still a friend. They very much are.
SPEAKER_00:They're going to listen to this show, by the way. Hopefully you have more. Maybe you have more than one garage edition and they won't be able to figure it out. This is not a plug for garage editions. This is a new show. I don't know. You could take it off. You mentioned Extreme Makeover Home Edition in your interview. younger, Garage Edition could be a new TV show.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, maybe. I'm an open-minded person. Think about it. And
SPEAKER_00:when you launch that TV show, just remember where it started. That's right. Remember the little guys. Garages. We
SPEAKER_03:can have really fancy doors and ceiling fans. I don't know what else you put in there.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, man. Sweet bonus rooms. You could do all sorts of like, you could combine it with one of those shows that does like the tricked out cars or, you know, Man Cave with refrigerators and recliners. Again, the look on your face is not at all interesting to me. Before we even started recording, you were asking questions as far as like, what should I do? What are the expectations? I just don't want to take it off the rails. And Mark said, don't worry, I'll be the one who takes it off the rails. And this is a good example of that. This is a good example, yeah. Now we're talking about hot rods and man caves. Mark brought it up So what was your inspiration to become an interior designer in the first place?
SPEAKER_03:So, yeah, I think practically speaking, probably the show Extreme Vancouver Home Edition you mentioned. I grew up watching that and just really loved the, not just the aspect of design, but how they would take somebody that had a disability or was just given a cancer diagnosis or whatever it was, and they use it as an opportunity to give them this really awesome space, but also function well for whatever challenges they were facing. I think that blend of kind of the left side and right side of your brain, the real artistic, let's make this a beautiful space, but also let's make it function well, resonated with me, and I realized that that was something I was really interested in. So that was kind of the starting point. Initial genesis, right? Yes, yeah. And then when I got into college and realized it was so much more than what you see on HGTV, the construction part and the drawings part really interested me And I was super excited about that part as well. Not just the, let's pick pretty paints and pillows, you know, even though that sometimes that's the initial interest of it. I've realized now that there, this other technical side of it has actually been something I'm a pretty good fit for and have really enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's, it seems like, and we've had several people mention that where left, left brain, right brain, kind of a combination of the two. And that's been a surprise to them. Like they come in, going thinking it's going to be one thing but then they're surprised that there's a far more technical aspect to it and that's and sometimes that's the direction I mean they just go down that rabbit hole and kind of remove the other part but did you know when you went to University of Alabama like did you go in being like I'm going to major in interior design
SPEAKER_03:I did yeah so I did know that thankfully because if you don't declare freshman year then you're already
SPEAKER_00:behind yes I've got my daughter's senior in high school and it is like when I went to college I had a disease zero idea what I was going to school for. Zero. But now it seems like you've kind of got to know roughly what you want to do right off the bat. I think we had, I think in Auburn, we had to declare, you had to declare something by the end of your freshman year. See, I mean, for me, I thought it was end of sophomore. I think it was freshman year because I declared graphic design because I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I was like, well, I'm going to do something in that left, right brain. I was telecommunications because I like TV shows. Well, That's a good reason. Love it. Yeah, that's a great reason. But I had done all my core in Auburn. I'd pretty much gotten all of that out of the way by the end of my freshman year. And then when I started the design classes, which again, most design classes are like sequential, right? You've got to do one before you can do another, whether it's industrial or interior or graphic design or whatever, architecture. So I ended up with an extra, I was there in Auburn for four and a half years, which I like to call five football seasons. which my dad said was very convenient and to which my rebuttal was you were at Georgia Tech for six years so when I hit the six year mark then we can have a conversation about whether or not I stay too long but yeah but you're not the first person too to be like yeah when I came into school it's like I really needed to know like they were like what are you gonna do so I guess that somewhere somewhere along the line they changed that yeah
SPEAKER_03:well and I think interior design is a little different like they're still engineering I know you can get all your basics done and then decide but with interior design Like you said, they're sequential. And so you have a fall freshman studio that you have to take before you can take the spring one. So to anyone listening that's in high school, you don't necessarily have to.
