Bend Magazine's The Circling Podcast with Adam Short
Hear from a variety of guests ranging from professional athletes, local business owners, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, nonprofits, industry leaders, and more on Bend Magazine's The Circling Podcast.
Join Adam Short as he has conversations and shares the stories of those in our community who make up the soul of Central Oregon. Those who are helping shape the growth of our region, ensure opportunity for more and maintain what we all love about where we live; the beauty, the adventure, the way of life.
Though most of our content and guests are local, the insight, perspective and value learned of each episode can be applied in your own community, no matter where you call home.
Bend Magazine's The Circling Podcast with Adam Short
Sarah Westhusing/House of Milo and the Art of Interior Spaces.
On episode 58 of Bend Magazine’s The Circling Podcast, I have the pleasure of chatting with Sarah Westhusing, the Founder and Owner of House of Milo, a distinguished interior design studio based here in Bend, Oregon.
Stay tuned as Sarah delves into how her exposure to her father's skilled woodworking and carpentry business at an early age influenced her unique design philosophy. From materials and colors to textures and scents, Sarah was immersed in the many facets of the design process, fostering an appreciation for how well-designed spaces can create meaningful connections between people.
Before founding House of Milo, Sarah worked as a global product line manager at Nike, specializing in product creation, branding, and merchandising. In 2016, she and her family relocated to Bend to be closer to family and find a better work-life balance. After a three-year stint at Hydro Flask, Sarah launched House of Milo Interior Design Studio in 2019, named in honor of her daughter.
Drawing from her experience at top brands like Nike, Sarah combines her keen observational skills with a critical eye for creating functional and beautiful spaces. Her goal is to design homes where vacations are rarely necessary, as the spaces themselves are a true reflection of the people living in them.Thank you for joining us on the podcast, Sarah. I'm a big fan of you, your work, and your family. Until next time, my friend.
The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon.
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I have to draw a line with myself because I start to love people so much and become part of their family. I mean, what I do is a very intimate job. I'm in their house day to day. I see their fights, I watch them move throughout their space, I see how they parent. You learn a ton about people and I think the big part of this job is picking up the pieces of information that they're not telling you, of information that they're not telling you. People can tell you how they want their space to look, or pull a few images off Pinterest, but it's the things you notice when you watch them cooking in the kitchen or when they go to relax. Where do they go in their house, like what calms them? Is the bathtub their place of refuge? Where do they sit and play music with their family?
Speaker 2:And those are the things they never tell me. I just have to watch and pick up on.
Speaker 3:On episode 58 of BIN Magazine's the Circling Podcast, I have the pleasure of chatting with Sarah Westhusing, the founder and owner of House of Milo, a distinct interior design studio based here in Bend, oregon. Stay tuned as Sarah delves into how her exposure to her father's skilled woodworking and carpentry business at an early age influenced her unique design philosophy. From materials and colors to textures and scents, sarah was immersed in the many facets of the design process, fostering an appreciation for how well-designed spaces can create meaningful connections between people. Before founding House of Milo, sarah worked as a global product line manager at Nike, specializing in product creation, branding and merchandising specializing in product creation, branding and merchandising. In 2016, she and her family relocated to Bend to be closer to family and work on finding life balance. After a three-year stint at Hydro Flask, sarah launched House of Milo Interior Design Studio in 2019, named in honor of her daughter. Drawing from her experience at top brands like Nike, sarah combines her keen observational skills with a critical eye for creating functional and beautiful spaces. Her goal is to design homes where vacations are rarely necessary, as the spaces themselves are a true reflection of the people living in them.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Sarah, I'm a big fan of you, your work and your family. Until next time, my friend. The Circling Podcast can be found on Patreon. Visit our page and learn how a percentage of your financial support will support local nonprofits and the continued growth of local community podcasting. Become a member and learn about this unique opportunity at patreoncom forward slash the circling podcast. Lastly, remember to stay tuned after the show credits and hear from Sarah as she contributes to our blank canvas community art project that explores the magic found in art embedded with meaning.
Speaker 1:The woman that wrote the article was my college roommate.
Speaker 3:No way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I feel like it almost makes. I mean she's known me since I was 17.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that comes out in the flow.
Speaker 1:I kind of feel like it does too.
Speaker 3:It was really, it was well written oh, I did bring you something oh, I love it when, so I that's the other thing I had oh nice dude, is this a candle? Yeah when did you start making these or?
Speaker 1:like a few years ago I was at this trade show and this really cool guy from Montana was selling these candles and I kept smelling them burning in the space and I went up to the front and I was like who is making these candles? I love this scent and I've always been a real scent gal yeah, so isn't, isn't that funny oh, like how it's so deep to me.
