ELIN WALTERS: MAKING INSIDE SPACES 'EXACTLY'

07/28/20 • 77 min

Flow. Details. Impact. These are the hallmark words in Elin Walters' world. She is the owner and curator at Exactly Designs, an interior design firm she founded a little more than four years ago.
As Elin says on her website, "I was once asked, “how do you feel when you walk into a room? What do you notice?”I replied, “I just know visually and emotionally if it is exactly right, if the room has realized its full potential. I’m always finding ways in my mind to make a room better.”

The lane Elin has chosen is the midcentury modern and modern aesthetic. She loves to incorporate color and whimsy in spaces as well as move walls. When she approaches a design project she's looking for that hinge, a particular element on which to build a space her clients will love. As she explains in our conversation that one piece--a piece of furniture, a paint color on a wall, a section of flooring, a window that offers a certain light--can be the determining factor for everything that is built around it. And, despite what you might think you might know about what it is that interior designers do, Elin points out several instances where her work involves way more than picking out nice pillows or dropping a $20,000 rug on a floor and calling it good.

"Design is design, not decorating," she says. The projects she gets the most excited about are the ones where spaces are completely reimagined. She often works hand in hand with her clients' contractors to ensure design is incorporated into the renovation process. If it's not, well, I'll let Elin explain that part.
We dive into her approach as well as how her upbringing with artistic parents in Williamsburg, VA and Goshen, IN subconsciously influenced her eventual path to doing design for a living.

Elin reveals some challenges that have impacted her business and her personal life as well in this far ranging conversation that I hope if you are a solo entrepreneur might help you.

I applaud Elin for being willing to be my guest as she is also my wife. It took me a couple months to convince her to come onto the Interesting Humans podcast and she agreed if I promised to ask more about interior design and her work than about our lives together. And, truth be told, she and I have very similar conversations almost every day about both professional and personal topics so what you're going to hear is a lot like the two of us sitting down over coffee. I hope that warm vibe comes through.
I'm lucky to be married to such an articulate and engaging person as Elin. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Links:
Exactly Designs website: https://www.exactlydesigns.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exactlydesigns/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/exactlydesigns/
Atomic Ranch feature, May 2020: https://exactlydesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AR-Argyle-Exterior-3.pdf
Seen Magazine, Interior Design accounts to follow on Instagram: https://seenthemagazine.com/instagram-accounts-for-home-design-and-decor-inspo/
Midcenturyhome.com: https://www.midcenturyhome.com/interior-designer-elin-walters-midcentury-home-renovation/
Elin's parents and their work in Goshen, Indiana:

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

Elin reveals some challenges that have impacted her business and her personal life as well in this far ranging conversation that I hope if you are a solo entrepreneur might help you.

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

Previous Episode

EMILY MCGUIRE: FLOURISH & GRIT AND EMAIL MARKETING

I call Emily McGuire a Relational Marketer. Not only is she a guru of email marketing but she also is growing her one-person business to include copy writing and even business coaching. Emily and her company, Flourish and Grit, is the perfect person to talk about the coronavirus havoc on business, particularly small businesses.

It takes grit to be a solopreneur as Emily and so many people are finding, people who have pivoted their careers away from corporate jobs to working for themselves. Even amidst the pandemic, with layoffs across industries and companies, scores of people are looking to hang a shingle and rely upon their own abilities and passions to earn a living.
But wait, how do you do that?

Emily started Flourish and Grit just under three years ago primarily focused on helping clients take advantage of their databases through reaching out with email marketing. Emily takes the pulse of her clients current database and marketing efforts and helps refine based on the client’s goals.

Yet Emily is much more than that. She has become wise as a business person in understanding the nuances of creating long term clients through careful vetting, establishing boundaries and being authentic. She is who she is and she advocates for her clients to do the same.

So who is she? I met Emily in January at a gathering of business people and solopreneurs who were looking to find their marketing voices through understanding who they are. The event was co-hosted by Janelle Reichman, who was my guest on Interesting Humans Episode Two, whom you’ll recall owns her own website design firm.

Emily learned through constant observation and practice what to do and what not to do as a solopreneur. In the process of building her business she experienced the reverb of some personal trauma from her younger years. We touch on it some in our conversation and Emily is pretty transparent about being excommunicated and shunned by her family and how the experience has served her as a solopreneur and a person today.

Our conversation is both deep into the trials and tribulations of owning your own business and broad about the person behind it. I hope you will enjoy meeting Emily McGuire.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcguireemily/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flourishandgrit/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flourishandgrit/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/flourishandgrit

Website:

https://www.flourishgrit.com/

Freebie:

Action Guide: Boost Your Email Open Rates ASAP

flourishgrit.com/open

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

Next Episode

KEITH KELLY: Running, Riding and Radiohead

“I was born with a big engine, a big heart and a really bad chassis," Keith Kelly, today's guest tells me in his familiar Irish.

Keith was the NCAA National Cross Country Champion for Providence College in 2000. He has won dozens of races at the national and international level as he was the Irish National Cross Country Champion in 2009, which would have been a comeback year for Keith after years of battling injury and even depression. That championship could have led to competing for a spot on the Irish Olympic Team at the London Olympics but Keith's 14th or 15th stress fracture derailed his world class running career.
Keith Kelly is one of my dearest and oldest friends. Regardless of his standing as an ALMOST World Class Runner and Olympian, I see him as a WORLD CLASS PERSON.
In today's episode, we talk about his work with New Balance Running Shoe Company, his upbringing in a small town in Ireland with deaf parents and his discovery and love for running, along with some of the successes he had as a runner.

When his running career ended, still needing something to do with his big aerobic engine, Keith turned to cycling and was soon competing--and beating--pro-level cyclists. Imagine being an experienced pro cyclist and this gangly, skinny, six-foot-three dude with toothpick legs sprints past. Of course, nothing is easy for Keith and he experienced setbacks cycling too. In fact, in one of his first races, he got caught in a crash and broke a collar bone and some ribs. But that didn't deter him.
Keith is a study in adaptability and humility. He loves and appreciates his parents who provided he and his brother with opportunities to pursue their passions even though, as he says, "we didn't have a pot to piss in."

Along with his love for training harder than anyone else and racing, the other enduring passion for Keith is music. We talk about his experience growing up with deaf parents and how he thought he was going to be a DJ spinning music at on BBC Radio 1.
I met Keith 12 years ago while at Reebok and knew he was a unique and good person. This conversation dives into the intricacies of training at a high level, challenges and even depression, and redemption in the hands of new found love.
I hope you enjoy meeting my friend Keith Kelly.
Links:
Keith Kelly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelrock/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keith.kelly.33
On Blogspot: http://kelrock.blogspot.com/
On Radiohead, his favorite band: http://kelrock.blogspot.com/2012/04/radiohead-dreams.html
Radiohead documentary: Meeting People Is Easy
Reebok's Run Easy Campaign, 2007