SPEAKER_00:You have to know what you want to be when you grow up before you're a junior in high school.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, not with every career, for sure. But interior design, you better have
SPEAKER_00:that. Yeah, I know. Auburn, you'll take the freshman year of interior design, and then you've got to kind of then make it into the interior design program after that, like for your sophomore year. You're not actually in the interior design program that first year, even though you're taking design classes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. There's just a little more cutthroat. I know a lot of people go through that first year and then end up not getting in, so it's pretty competitive.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because my daughter's considering interior design, so she's looking at different schools. My wife, who went to Auburn, is like, I don't know, though. I don't know if we want her to go. What if she goes to Auburn and does the first year and she doesn't get into the design school?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Then she's a failure. Then she should drop out and move back
SPEAKER_03:home. Or just swap to Alabama. Roll
SPEAKER_00:Tide. Roll Tide. We'll take you. Did you know in college, did you have a direction then as far as commercial or residential? Because it seems like we'll go to these student shows at the universities and most of the designers we talk to talk about residential.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I so whenever I started I thought it was residential because of HGTV like I thought that's all interior design was so freshman year if you would have asked me I probably would have said residential because I didn't know anything else and then by the end of college I realized there was this whole other world out there and I was pretty set on commercial specifically healthcare design for the reasons that I mentioned and now like I said at the point I'm at in my career I've really enjoyed both of them and I think there's different things that you learn, different types of clients you get to work with, different problems you're solving with both. So I've really enjoyed both. But yeah, at the time, especially senior year, I was pretty set commercial and healthcare preferred.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, it sounds like with healthcare, you were seeing where you're making a difference in people's lives because they're going in for these treatments. And so you're making these changes and elevating the spaces that they're going into to get better health. And now with residential, it's a really close personal relationship with somebody and you're, you know, it's, it's where they're going to, I mean, it's where they're going to be every single day. So there's some similarities there. It seems like
SPEAKER_03:it is, it is probably more so actually because the healthcare, I mean, and I loved working on it. And like I said, I got great experience, um, getting to do that, but there's such a bigger problem that they're trying to solve. So it becomes a lot of facilities driven decisions as far as clean ability, purchasing power, keeping addict stock of all these things so that they can make quick changes it's it's a lot of those decisions and even code requirements in sterile environments and so you get really good in healthcare design at knowing how to design around function and cleanability and codes and things like that that it's easy to lose sight of the patient-centered aspect versus residential I mean I see these people multiple times a week and I'm reminded like they're gonna have
SPEAKER_01:be cooking dinner here with their family.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. So it's very personal, but I like that. I mean, that's probably the best part of design to me is the relationship building part. I wanted to feel like I had a hand in helping make somebody's lives a little better and make their space better for something that they may not be able to do for themselves. So yes, I'd say probably more so on the residential side even than what I was able to do in healthcare.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Have you done any healthcare with your new business? No. Is there opportunity, do you think, to do that? Maybe
SPEAKER_03:in the future, but... Not right now, no. I'm doing a multi-family project, which is interesting, because that, in a way, it almost feels like a blend of residential and healthcare, and that's the one sector I didn't do any of prior. And that one, it's kind of lower-income housing, and so we're thinking through wheelchair accessibility pass, and there's lots of people with disabilities there, and also the function and cleaning is a thing. But also, it's a development. We're trying to attract people here, and so it needs to look nice and feel comfortable and also serve the function that it has for the residents that live there. So that's been kind of a new sector
SPEAKER_00:to get to learn about. Are all your projects in Huntsville right now? Are you out? What's your scope?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they're pretty much all in Huntsville. The garage was in Huntsville. Coleman stay away from Coleman I know again another reason I'm like this is so far away but generally speaking I'd like to stay within a let's say one hour radius
SPEAKER_00:yeah just out of reach of Coleman Coleman's probably like 61 minutes away maybe even less so But if
SPEAKER_03:somebody had a lake house on Smith Lake,
SPEAKER_00:I'm not going to turn that down. Oh, there you go. These aren't hard and fast rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guidelines. You've got to be flexible. Guidelines, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Or even a beach house, you know, the radius could stretch a little more.
SPEAKER_00:That's a whole other ballgame right there if you get into some of that beach house action, especially if you're looking down on the Gulf Coast. I
SPEAKER_03:know, I know. We could figure out how to make that work. So if anyone's listening, it is definitely more than an hour radius that I just mentioned. Yeah. Scratch all
SPEAKER_00:of that. Huntsville's got an airport. Yeah. Send the jet. Put it on the bill. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Just purchase a private plane. No big deal.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. Next business decision. Your husband's going to be very happy. So we're buying a plane now. Yes. Yes. Very important. They built an airport in Panama City like 20 years ago, so it's going to be super convenient. Congratulations. Congratulations on expanding on this show.
SPEAKER_03:I think that Count It is the one I'd really have to have a heart-to-heart with about on
SPEAKER_00:that one. Yeah, true. With all the different types of projects you've worked on, is there a specific project that was inspiring or one that kind of stands out?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I worked on a school that, and I'm trying to remember if this is what I write about or not.