Speaker 3:I'm right there with you. There's certain things that, like I will like, certain aromas. It's almost like a time machine.
Speaker 1:I know it's bizarro. Well, it's because it's the only sense that hits the right side of your brain. You know this. No, it's your limbic brain and that's your emotional side of your brain, so you can remember, like the scent of your gym.
Speaker 3:Totally. From like third grade so you can remember, like the scent of your gym Totally From like third grade, absolutely, or like one that always gets me is pencil shavings Like remember the old pencil like that yeah, yeah, yeah, and you empty that thing out and that lead and wood Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'll transport me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:It's deep. So I don't know, and I think it's kind of another level of design, being able to have something. You see, the way your home smells, the sounds that you have going on, or the music.
Speaker 3:The senses. I think it's all of the senses I agree, thank you, yeah, I'm excited my wife's going to like's like well, not everyone loves earthy sense.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of she does, yeah yeah, this is gonna be rad.
Speaker 3:I might not take it home, though, because I like keeping stuff in the studio. It's like little keepsakes and memories, you know yeah I'm gonna set that right there okay um, oh, where to start? I thought like initially we could talk about your daughter's front side errors in the half pipe at Mount Hood last week.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, believe me, she's starting to scare me. Really starting to scare me In all honesty.
Speaker 3:Like you know, I've met you a couple of times. I know PJ a little bit not incredibly well, although every time I get to spend more time with him I want. It makes me want to spend more time with him. But, as a lot of people nowadays, you feel like you get a sense of knowing people through social media and Instagram, as from one dad who enjoys doing fun stuff and going on adventures with their kid to another Like. Can we talk about the PJ and Milo adventure show for a minute?
Speaker 1:Yes, I know it's the sweetest.
Speaker 3:It's. It's amazing Every time. I've just like high five all the time for like the parenting style. Man, your guys' daughter is awesome and clearly like House of milo. That, like our conversation, is going to be the story around the house of milo. Your daughter's name is milo, so like we'll get into that. But, um, I just wanted to comment on how impressed I've been with how quickly she's gotten good at shredding man I know it's pretty and I don't think it's just because it's supernatural to her.
Speaker 1:It's PJ puts in so much time yeah they're, you know, up at hood three days last week doing the half pipe over and over, and so it's cool.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's not just like um the snowboarding, though, but it's like you know, it's the moto and the drums and, just like she's just a cool kid man, it's fun. I have a daughter who's a little older than Milo she's 15 and she likes to snowboard and skate and, like I, watch those guys and it brings back memories, man.
Speaker 1:It's so sweet. We're at this funny point where Milo's starting to want to hang out with friends and invite friends along and I think PJ's feeling this little bit of loss, Like she's been his best buddy forever and now he's like okay, I got to find another friend to come.
Speaker 3:I'm right. Tell him to give me a call on those days because I'm right there with him. I lost Lila. She still is my favorite person to snowboard with, like either to basketball, which competes, or friends, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, if you bring it up, he'll start tearing up.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:It's a real soft spot for him.
Speaker 3:You and I have a lot in common. You moved, so you were born in Portland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was born in Portland and you moved up to Alaska in 1982. Yes, correct.
Speaker 3:I was born in North and you moved up to Alaska in 1982. Yes, correct, I was born in North Idaho and I what part? Coeur d'Alene Okay. And I moved to Alaska in 1982.
Speaker 1:Get out To Anchorage Really.
Speaker 3:Yep, I was talking to your dad and I'm like you got to be kidding me. So my dad worked in the pipeline.
Speaker 1:Oh, he did.
Speaker 3:And for similar reasons, work right. Yeah. Like he was. Yeah, we moved to Alaska. We didn't stay there as long as your family did, but yeah, I pulled up. I have a photo on my phone of me and my mom and our dog driving in my old dad's truck up the Alcan in the wind like probably early October November.
Speaker 1:So you did the real deal you drove the Alcan yeah.
Speaker 3:Once I was only I was. I was born in 79. So I was like three, Okay, yeah, and I was born in 80. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but my mom flew, my mom and I flew.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My dad drove the Alcan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, have you ever driven?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't but I'm pretty envious no-transcript travel memoir.
Speaker 3:If you'd like to read Cool Um, you had a tell. Tell me a little bit about your family. I mean, you have three sisters, two sisters, family, two sisters, three girls. I'm the oldest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we moved up to Alaska in 1982 just because there was a lot ofetry company, and started doing huge jobs like hospitals and courthouses and schools all over Alaska. I mean, it was a huge boom and so his business took off quickly and, yeah, we ended up staying a lot longer than I think they ever thought.
