Day in the Life: Interior Designer Maegan Blau

As a child, Maegan Blau was always painting walls, rearranging her bedroom furniture, and spending time after school at her family’s furniture store in Arizona. He had an eye for design from a young age, but never saw it as a career path.

Blau suffered a C8 spinal cord injury just before enrolling at Arizona State University to major in environmental sciences. But when her post-graduate search for an affordable apartment turned into a nightmare, her career path took a dramatic turn toward interior design.

Frustrated by tour after tour of “accessible” units with nothing but grab bars in the shower and one- or two-year waiting lists at all the complexes with good accessibility, Blau decided to buy a house and renovate it to accommodate her accessibility. needs. He fell in love with the entire process, from design to construction and problem-solving in between.

Inspired by her own experience and motivated to help other wheelchair users, she enrolled in a six-month in-person certification program at the American Institute of Interior Design. She learned the history of design and furniture, design elements, how to explain design features, and how to create custom items.

In 2018, Blau started her interior design business, Blue Copper Design. Blau means blue in German and copper pays homage to Arizona, as it is both the state’s metal and an element he loves to use in his designs.

The company offers three levels of consulting and design (full service, design only, and no-barrier consulting) so clients can decide how much help they need. Every day is different, depending on the project, but here’s what a typical day as an interior designer is like.

6:00 a.m. The first thing I do is feed my dogs: Odin, a 10-year-old Belgian Malinois, and Luna, a 4-year-old corgi. I drink some coffee and do my bathroom routine. And then I get ready for the day and have breakfast with my husband, Chris.

8:00 am I do my morning warm-up, get oriented for the day, and complete any tasks to help my day go smoothly. I catch up on emails, phone calls, or administrative tasks so I can get it out of my head before I start the day. I need that uninterrupted time to recover.

9:00 a.m. I have a virtual meeting with a new client. If the client is local, we will sometimes meet at their office or in a coworking space. During the initial consultation we discuss the scope of work, whether it be new construction, renovations or simply furniture selection. For our full-service clients, we take care of everything and work closely with architects, home builders and contractors with that service. With three different services, I can work on between 10 and 15 projects at a time, with three to five being full-service design projects.

10am After meeting with a client and discussing their vision, I begin to create a plan. This includes designing a floor plan, solidifying measurements, arranging furniture, window treatments, lighting, and selecting material finishes. I send the plan to the client for approval and editing.

12:00 p.m. Since I have a home office, I make sure to take the time to separate my personal and professional matters. [lives]. I take an hour to freshen up, eat lunch, take my dogs (again), and watch something on Bravo. I am a great real housewives fan.

13:00 It’s time to visit the site! My daily vehicle is a Kia EV6: I’ve had it for two years and I love it. It’s electric, which means I no longer have to pump gas, which is a big plus in terms of accessibility!

For a project in Arizona, we typically visit the site about five times during the process for all major projects. I will meet with the contractor before we start, once the frame is finished, to check the electrical features and do a final walk-through when we add furniture and take pictures. A new construction from the ground up is usually much simpler than a renovation. We have a better schedule with new construction, but with renovations, we showed up a little more unexpectedly.

Because our design company emphasizes accessibility, I usually have no problems maneuvering. [around in] the spaces. But I always carry a portable ramp with me just in case, and if a project is truly inaccessible or has multiple floors, I have someone on site collect photos, videos, and measurements of the spaces I can’t reach.

3:00 p.m. I take a customer’s call about our barrier-free option. This is a one-time 90-minute consultation where we review your project, suggest custom accessibility solutions, and instill confidence in how to best move forward. Most of this work is done virtually with clients in other states. I prioritize this service and 70% of my projects focus on accessibility. We are as independent as our spaces allow, which is why I love improving the quality of life for disabled people through design.

4:00 p.m. I end the day catching up on emails, spending time on social media, and taking care of business tasks like balancing accounts.

6:00 p.m. After work I feed my dogs, have dinner, and then relax on the couch and watch one of my shows. When Chris gets home from work, we take a dip in our hot tub and recap the day.

9 p.m. I go to bed early. I love sleeping and I’m not ashamed of being asleep at 9 pm. I shower, go to bed, and read a few chapters on my Kindle before falling asleep.