SPEAKER_00:I love that you said that because this is what you wrote about. I'm nodding my head up and down. I'm like yes it is. Because there's
SPEAKER_03:a few like I have people that ask me this and sometimes I give different answers on what my favorite project was but I really enjoyed working on the schools. Elkmont Elementary just finished up last fall and I think part of the reason I really loved that one is because I got to work on it start to finish literally when I don't think they had even purchased the lot yet and our firm was doing high level master planning for them and helping them determine a budget for the school and how big it needed to be and all that so it was very early on that I got to be a part of some of those conversations all the way to the ribbon cutting where people in their 50s and 60s were coming up to me telling me they've been talking about this school since I was in first grade and I didn't think it ever happened and so getting to see that whole process come to fruition was really rewarding and then on top of that it challenged me design wise as well so we had done a decent amount of design work and presented our kind of first rough draft to the school board, and they responded with, we really want to incorporate a theme. You know, trains are a big part of our history here in Elkmont, and we think that this school should be themed around a train, which is like a designer's worst nightmare to say, here is a theme that you have
SPEAKER_00:to work around. I was going to say, do your hackles let go? Yeah, and how far into the design process were you?
SPEAKER_03:We had some conversations We weren't so far that we couldn't turn back by any means, but we had some initial concepts and images and kind of black and white renderings. I think that we were showing them just as thought starters.
SPEAKER_00:No trains in any of those. No trains.
SPEAKER_03:No trains
SPEAKER_00:at all. How did you know?
SPEAKER_03:But I honestly, like my immediate thought was no, like no trains. Absolutely not. I mean, my... I don't know if you guys went to Vacation Bible School growing up, but that's where my brain went, is these cheesy decorations that you tape up on the wall that everyone's tired of after a couple of weeks. And I just didn't think it was something that was going to be timeless, and I also felt like it was going to lock us in. But it really challenged me and the rest of the team because we leaned into it and realized that it actually ended up playing to our advantage. And we had a really great team that one also I'll say that that that's part of why I loved that project because we just had a really good mojo from start to finish and we all had different strengths and weaknesses and can play off of each other but we ended up developing this train themed school that the center of the school we called it the spur so that's where the train kind of turns around and decides which direction they want to go and it's a big literally circle in the center of the school and the school had tasked us early on with a They pretty much came to us with the floor plan they wanted, but it was where the principal could stand in the center and look down all of the hallways at one time for security reasons. And so it made perfect sense for that to be our spur. So the flooring was designed around this idea of a spur. We had signage that looked like an old train station. Our ceiling had wood beams that was kind of like our grand central. And then off of that spur, we had the creative caboose is what we We ended up calling it, and it was a section of the library that was a maker space. And so it was just CMU block. It wasn't anything super expensive, but we painted it red, put some yellow letters on it, called it the Creative Caboose, and some sconce lighting, and did some unique things with finishes that wasn't over the top as far as expensive or hard to maintain. But it ended up being something that was fun and playful and I think will still be timeless for a long time so I think just so many things about that project challenged me but I think having such a negative reaction to the theme all the way to seeing it to fruition it challenged me in a good way and our whole team and it was just really rewarding to get to see it
SPEAKER_00:yeah and it was an award winner at the ID Awards yes yeah that was awesome we
SPEAKER_03:were so excited and a little shocked that we received anything for that and because at the time our firm actually did and even participate a whole lot in the IDs, to be honest. But we said, let's
SPEAKER_01:try it. Lesson learned. I know. You got
SPEAKER_03:to submit. I know. So that was exciting. Yeah. And it actually received an award at AIA as well. Oh, cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Fantastic. Nice. Does the principal wear a conductor's outfit while he's standing in the middle of the spur?
SPEAKER_03:That's a good question. They did. I think
SPEAKER_00:maybe like once a year or something. Something. You should do something. What did... Do they have a mascot? Is it train-themed mascot, or is it totally different? It's the Wildcats.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, when we started working with them, they were like the devils or something, and they were in the process of
SPEAKER_00:changing them. Doing a rebrand? Yeah. We're thinking either trains or hell. Well, when you pitch those two ideas, I guess we'll go with trains. Let's go with trains. Sure. The lesser of two evils.
