We’re back! Welcome to the first episode of the second season of Sustaining Craft the Podcast, a series that features those in a creative field. Listen below to learn more or keep scrolling to read about Kathryn LeMaster and how she builds narratives through interior design.

When it was time to select a college major, Kathryn LeMaster didn’t know interior design was anything more than a fun pastime. “I was looking through the list of degree programs, and interior design was on there,” LeMaster shared. “And this was back before the day and age of Pinterest and HGTV being such a big deal. There was not an awareness for the field that there is today. That struck my interest, and I thought, huh, I guess I thought that was a hobby. I didn’t really understand that was a real job. How interesting.”

She describes the field as more than pulling together color swatches and fixtures, but less than creating entire new structures, while combining elements of both. She started with a few other beginner courses to see what it was like. “It was just about exactly what I was hoping that it would be of kind of that sweet spot inbetween decorator and the technical aspect of an architect of getting to be involved in the construction process and technical drawings and all of that, but also the cherry on top, the layers of all the colors and soft furnishings and everything really combined,” LeMaster shared.

And that interest had started years ago, with a family project. LeMaster’s father, gifted in construction, decided to build their family home from the ground up. The family lived in a mobile home while they first built a barn to house all of the building materials, and then started on the house a few years later. “I kind of felt like I grew up on a construction site,” LeMaster said.” I loved so much of that process of building our house and being able to be so involved in that process. Hanging doors, helping my mom pick out wallpaper and paint colors.”

After graduating with her degree and working for a year and a half at a local firm as an intern and then a junior designer, LeMaster decided to take a break. She joined her mother again, helping her flip a house as LeMaster considered what her next step might be.

She didn’t intend to start a company.

Then an old family friend approached her with a kitchen remodel. “I just thought, ‘What, no, not me. Do you realize how green and new and young I am? No, you don’t want me,’” LeMaster shared. “She talked me into it. ‘Yes, I do, no, I think you can really do it.’ I made her a really good deal, very low rate, because I still was thinking, ‘This is a horrible mistake.’ I’ve never done a project on my own. I’ve always had senior designers or someone over me and just didn’t have a lot of faith in myself, which is really sad, looking back. I wish I had been more confident and not believed so many fears and was really, really grateful that she had approached me about that and believed in me.”

A local magazine covered the project a year later, and her business started to grow. “I think once you do one project on your own, it gives you more confidence,” LeMaster shared. “You go, ‘Oh look, I can do this.’ And you surprise yourself with what you’re capable of. And I think a lot of times we don’t know the knowledge that we have.”

With her initial success, she decided to take smaller steps as she progressed. She began with $1,000 cash in an envelope as her business account.

Then she built a website.

Then she got some business insurance. “There never was a day I could look back and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to start a business,’” LeMaster shared. “It didn’t happen like that. It was just this one thing leads to another and I guess it’s time to do this and just little stepping stones which was way less overwhelming for me. So it ended up working out really beautifully, looking back. I just couldn’t really see where it was going at the time, but was so grateful.”

Nearly six years later, she assists with residential spaces, along with design for four to five productions a year, all while crafting space around function then story. “I always asked too, in the beginning, if there is anything of sentimental value,” LeMaster said. “A lot of times, it is family heirlooms or things that people have picked up on their travels or their children made or something that’s special … I don’t think it’s ever wise to just have everything store bought. Even if you could … just go and buy everything brand-new, I just think that your home will end up feeling like a showroom, like you walked into a furniture store. It might be lovely, but it’s like the heart of the home that you sense–it’s the unseen things. You create that by really making sure you’re honoring the client, honoring that person who’s going to live there in what you’re putting together. A lot of times that is existing pieces or original artwork or something really special and sentimental that might even serve as inspiration for the color scheme.”

LeMaster has found that there’s an intimacy that comes from opening a home to a stranger. “It’s very in depth and it’s very personal,” LeMaster said. “And that’s why I feel so honored when people choose to work with me because they’re letting me into their lives and homes and I am usually in the closets digging under shoes to get measurements along the baseboard to make sure we’re accounting for every square inch and so for them to trust me and welcome me in that way and let me be a part of that personal process of crafting their home. It’s so rewarding. I just–I love it so much.”

LeMaster was able to use some of that creativity when she and her husband, Will, were expecting their first child in 2017. She saved up enough for a three-month maternity leave.

Then Will got sick, being admitted to the ICU as LeMaster’s due date approached. He was first in an induced coma for two weeks, then his doctors woke him for another treatment attempt on life support, the week their son was born. “So we were at least grateful at that point,” LeMaster shared. “You’re looking for silver linings once you navigate through the shock and anger and disappointment and irony of just, this was supposed to be the happiest time of our lives and being together for our first child being born. Then here you are, potentially about to lose your husband, because of that complication it had turned into respiratory failure, ARDS Syndrome. That has really high mortality rates and they were trying to dance around, telling us we needed to prepare ourselves. They weren’t sure how it was going to go, and they weren’t sure if he was going to make it. …  Really terrifying but so many beautiful lessons came out of that. Thank God, he made a full recovery.”

It proved to be the best possible time for the worst possible situation. “That was also just such a beautiful thing looking back going, as awful as it was, to happen during that time,” LeMaster shared. “Not that any time is a good time–but I had already planned to be off for a paid leave to be with the baby and I was able to actually focus on that. … I was so grateful that it fell during that time so that I didn’t have I wasn’t having to backtrack and put clients on hold and all that. I’d already had things at a really good pause for that break and everyone was fully prepared that I was about to be gone for three months. And so in that sense, the timing was kind of perfect, if that makes sense.”

And then she had to dive back into her business, essentially starting over after those two huge life changes. LeMaster was able to settle back into a regular routine, and she’s proud of how far she’s come over the past six years. “I think I got in my own way a lot,” LeMaster shared. “And probably could have grown faster if I had been able to be a better cheerleader for myself even in going, ‘No, this is what I’ve trained for and I’m fully capable of doing this and if I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.’ I would always just plow through and figure it out, but I think I did just kind of let some of that stop me in my tracks or move more slowly in the beginning. …. It’s been so much fun and so rewarding and so wonderful to get to use your gifts and things that you’ve trained for, to get to help and serve others and support your family through that. Like it just feels like such a win-win thing. I mean, there’s so much hard work and grunt work that goes into it behind the scenes that I feel like … it’s nothing like the HGTV shows. I will say that it’s never as fast nor do we wear heels for as long. The one time I did try to do an install in heels only because we were photographing behind the scenes and taking pictures and video footage and I couldn’t feel my toes for the next few days because that’s just not how. So I’m usually, you know, in bare feet and climbing on things and taping up boxes and cleaning up my ridiculously cluttered office when I’ve been out of it enough because a lot of the work happens out in the field at the clients’ homes.”

And she’s grateful for the support of others along the way. “I’ve just been really excited about where it’s what it’s grown into and so, so grateful for all my clients who have trusted me,” LeMaster said. “It’s funny it took a while for me to believe in myself when I had people actually writing me checks for my ideas and for my creative work, thinking, ‘Are you sure? … I mean, I understand if you have questions because I do!’ Just watching it turn into a thriving business–everyone who’s believed in me has helped me believe in myself more so that has been humbling too. Oh my goodness, to get such positive feedback from the community and clients and to actually get to see your work finished, photographed, on your website, in an article to add validity. … Here it was happening and I think I was the last to know.”

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Find LeMaster’s work at her website, on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. As always, there is a LOT more in the podcast episode, along with some really great advice from LeMaster.