She Designed a Life She Loves

A quote that has inspired me for many years. Designing a life that I love through Mindset & Energetics, Interior Design, Travel and my passion for Business & Social Media. When you are living your life in true alignment with what lights your soul on fire, you can feel truly happy.

I spent many years of my life with this niggling feeling deep in my belly that I was meant to be doing something else. I was a trained child care teacher for almost 13 years and loved teaching children. And I can’t explain what this feeling was. Something just wasn’t right. I even went to the doctors a few times to try to explain it - so he could fix it!

The Decision that Changed my Life

It wasn’t until I turned 40 years old that I suddenly felt lit up by something. I went into partnership with my girlfriend in a Gift & Homewares store in our local area. My boys were still young, 4, 8 and 11 years old and was in the thick of motherhood. We tried for 5 years for our first son, and being a mum was EVERYTHING to me. I loved being at home with them and watching them grow up. But after 11 years I needed more. I needed to feel like I was doing something just for ME. So when we had this brilliant idea of opening a store I jumped at it!

This is where I realised my passion for Interiors. I had always loved moving furniture around in my room, changing colours and looking at houses with my parents (we moved alot). But it wasn’t until I started the visual merchandising in the store that I knew this was what I wanted to do. So at the ripe young age of 40, with 3 young boys at home, a husband who worked 6 long days a week and a store to run I studied interior design and started another business styling homes for sale.

With a customer who believed in me and hiring me to style her home for sale, my career as a designer and stylist began. It built up slowly, hiring pieces from a Furniture Hire Company and gradually building up my own ‘kit’ of artworks, lamps, cushions and accessories. I soon got work from a property developer and some local agents and my business took off. After a year and with my confidence growing I started working on residential styling and design work, then a some commercial properties.

Transitioning into Coastal Styling

After five years and almost 70 styled homes on my book, I decided to let my property styling business go and transitioned into only working with clients designing in my signature coastal style. This was a gamechanger for me - Niching into a specific area of the industry allowed me to become an authority and known as a coastal interior stylist.

This led me into the Holiday Home industry. I had a personal dream of owning a holiday home so I dove into courses and research to learn all about how to set up a successful holiday home. I rebranded my business from Haven Interiors to Studio Haven and started only working with holiday home owners.

In a future blog I will be sharing all about how I made the decision to Niche into a Coastal Interior Stylist and how it made a huge impact on my career!

And, I will be sharing with you all about my online courses I have created around these businesses, the ins and the outs and the wins and challenges.

The World of Social Media

While I was creating beautiful spaces for my clients I started to really love building my social media community. I was finding that I was making ‘real’ connections with people online. Women who would comment on a post, ask a styling question and send me messages in my dm’s. I soon realised that Instagram and Facebook was a place that I could utilise to build connections with people who loved what I did and who would buy from me if I was to share an offer that solved their problems. This is why I have never been too concerned with my Instagram follower ‘number’. My goal has always been to connect NOT to go viral - although of course that would be great!

This was when I dove into hosting live workshops for free as well as paid. Styling tutorials and styling series. I created and launched an online course teaching homeowners how to Create a Coastal Haven which was a huge hit and earnt me some great money. All in my signature style and teaching homeowners, and holiday homeowners how they could achieve that look in their own home.

Investing in Yourself

I invested in ALOT of online courses during this time. On all subjects like Marketing, Instagram Growth, Content Creation, Blogging, Facebook Adds, Mindset, Manifestation, and the list goes on. I invested in a private mentor and coach who showed me how to slow down, stop the hustle and listen to my body. I know I will always continue to invest in my learning, I love it and there is so much more I want to learn about. But this has allowed me to have knowledge in so many areas of business and marketing which I am ready to share with others.

So with that all said, I will be sharing through this blog my tips, insights and learnings on a few different topics. Mindset & Energetics, Social Media Marketing, Scaling & Expanding your Creative Business, some travel and of course Interior Design Tips and Inspiration. So I hope you will find this useful and come on over and read up on a topic that interests you every now and then. I will be posting once a week and there is a Podcast coming as well - with interviews with women who are killing it in their business and life.

Thanks for being here

Katrina xx