SPEAKER_03:They did at the ribbon cutting though. I remember the, all the faculty and staff, like they, they took the picture and then everyone without any cue, um, went all aboard. That's fun. That's fun. So they've really leaned into
SPEAKER_00:it too. Nice. That's great. You mentioned kind of within, uh, describing that project where you had some, um, finishes that weren't overly expensive, but still created kind of a nice design. How do you work generally with budget constraints but still trying to achieve a nice design
SPEAKER_03:every project is different um again with residential to commercial and then every sector of commercial is different um i think our i'll just start with commercial so our reps are a huge resource like i was just messaging a couple last night for a project that i'm working on that i know it's going to be it's going to have budget constraints and we're working with the developer it's multi family and so I was able to put some fillers out to say before I even order samples like point me in the right direction so that's hugely helpful just having the relationships with reps to point me in the right direction and also knowing how to use materials like when is the right place to cloud the walls in wood or leather versus when it's not appropriate you know so I think that's just kind of taking experience to know when to do that and when not and then on the residential side similarly speaking I think you can still do nice design without it being a million dollar home it's just a matter of how to how are you using color and trim and your cabinetry and things like that to still make it a very nice space but being able to guide the clients to say hey we're gonna look at more budget-grade appliances that are still gonna fit in really nice with this design but maybe they're not paint already and maybe our light fixtures are still very nice nice and add some jewelry to the space, but it's not going to be a$10,000 chandelier hanging over your island. So I just try to be cognizant of that. I have done some personal homework as well and know the weight of the bills. So I think that that's helped me to be more budget conscious and understand kind of where they're coming at as well.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah. I liked your first sentence in the answer with bad design and good design, both great. cost money
SPEAKER_03:they do
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah I highlighted that speaks volumes yeah
SPEAKER_03:yeah and I think I think that like Even working in commercial, I know a lot of people would kind of just brush off the low-budget projects of, oh, we just got to get it done, and it's not going to be an award winner. But for me, I'm still working on it. I'm still spending part of my life on this project. We can still make it a space that people want to be in, even with paint and adding some color pattern to the floor. It doesn't have to be super expensive stuff for it to still be a nice space. So I always try to challenge myself on that. Let's still make this something that's worthwhile, both personally, I want it to be something that I can be proud of, but also for the people that are using it and that are spending the money, they're still spending the money, whether it's good design or bad design, it still costs money.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and speaking of awards and speaking of IDs, I feel like there's been several winners across a broad spectrum of categories over the last several IDs that you and I chat have been involved in. And, you know, it's every other, every other year award show where like the, the winners are balling on a budget, right? They're not, they're, you know, They're not these projects where they're throwing tens of millions of dollars at these things. I think that that can, at times, with the right designers and the right client, enhance the design because you have to just get creative with your function and your materials and how you approach it rather than be like, oh, I can spend$10,000 on this light fixture, so I will. There's not that much thought that goes into it. I do think also that the judges for the IDs are interior designers as well and probably probably are as they're evaluating the projects can sometimes see like okay I see what they did there you know that was that was a creative creation and they probably did that for budget concerns but that worked out really well
SPEAKER_03:that was definitely our experience with Elkmont as well because it was a school right yeah they had like I said been talking and planning for this for 40 50 years so we couldn't just go pick the most expensive stuff everywhere it had to be within budget and it had to be functional and easy to clean and maintain. So it, like you said, it did, it challenged us to think outside the box a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Um, what advice do you have for individual aspiring to become interior designers?
SPEAKER_03:I would say just learn as much as you possibly can. And this is advice for myself right now too, being in the season that I'm in. Um, even the extra hours that I'm putting in, the extra travel that I'm taking, it's is the season of learning and growing for me.
SPEAKER_00:When you say traveled, you mean to Coleman? Exactly. I learned so much from
SPEAKER_03:that project. So I'm not writing it off. I did learn so much. But to me, nothing in the season is a waste of time. And it wasn't in my early days as a young designer either, because there's just so much to learn. Staying after and asking questions and being willing to raise your hand and say hey I've got a really dumb question but I don't have a clue what this wall section means I think going that extra mile is going to set you apart from others and show that you have this willingness to want to learn and grow there's nothing that is below you you know I think just having that mentality of I want to be a team player I want to learn and do the best that I can on this project for the client and for the team I think will go will take you far and that's kind of been my experience as well. The more that I kind of had that mentality, I felt like the more people were pulling me in on things and saying, hey, what's your thoughts on this? Or we want your help on our team. And so then in return, the more I got to learn and more project types that I got to work on and more clients that I got to work with and learn things from them. So I think just learn as much as you can and just work hard and don't have a mentality of like, I can't do that. That's not part of my job description. I don't think that that helps any of us out in the
SPEAKER_00:Captain Sisson, you were part of their recruitment team. Is that right? Yes, I did. And so were there certain qualities? I guess you've touched on this somewhat, but were there certain qualities you were looking for for people that were applying for jobs?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so my go-to, my former boss would kind of joke that I would say this so much, but I'd always say humble, hungry, smart. They've got to have those three things. If they're missing one, then they're probably not a good fit. But you need somebody that's humble, that is willing to put their ego aside I didn't say I want to be a good player on the team. Hungry, you're willing to go the extra mile and work hard to get the job done, and you're smart. You've got good ideas. Don't be a dumbass. Yes. Yeah, don't be deadweight either. I mean, you do have to have some talent and skill, but I think often the things that really set people apart in the recruiting world for me were the ones that were just really hard workers. Talent can only take you so far. I
