Only Girl On The Jobsite

Everyone talks about the contractor relationship. Nobody talks about the people underneath — the tile setter, the painter, the faux finisher, the trim carpenter doing the work with their hands every single day. In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on what's been happening on a current project to show you exactly what trade relationships make possible — and what they cost you when you don'...

Most designers skip the conversation that determines whether a client actually trusts them through the hard parts of construction. And by the time they realize it, they're already mid-project trying to unwind frustration that could have been avoided entirely.   In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly what to cover before a single wall comes down — timelines, contingency, allowances, chang...

Most of us measure capacity by how many projects we're running. I did it too, and it's the wrong metric entirely. In this episode, I'm breaking down the two variables that actually determine how a project feels to manage: who's running the operational machine, and how compressed the timeline is. I walk through my own current roster, including the mid-sized renovation that honestly wrecked me these...

I've admired Amy Vermillion for a long time, so this conversation felt like sitting down with someone who truly understands what it takes to build a lasting career in this industry. We both started our businesses in 2000, worked our way up through firms, and learned the hard way, through experience, mistakes, and a lot of time on job sites. And what became very clear in this conversation is this:...

If you're an interior designer managing construction projects, you already know the feeling. You walk into a room, a jobsite, a contractor meeting, an industry event, and something in the air quietly suggests you don't fully belong there. That the builders and the architects and the trades have a kind of authority you haven't quite earned yet. And without even realizing it, you get a little smalle...

There are three documents every interior designer managing construction projects needs to understand. And most don't, not fully.   Not because they're complicated. Because nobody ever explained the difference between them and why each one matters so much.   In this episode, I'm walking through the scope of work, the change order, and the addendum to scope of work; what each one does, when to use i...

You're a few weeks into a project. Things started well. And then the contractor goes quiet.   The texts take days to get a response. The updates get shorter. You show up for a site visit, and no one told you the schedule changed. And you start filling in that silence with stories; he's probably just busy, maybe I'm being too demanding, maybe I should wait a little longer before following up.   Her...

I love talking to people who came up through this industry the hard way and then figured out something that makes all of our lives better.   Fiona Sanipelli is one of those people. She studied architecture, spent nearly 20 years in hospitality design, worked her way through some of the most celebrated firms in New York, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, got so frustrated by the chaos of...

Most hard construction projects don't announce themselves as disasters. They arrive as a feeling. A low hum. A sense that something's slightly off and you can't quite name it yet. And most of us push through it, manage around it, or work harder to compensate for it. Because that's what we do. But in this episode, I want to talk about what that feeling is actually telling you, and what becomes poss...

When you finish a construction project feeling like you worked for free, the instinct is to assume the number was wrong. Sometimes it is. But more often, the number was fine. What broke down was everything around it. In this episode, I'm talking about the two specific places pricing falls apart on construction projects, and neither one is your math. The first is how you present your fee. The secon...

I've never told this story in full before. The financial pressure when my husband's career collapsed. My son's medical crisis. My own Graves' disease diagnosis right when my business was finally gaining real momentum. The debt that stayed through all of it — not because I wasn't working hard enough, but because the structure was wrong. This episode is about what it actually took to get to the othe...

  Interior design contracts are often misunderstood, not just by clients, but by attorneys who don't understand how this industry actually works. In this episode, I'm joined by Wendy Estela, Founder of Estela Law and Designed Counsel™, a contract template and subscription service created exclusively for interior designers. With 25 years of experience in business law and a background in constructio...

So you built your fee. You did the work. You went through every phase. You estimated your hours. You accounted for your role. And you landed on a number that actually reflects what this project will require. And then you presented it. And then the client either said, "That's more than we expected," or "Let us think about it and get back to you." And then they went quiet. If this has happened to yo...

Have you ever been standing on a job site, or sitting on a call, or answering a text at 9 p.m., and realized mid-sentence that you are clearly running this project? Not consulting on it. Not advising from the edges. But running it. Coordinating it. Holding it together. And nobody ever asked you to take on that role. And you definitely didn't price your fee accordingly. If that moment sounds famili...

Today is March 31st, the last day of the first quarter. And I want to do something a little different. I want to walk you through a quick audit. Maybe five minutes. Back of the napkin. No fancy spreadsheet. You can use a Post-it if you want. This will tell you more about your business than your QuickBooks has all year. Because we're going to look at the gap between what you earned this quarter and...

Today's episode feels like you're sitting in on a conversation you want to be a part of. Today, I'm joined by Rebecca Plum and Shaun Crha, the voices behind the Hot Young Designers Club, a global community of designers who are redefining what it means to show up in this industry. They're the founders of Studio Plum and Rinsted Interiors, and together, they've built a platform rooted in friendship,...

I billed hourly for my entire career. It felt honest, transparent, fair. But one morning, I had a realization that changed everything: the better I got at my work, the less I was making. My earlier clients paid me to build relationships, vet contractors, develop expertise. Now my current clients were benefiting from all of that, for 15 minutes on an invoice. That was the day I decided to stop char...

There are projects that stretch you creatively. There are projects that grow your business. And then there are projects that quietly cost you more than you realize while you're in them. This is about one of those. For nearly ten years, I worked with a client who, if I'm being honest, I knew was difficult from the very beginning. Not unreasonable in a glaring way. Not someone who screamed or threw...

Today, we're talking about something that happens on  every  renovation project I manage: Contractor bids that don't match. Same project. Same drawings. Same walkthrough. And yet — the numbers come back wildly different. Sometimes it's ten thousand dollars. Sometimes it's fifty thousand. And if you've ever stood in front of a client trying to explain why one contractor is double the other… yeah. Y...

Today, I am joined by my friend, John McClain. He and I met at High Point last October and immediately connected.   John McClain is a multi-faceted leader in the interior design industry and proudly serves in his field as an interior designer, product designer, author, speaker, business coach, and podcast host. As the CEO and Creative Director of his internationally acclaimed award-winning interio...

I want to ask you something today: Have you ever been on a project and had a contractor basically tell you, whether that's directly or indirectly, that procurement is his territory, his to-do? That the ordering, the tracking, the managing of all materials and finishes, and fixtures that you spend months specifying is somehow not a part of your job or your role? Or have you ever caught yourself thi...

Today's episode isn't about what to do when  a project is already spiraling. It's about what to do  before it ever has the chance .   Because in my 30+ years in the industry, there's one pattern I see on every stressful project: The chaos wasn't born in week 5. It snuck in quietly in week zero, when structure was loose, nobody owned the conversation, and "roles" were just… implied.   So today? We'...

This week's episode starts with a snowstorm… but it's not  really about the weather.   It's about what happens when construction gets disrupted, and how the silent spaces right after hold more power than most designers realize.   Because when a project goes off track, the real work isn't about drywall or lost days. It's about  who communicates what, when they communicate it, and whether that momen...

Today's a special treat. I'm sitting down with Jessica Nelson & Stephanie Lindsey, co-founders of  AI for Interiors   and  principals of  Etch Design Group , a nationally recognized design firm based in Austin, TX.   When I first met them at a design retreat last year, I assumed we'd just be swapping project stories, not talking AI strategy. Then I realize these two are leading the conversation on...

Last week, I dove into how the real magic on the job happens only after you take action (not before). This week, I want to show you what that looks like over time. Because honestly, what I wish someone had handed me at the start of my career wasn't just encouragement. It was context. I needed to hear how different environments teach you radically different lessons about construction, managing proj...