Speaker 3:Yeah you, you graduated high school up there.
Speaker 1:I did. Yeah, that's cool, I did.
Speaker 3:Were you what were like? What was life like for you growing up in, in Anchorage and and?
Speaker 2:you were in Girdwood. We were in Girdwood the first eight years which which you know.
Speaker 1:My summers were spent hiking Alyeska with my mom and picking blueberries. Have you ever read Blueberries for Sal?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:There's a picture in the front of that book where she's canning blueberries with her mom. I kind of felt like my childhood. My mom was, you know, making this special lecithin butter to lower cholesterol and canning her own blueberries and making her own bread every day.
Speaker 3:I don't know speaking of smells, I just you describe I I feel like I have a good sense of what your house smelled like like on a saturday morning, dude real, healthy and cottagey probably cozy man it was, I feel like my mom was before her time.
Speaker 3:Clearly, like each of our individual stories start with our parents and I've always been impressed with my folks like just up and moving and taking that adventure. I think about that as a parent was it was just people were pretty hard. Like people, would you know. They had just seemed like life demanded a little more challenging um, engagement.
Speaker 1:Totally and especially Alaskans. Alaskans are the hardiest, I feel like you know. They can fix a snowmobile with their bare hands in the middle of winter and not complain at all.
Speaker 3:Do you ever go back up there?
Speaker 1:I did, you know, five years ago, but I haven't been for a while. I really want to take Milo and PJ.
Speaker 3:That'd be fun.
Speaker 1:But I got to do it the right way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:I feel like we need to fly into. We used to have a cabin in Talkeetna.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:I really want to fly in and land on.
Speaker 3:I'm not familiar with where that is.
Speaker 1:It's about three hours north of Anchorage. Okay. But we used to park at the certain trailhead in Talkeetna and snowmobile out 10 miles and you have to jump over rivers. I mean I remember you have to kind of floor the snowmobile just to get over this little. I guess it's more like a creek, but it was so fun getting out there. I mean just getting to the cabin took three hours.
Speaker 3:It was an adventure in and of itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got pulled in this little sleigh behind. I guess it's a little snowmobile trailer that my dad would pull us in. And it was so fun. I think Milo would have a blast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what happened to that cabin?
Speaker 1:My dad's best friend who we owned it with, and we'd always go out there with died in a motorcycle accident on the. Baja, and so it's always felt hard to go back without the Libby family. I don't know why, and they're the one they had planes and helicopters and they were the adventure, so my dad could take us.
Speaker 3:But it's not as much fun without Jim. That make complete sense. Number two that that's a perfect example of like your average, not average someone who lives in alaska who not only has a cabin but has the skill set to get out there and survive and fly and fish and hunt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just the stuff they have a fishing camp that they fly out to. I mean, yeah, it's. We would go over to their house for dinner and they lived on an airstrip, and after dinner, instead of dessert, we'd drive out in the plane, me and my three sisters, and he had two boys, and we'd fly up and do negative Gs. We'd fly up really far and then drop and we'd all fly. They'd say, take your seatbelts off and we'd fly to the ceiling. So I don't know, those are things that we do all the time. After dinner.
Speaker 1:just go snowmobile up this mountain called Baldy behind our house, through the trees, and we were all four kids. We'd have another kid in tow, packed in the sled.
Speaker 3:So fun.
Speaker 1:Going through tight trees.
Speaker 3:It's almost as good as growing up in Bend Oregon.
Speaker 1:Almost yeah, almost yeah, I mean, and all joking aside, like our kids are pretty. I think that's why we live here. Yeah, for sure. I think our kids have the greatest lives.
Speaker 3:Well I've thought about this is like my goal with my kids was always to provide them kind of a diverse skill set when they were young enough to where they couldn't push back right totally, because then once they got old enough which they are now to push back and make or not even push back but have other personal desires and the freedom and liberty to go do those things, um, that they've always now they have, I know that they can do those other things. So it's a fun way to utilize where we live because you get so much exposure and repetition to such diverse stuff.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 3:I have friends whose kids are starting to go off to school and I've heard more than once that they realize when they start to engage in a school environment and culture with people their age from other parts of the country there's. That is a very unique life experience that I think a lot of young people here forget totally. You know'd also.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I just like the access to the mountain and snowboarding. I watch Milo have so much confidence because of it.
Speaker 3:For sure Like. I've watched how that really influences her at school, her talking to other friends, so yeah, there's a sense of empowerment that comes with um developing the skills to exist in the elements.