SPEAKER_00:really like that don't be. above doing something because I think that's very telling for anyone at really any stage in what they're doing because you know I mean yeah you're gonna have those days where you know you should be like I don't want to do this or whatever but like there's just a certain sort of mentality of like I'm better than this that sets you apart in a negative sort of way where people don't want to interact with you or bring you in and so I just really second that like humility of like don't be better than things because you're not better than things and you can learn by doing you know be hungry about learning, you know, be hungry about being humble and getting out there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, especially people in leadership positions like you've been in and being on that recruitment team. I mean, you can see that and, you know, you, you just said it directly. Like if you're missing one of those three, then you're off the list. You know, if there's somebody else that's going to have those three and they're going to be ahead of you and then, you know, maybe you don't know why you weren't chosen, but that might be humility. You came in with too much of a chip on your shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, like there's you know there's it's not my it's not part of my job like you're referencing that you know some people are like well that's outside of what I'm supposed to do there's so many things that happen in work in different projects where especially owning your own business you're wearing so many hats so you're doing everything but even working within a firm you've got to be open to finding things that need to be done that aren't being done or picking up that slack that you see like oh that needs you know that needs some of the but nobody's putting any attention to it. And if you're smart enough and you go after that, people that are higher up go, oh, they weren't told to do that, yet they picked that up. I think that's a good call as well. You can open your own doors without even realizing it. Yeah. Because there may be people that are paying attention to your point, Chad. People are paying attention that you're not realizing are paying attention. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, and even aside from that, I can't tell you how many times that I had these interactions where I did put in the extra effort for something that maybe I didn't want to work on or I didn't feel like was part of my job description but then a year or two later something kind of related came about that I needed to be able to solve on my own and because I did that I knew who to call so it's even aside from people noticing you or anything like that I just think there's so much that you can learn if you just have this mentality of well just try it like you may learn something I mean the garage edition like I learned that there is a company in Arab half the distance between me and Coleman and they do all this like 3D scanning technology and I was able to contract them to go do part of the work for me so that I didn't have to travel and so
SPEAKER_00:that in itself you could get this off your plate and finish this job
SPEAKER_03:basically yes but now like I
SPEAKER_00:feel like we need to follow up podcast we do with photos that we can show before and after
SPEAKER_03:but no seriously like I mean that in itself like I learned a lot from that and there's another job that came about that I probably would have turned down for capacity reasons but I had worked with this other company and I thought well they can help pick up some of the slack while I'm busy right now and had I not done that project I would have not known that so or if I'd had this mentality of like I don't do garage additions sorry you know I would have never
SPEAKER_00:had the opportunity to work with them I am better than garage additions thank you yes no how do you how do you manage your time now that all you're time is your own relative to when you were with a firm?
SPEAKER_03:It's hard. It's so hard. I am probably not doing a great job of it right now, to be honest. I don't know if I'm the best person to speak on this. Like I said, I'm working nights and weekends right now trying to keep up, but I am a relatively structured thinker, I'd say. I am pretty good about saying, here's what our schedule needs to look like, and here's what I need to do to like take 10 steps back for what I should be working on today to get that done and so I do time blocking so every Friday I print out my calendar and I will at least loosely map out I need to work on this project for two hours Monday morning and then I need to swap to this one for an hour and then make sure I call this person after one o'clock like I'll block out these things and it never works perfectly according to plan but it at least gives me kind of a guideline to go by so that I'm not just flying by the seat of my pants every single day. So that has been hugely helpful. Um, but in terms of like overall project or time management, um, I've just the last few weeks I've had to remind myself, like, you still have to exercise. You still have to cook dinner. Like you still have to
SPEAKER_00:have a life. I still have to live. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because for so long, it was just like, everything was just like all about business. And because I was trying to get everything set up right. And then also trying to do projects that I didn't expect to have so so soon that I was kind of losing sight of, okay, you still have to have a life. Like I don't want to burn out super quickly. So it's, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00:Cause it was in February that you, that you started this, right? Yeah. First week of March. Six months ago. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Especially having, like you said, gotten work early. So that's a lot. And the photo booth. Don't forget. And the photo booth. Side hustle. Yeah. Yeah. Shameless plug. This episode brought to you by... There is nothing shameless. What was it called again?
SPEAKER_03:Trademark Booth Co. I'll send
SPEAKER_00:y'all my logo. Trademark Booth Co. How'd you come up with that name?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. I had a lot of different names that came about, and Trademark was this kind of cheesy thing with mine and my husband's initials combined from a high school inside joke thing. It was really dumb. I'm not even going to waste your time, because it was really dumb, but
SPEAKER_00:I... Remember, this is the place to waste time. This is also the part of the show where we waste time. Yeah, most people have turned off at this point. Probably so. To their detriment. Trademark Group Go, because it sounds like the name of like, what can we name this company where no one else could possibly name it the same thing? I don't know. That
SPEAKER_03:was exactly the thinking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it works. Are they going
SPEAKER_03:to trademark, trademark?
SPEAKER_00:Right, yeah, how can you trademark, trademark? We're going to throw a co at the end of Booth. It also sounds like a giant company. Is that the website address? Trademarkbootco.com. Co.com. Yeah. I don't like that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was available.
