Interview with Lauren Day
Lauren with her beautiful growing family & their fixer upper.
Photo by Lauren’s husband, Austin Day.
I am so excited to introduce and feature a sweet design friend of mine, Lauren Day! She and I have many mutual friends and our paths have crossed at countless bridal showers, church events, and celebrations over the years. I have always been inspired to create beautiful, purposeful, and welcoming spaces because of Lauren’s work. I so enjoyed reading more about her unique skillset and background and I cannot say enough kind words about her! Enjoy, and be sure to follow along on her instagram and blog. She’s doing lovely things!
q. Tell us a bit about yourself!
Lauren Day: It’s always so hard to know where to start but here we go! I’m a giant homebody living in Des Moines, Iowa. Three years ago my husband, Austin, and I bought a major fixer upper on our favorite street in the city and have been fixing it up room by room. We have a toddler daughter and another baby on the way. Austin is a professional photographer (we met on a photoshoot!) and we both work from home and tag-team parenting. It makes for a really fun and sometimes not-so-productive day but I am really thankful for it. I’ve always been captivated by beautiful spaces and images so between our home renovations, my work and my husband’s work, there’s never a shortage of inspiring ideas and projects.
q. What do you do for work & how did you get to where you are now?
LD: I do a lot of things. Working as a contractor/freelancer means the lines and roles of my job get shaped more-so by the client and less by me—at least for now. Interior design content is the umbrella that most of my work falls under. I write articles about designers and homeowners for websites and magazines, I manage interior designers’ social media accounts and create strategies for them to reach more potential clients/followers, I produce and style photo sets for home decor magazines, I work on projects for my own interior design clients and I have an online course (How to Home) where I teach homeowners the design process and digital tools that make home renovations easier to concept and accomplish. Whew! That’s a lot.
It’s been a winding road to get here but basically I wanted to be an interior designer when I was in school but my health limited my capacity to be in an intensive program/career. So my early career was working as an interior design assistant, then a real estate marketer and then as an editorial assistant for a magazine. The magazine promoted and promoted me so eventually I was running all the photo shoots, building sets, assigning and writing articles and editing each issue before they went to press. It was intensive and I worked 9 to 16 hours each day depending on the workload. Looking back I can’t believe I was okay with such a stressful job for so many years but I also look back incredibly thankful for how it taught me to manage lots of things all at once and to hone my design, writing and photo styling skills all at once.
About a year into my editing job, I saw an opportunity to write for Design*Sponge, my favorite website for interiors that I obsessively followed. I knew I would regret it if I didn’t apply so in the middle of the night between way too many work obligations, I submitted my samples and applied for the freelance writing position. It blew my mind but I was hired and added scouting interiors, interviewing homeowners and writing articles for Design*Sponge as part of my day. It was my first freelance position and while I was moonlighting it with my very full-time job, it made me start realizing that my life could have more flexibility and freedom.
After juggling my magazine career with my freelance life and a lot of bad health flares along the way, I took the big leap in 2015 and became fully freelance. I designed for e-design startups companies, took on photo styling clients with my then-boyfriend-now-husband, Austin, wrote articles for Design*Sponge and prayed really hard that it would all work out when I wasn’t sure how I’d make rent. And now 5 years later, I have a really unique skillset, especially for interior designers that need to market themselves, websites that need interior content, and my own clients and students. And I do 95% of it from home where I can manage my health, my family life and my own home design projects.
Q. What inspires you to create?
LD: I love this Edith Schaeffer quote that sums it up pretty well for me, “It is true that all men are created in the image of God, but Christians are supposed to be conscious of that fact, and being conscious of it should recognize the importance of living artistically, aesthetically, and creatively, as creative creatures of the Creator. If we have been created in the image of an Artist, then we should look for expressions of artistry, and be sensitive to beauty, responsive to what has been created for us.”
q. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned as an entrepreneur?
LD: That systems are my friend. I’m not the most organized person and it has been hard for me to take the time to create templates, systems and workflows that make future work simpler. My plate was way too full for such a long time that I felt I’d never get to a place where I could stop and restructure how I work but every time I do—even if it delays other projects—I’m so thankful for it later on. And I have to remember to be kind to myself and not let my unfinished to-do list at the end of each day create a narrative of shame or disappointment. I have to fight against giving too much of myself to my work.
q. Favorite bible verse/quote?
LD: I became a Christian as a teenager and was incredibly impacted by 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and have kept it as my life verse since. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” I used to apply it only to brokenness in my family growing up and my chronic health problems but lately, I’ve realized that by limiting it to only “severe” issues, I wasn’t acknowledging how Christ’s grace and strength are sufficient for me even in general inconveniences or busy days.
q. Favorite companies to support and shop from?
LD: Being a small business owner and being married to one, I definitely aim to give my money to companies that are really just people hustling behind the scenes, trying to make their passion into their income. The About pages on each commerce site is as important to me as the reviews of the actual product I’m considering. Products that are toxin-free and ethically produced are important to me and my family as we choose which products to bring into our home—it also keeps me from buying things on a whim (except books—I buy too many e-books that I probably will never get through).
q. What do you do when you are lacking motivation?
LD: Lacking motivation affects me daily. And while I wish it didn’t, I’ve been able to get out of a funk pretty consistently by choosing one thing to do that will only take 5 minutes. It might be the lowest priority on my list that day but the simple act of doing something even when I don’t feel like it and then almost instantly accomplishing it gives me the spark and excitement I need to move on toward the scarier items of the day. If I still don’t feel motivated and choose to rest instead, I at least know that I tried and finished something, no matter how small or insignificant and that allows me to rest easier.
q. If you had to move to another country for the rest of your life, which one would you pick and why?
LD: I love the design style of New Zealand coast and would gladly move there. Yes, please!
q. Who are some people that you admire in your industry?
LD: I worked with Anastasia Casey of The Identité Collective and learned so much from her organizational skills, management style and client process. She serves her followers so well by creating tons of helpful content daily. Working for Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge also made me love her even more than I did as just a fan girl—she became bold about racial injustice and disparity within the interior design world years ago and used her platform to champion designers and makers of color. Every single career, as unimportant as it can seem, can make an impact on equity and equality.
q. What's next for you? Any upcoming projects or opportunities you're especially excited about?
LD: I’m finishing up tons of client projects right now getting ready for maternity leave in a few months. I’m also working in the evenings to redesign and rework my course content for How to Home. The new version will be available at the the beginning of September and I’m so excited for the new content, videos and layout of it! I believe all homes should be beautiful—whether or not people can afford designers—and I love getting to empower homeowners to design a cohesive space themselves.
q. What's the best piece of advice that you’ve been given?
LD: I don’t have to wait for someone to invite me to the opportunities I want, I can choose to work hard for them.
q. How can we keep up with all the amazing things you are doing?
LD: I’m mostly on instagram at @thedayshift_ and on my website www.dayshiftblog.com. Would love to connect!
Lauren’s DIY Modern Kitchen BEFORE
Kitchen Photos by Justin Salem Meyer.
Lauren’s DIY Modern Kitchen AFTER
Kitchen Photos by Justin Salem Meyer.
Thanks for reading Lauren’s story. I hope you were as inspired to create and step out in faith as I was! Please share your thoughts and takeaways in the comments.
xoxo,
Paulina