SPEAKER_00:We're going to workshop this offline and really take your... We're not concerned about your design business anymore. We're just going to focus squarely on the photo booth. And you said it's like a vintage thing? Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:It's a vintage look. but it's got the touchscreen and
SPEAKER_00:a real camera. There's a company that sells them and it looks like that, right?
SPEAKER_03:Probably. I've seen a couple similar, but this one was not a company.
SPEAKER_00:How often do you rent this thing out?
SPEAKER_03:Like a couple times a month. It's
SPEAKER_00:not anything that's crazy to me. She's like, I got it down the car. She would have brought it up. How easy is it to move around?
SPEAKER_03:Christmas time gets crazy, but aside from that, it's not all that much it's pretty easy it comes apart I feel like I need to show y'all a picture of it but
SPEAKER_00:the top comes off I'm just thinking there's like a couple events coming up there's one in October there's one in November could use a photo booth for potentially I mean we know somebody
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:that's true you know we do have in Birmingham the show coming up October 9th I'm like it's October 9th right yeah Thursday October 9th the show so we can plug our own things on this show too But yeah, it would be cool to have a photo booth there. It's theshowco.com. The Show Co. We're going to go back to the rest of our committee and be like, by the way, we've changed the name of the show to The Show Co. Don't ask questions. I think we should go ahead to rapid fire at this point. We're already kind of doing it in a way. We are. So I've come wildly unprepared, Chad. So I'm going to let you go first. All right. While you think of a question. I'm going to get on Grok.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And see what Grok can come up with. All right. This is really
SPEAKER_03:rapid fire.
SPEAKER_00:My first one. What's something that you really want but wouldn't necessarily buy for yourself?
SPEAKER_03:This
SPEAKER_00:is to help your husband for Christmas.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, man. This is hard. Beach condo.
SPEAKER_00:Beach condo? Yeah. Okay. Beach condo. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:Not too big of an ask
SPEAKER_00:for a Christmas present, right? Yeah, yeah. Right. Okay. If a client demands a life-size dinosaur statue in their living room, where do you put it for maximum vibes?
UNKNOWN:What?
SPEAKER_00:A
SPEAKER_03:life-sized dinosaur statue.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Which dinosaur? They come in a lot of different sizes. That's true. Yeah. So, okay. Maybe, sometimes I do this. I'll reword the question. If a client demands a life-sized dinosaur statue for their home, we'll just say for their home, what dinosaur do you choose?
SPEAKER_02:Chad, you gave a very serious look.
UNKNOWN:He's like, you really righted that question.
SPEAKER_03:Is it? T-Rex with the little short arms. I don't know. Oh, yeah, no, that is the T-Rex. The one with the short arms. I would pick that one and I would incorporate like a bookcase or something in it so that his little arms could hold some books and he'd be in the corner and it would be purposeful.
SPEAKER_00:Man, that was a good answer. That was pretty solid. Yeah, that was great.
SPEAKER_03:If I made it to that point with the client. I may say, this is feeling an awful lot like a garage initiative.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sorry. I forgot to say I don't do garages or dinosaurs. I do trains or dinosaurs. Yeah. What kind of driver are you? Like aggressive or defensive? Do you typically drive the speed limit or over the speed limit?
SPEAKER_03:Oh my goodness. This is a bad time to answer this because I just got my car out of the shop.
SPEAKER_01:You're about to say because my license is
SPEAKER_03:revoked. I'd say most of the time I'm a pretty good neutral driver. I like to just kind of cruise and enjoy the day, but a lot of times I'm in a rush. And so I've hit a couple of things lately, including a bollard at a bank drive-thru and a tree in my driveway. So my car just had to be
SPEAKER_00:fixed. Why did you have a tree in your driveway?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it lines the driveway. It lines the driveway. That sounds like that tree had it coming. I should have known it was there. It stepped out in the way. It did.
SPEAKER_00:Have you ever had a client ask to incorporate a weird... statement piece in their home this may be too new if you've been doing residential for six months
SPEAKER_03:a weird statement piece I'm sure that I have I'm trying to think
SPEAKER_00:or commercial Yeah, we designed an entire school around a train.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that was definitely one for sure. I have a client right now that has this elk painting that I'm trying to figure out where it's going to go or
SPEAKER_00:if it's going to go. In the garage. Yeah. How big is this elk painting? It's pretty large.
SPEAKER_03:It's probably like five feet tall. Okay. Yeah, and the discussion right now is like the center point in the living room. But I don't know. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. They hired you for a reason to make the tough decisions. Okay. Mark just reacted to his phone. So the next question is crazy or what? Yeah. Okay. If we had the video, you would have seen Mark react funny to his phone. All right. Do you have a guilty pleasure? And what is it?
SPEAKER_03:Probably coke ICs.
SPEAKER_00:Coke ICs.
SPEAKER_03:And I don't, like, I don't drink Cokes at all. Like, I'm a pretty, like, water-healthy person. Right, except for ICs. But every now and then a Coke IC is amazing.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Is it a special occasion? And I ask that so, like, I don't, you know, I don't drink, you know, Cokes or anything either, except, like, when I'm driving to Coleman or the beach.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I was going to say.
SPEAKER_00:It'll be like, I'm going to get a cherry Coke. Yeah. Yeah. On the way to her beach condo that she's going to get for Christmas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Is there a place you, is there a local place where you get your Coke Icy?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's usually on the way to the beach, so it's whatever gas station
SPEAKER_00:we can find. Yeah. All right. Fair. So usually, as Chad knows, I have a stack of just like five or six rapid-fire questions that I've just collected over the last year and a half that we've been doing this, and some of them are easy, and some of them are completely dumb, and some of them don't make any sense, and still I refuse to cross them out, and I find myself reading them And then as I'm reading them, I'm like, oh, yeah, this question sucks. And I forgot that stack of papers in our other studio. Right. And so, yeah, so right when we switched, I got on Grok, which is Twitter's chat GPT, because I don't want to call it X. And so I just said, I need some off-the-wall rapid-fire questions right now for an interior designer, the funnier the better. And so this is the one that I was just laughing at. And it says, would you rather fight one oversized beanbag chair or 10 tiny Ottomans?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, gosh. Probably the Tintani Ottomans because I could figure out places to hide them. That's hilarious.
SPEAKER_00:This is a keeper. This is 15 questions. That's solid. If budget were not a concern, what would your ideal vacation be?
SPEAKER_03:Anywhere in Europe. I've traveled to Europe a couple of times just on like budget stuff where we could find cheap flights and we stay in cheap hotels and stuff. So it's not glamorous, but I'd probably go somewhere back to Europe and spend more money. If budget wasn't
SPEAKER_00:an issue. Yeah, budget. Any particular country? I
SPEAKER_03:loved Switzerland. It was amazing. Yeah, Switzerland or Santorini. I'd go back there in a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, nice. Thank you. Switzerland is, Chad and I were talking about skydiving earlier, and Switzerland is where I went skydiving. Is it? Yeah. Okay. In Interlaken. Nice. So just a little, I always have to add in something about me, Amber. I know who I am. Yeah, I love that. Would you rather design a house? I went skydiving in Coleman. Did you really? Yeah. Because it's going to be great if you did. Yeah. You probably had the same thought as I did when I was in Switzerland, which is, when am I going to be here again? Yeah. So I might as well go skydiving. Yeah. Would you rather design a house entirely in glitter or entirely in camouflage paint and why?
SPEAKER_03:Probably entirely in camouflage paint because I feel like I could make it kind of a cool space. Like I'm working on this really masculine style house right now and I'm really leaning into it. And so I heard camo and I thought we could probably make that work.
SPEAKER_00:But
SPEAKER_03:glitter, I think it's just going to feel like a six year old's
SPEAKER_00:bedroom. This is a silly question, but yeah. yet it has some real world implications. And we're in Alabama. It is Alabama. How many fingers am I holding up behind my back?
UNKNOWN:What?
SPEAKER_03:Three.
SPEAKER_00:Four.
SPEAKER_03:So close. I almost said four.
SPEAKER_00:Wrong. Yeah. Oh, man. There's the show right there. It's over. The Show Co. These are dumb. This is the last one. Yeah, this one I want to get a good one. I did with the fingers behind my back. Wait, hold on. Let me read that. You know I'm doing dead air, but like... Okay, I'm just going to read this as is. This is as Grok gave it to us. If a room could only have one piece of furniture, but it's cursed to make weird noises, what do you pick? Wait, what? That's the question. You can take it wherever you want.
SPEAKER_03:One piece of furniture, but it's cursed to make weird
SPEAKER_00:noises. But it's cursed to make weird noises. It doesn't say what the furniture is, nor does it say what weird noise. So I guess you could... answer that in any sort of way that you want next time I'll vet these a little earlier
SPEAKER_03:beanbag chair that sounds like a monster talking to you. I don't know. I feel like you just tied in. That's the only appropriate use for a beanbag chair.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you tied in the two earlier questions of a beanbag and then the dinosaur.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So we were going to have Amber on a few weeks back and she ended up having to cancel. So we had gotten her responses to the questionnaire, you know, several weeks ago. And so I had written down a list of questions for the Rat fire questions that then I forgot that I'd done that. So this morning, I've got these and I just turned my paper over and I'm like, oh, there's five more questions. You don't have to answer them, but these were the questions. Ten years from now, what does handcrafted interiors look like? That was the question. That's a good question. If I were wanting to get into quilting, apparently I looked at your social media, where should I start?
SPEAKER_03:That's funny, actually, because I don't know that I mentioned anything about quilting anywhere You
SPEAKER_00:had to have, yeah. Well,
SPEAKER_03:on my personal, probably on
SPEAKER_00:my personal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. You were given a day free of responsibility, no emails, no calls, no plans. How do you spend it? Biggest pet peeve, and then you're in the car, you're by yourself, windows are down, you're cruising at a normal speed, you're not running into anything. What song are you belting out? I feel like you wanted to answer all of those.
SPEAKER_03:I know, those were all really good questions.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, those are way better than the ones we've asked. Yeah, the ones we've asked. put some more thought into these
SPEAKER_03:rapid fire 10 years I don't know but hopefully doing good design projects so I'm going to breeze past that one because we're still verdict's still out maybe doing beach houses
SPEAKER_00:that's what it's going to be quilting if you wanted
SPEAKER_03:to
SPEAKER_00:get started
SPEAKER_03:quilting I've got some old lady friends I'll hook you up with sweet or maybe if handcrafted interiors offers a class I will let you know you can be on our newsletter
SPEAKER_00:we could do an event with handcrafted interiors exactly
SPEAKER_03:this sounds great my husband's like this is a terrible business plan I think it sounds fun
SPEAKER_00:yeah and then you have then you have like 30 people and like multiple industry sponsors and we'll show him
SPEAKER_03:yeah yeah have the photo booth set up there it's just a bunch of randomness giving a free day probably antique and thrift shopping that's like honestly that's my guilty pleasure I just love to go to all the Chucky Antiques stores and just
SPEAKER_00:search. Have you combined it with the Coke slushie? I think I did once. I should do that more. So it's like a great day
SPEAKER_03:off.
SPEAKER_00:Biggest pet peeve?
SPEAKER_03:Biggest pet peeve? Snarky contractors. Okay. Just people who don't want to be team players.
SPEAKER_00:You're in the car by yourself, belting out a tune. What is it?
SPEAKER_03:Um... Mmm...
SPEAKER_00:I feel like you have an answer and you don't want to tell us.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so I do know, this is probably not what I would be singing, but I do know the words and the guitar sounds to Indian Outlaw by Tim McGraw.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_03:That one's fun. Yeah, that should probably have been said out loud. But I can do a mad guitar impression to Indian Outlaw. Oh, awesome. Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_00:All right, so to finish off the episode, what we've been reading recently is an AI-created song. So what I need from you is I need a genre. What music genre would you like the song to be in?
SPEAKER_03:Can we do a blend?
SPEAKER_00:Probably not, but I'll write it down.
SPEAKER_03:Like Indian Outlaw meshed with some R&B.
SPEAKER_00:So country R&B mashup.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I can put that in. Country R&B. And then I need three random Three random words from you.
SPEAKER_03:Three random words.
SPEAKER_00:And one of the words cannot be tree. You look at me like I'm insane. And there's some truth to that. The last two episodes that we've done. Recorded in this room. Recorded in this room. It was like random group. I'm using my left hand right here. So interview one, random thing. Interview two, random thing. Back to one, random thing. Back to two, random three. Back to one, tree. Next episode, tree.
SPEAKER_03:It's because they saw
SPEAKER_00:it. Because they're really looking out the window looking out the window yeah see three word three random words totally random yeah
SPEAKER_03:beanbag
SPEAKER_00:beanbag
SPEAKER_03:dinosaur
SPEAKER_00:the tie-in
SPEAKER_03:and camouflage
SPEAKER_00:camouflage camo perfect
SPEAKER_03:that's gonna be really
SPEAKER_00:awesome anything good that's be awesome let's be the best song ever
SPEAKER_03:that's gonna be my highlight if you want to learn about beanbag chairs dinosaurs and camouflage listen to this episode and we get zero people
SPEAKER_00:we will give you the audio track. And so you can put it on your website. So when people go to your homepage, they know what you're about. Yeah. They know what you're about.
SPEAKER_03:Sounds like a solid business
SPEAKER_00:plan. Tracked in all the garage additions I want. Listen to this episode. He'd be like, you know, for the first 50 minutes, you were solid. Like the most solid design talk that we've had on episode for a while. And I only mean that in terms of like the consistency of, of the host, i.e. me, keeping it on the rails. And in the last 10 minutes, we've just kind of gone all over the place. I'm really happy to, like, I can't wait to hear your husband listen to it and be like, why are you destroying your business? I can't wait to hear this mashup. So with that, thanks for coming on. Really appreciate you coming in. Thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_03:We'll be
SPEAKER_01:right
SPEAKER_02:back. Less a beach house calls her to the
SPEAKER_00:shoreline Trademark boots cold Her side gig shines bright