Speaker 1:Completely.
Speaker 3:Either recreationally or just, you know, like knowledge, right yeah.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if I would have seen that coming. Yeah, I don't think I knew that until.
Speaker 3:Well, that's part apparent. You know, like more than half of what I've learned I never saw coming Totally. You know you just, yeah, a good friend of mine told me like when you have kids it's like you know, going cliff, jumping into the water. You just jump off the cliff and then you're along for the ride, you know.
Speaker 1:Completely.
Speaker 3:It's true. Yeah, so your dad seems like a neat guy. I was, you put me in touch with him. I was, you put me in touch with him. And when I told him that I vaguely remembered going to the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, he's like oh yeah, that was built by Wally Hickle, former former governor. You know, like he's just a wealth of knowledge and like, ironically enough, I don't have that many memories of living in Alaska, but I do remember that hotel. And then, just you know what are the odds. It's like serendipitous that you know, 40 years later I'm talking to a guy that worked in that industry, right, and then you know his daughter, who lives in the same town, who is so much influenced by her experience growing up in Alaska and her dad's business. You know, it's cool.
Speaker 1:That's how everything works, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like like it often can it does. Yeah, I don't know the word.
Speaker 1:The world feels a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I feel like we have deep connections with each other somehow definitely your dad, bill, he was.
Speaker 3:He was kind enough to uh share some thoughts and um it a little long, but it's okay because it's such good stuff and you know, if nothing else, when this podcast episode comes and goes this, I think this will be good audio that, like, your family will always enjoy having. So yeah, so he talks.
Speaker 3:He talks a little bit about meeting your mom, moving to Alaska, becoming more interested in kind of his skit and carpentry and some of these custom jobs that he used to take you and your sisters to, and then kind of his thoughts on that exposure and kind of how that has influenced how you're running your interior design studio, House of Milo, and just his thoughts on he's proud of you. It's cool.
Speaker 1:I'm glad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I met my wife through other people. She actually worked at a burger joint and friends told me about her and I went in and ordered a burger and I got to see her. I didn't talk to her, but I had her in my sights. Let's put it that way. As it turned out, a friend of mine arranged her coming to a party and I struck up a conversation with her and then gave her a phone call after that party and the rest is history.
Speaker 4:Sarah was born, excuse me, in Portland and then we moved up there as she turned one year old, you know, in Oregon. Oh, in the late 70s to early 80s, in our industry, you know the building industry, things were pretty depressed and so made the trip up the Alcan Highway and, you know, got to work right away. So, and got to work right away. So, yeah, we lived in Alaska for 26 years, I think, was always interested in fine woodworking and carpentry, got a little bit tired of the residential world and started looking at blueprints of restaurants, hotels and schools. And, you know, at a young age when you're interested in woodworking, for me it was always bigger is better and production I was always production-minded is better and production I was always production minded. So you know, I always marveled at the big hotel projects, all the woodworking, the staircases, the you know, larger projects. They just, they had a little more meat on their bones for me, so to speak. They had a little more meat on their bones for me, so to speak. We called ourselves, you know, an architectural millwork business.
Speaker 4:All three girls would go with mom to pick up materials at various vendors that we would purchase our goods from, raw materials that is. And so they knew Sarah, emily and Kaylee very well, and that would be wood suppliers, that would be plastic, laminate suppliers, hard surface suppliers, just a wide assortment of distributors. So you know, she saw what was going on there, whether you knew it or not not. They were looking for sure. And then they were always, uh, in and around our place of business, and they were always around.
Speaker 4:Sarah was around drawings, architectural drawings, colors, textures, materials, and she had a really discriminating opinion at a young age of you know, if you asked her, do you like that, sarah? And she would say, well, I don't love it. That was a very common response from Sarah was I don't love it. But you knew when she really liked something too, and so you know she got to see a lot of the commercial projects that we did, including restaurants, and you know a big courthouse that we did all the interior woodwork on. She got to walk around with a hard hat on on various job sites. Whether it stuck with her as a real liking or not, that's embedded in an early brain for sure.
Speaker 4:As of the last oh, I would say year, she's gained the confidence that she can come up with a theme or an idea and tell people what they like without them even knowing it. So she's capable of assembling you know the colors, textures, a look, and present it to people and I would say 75% of the time it goes, it works, and there are a lot of, I would say, interior designers that would really rely on a client to lead them along. I think Sarah has that vision to see the project from inception and really see the whole picture. You know, I think that she sees the joy and the psychological impact that it has on people and, to be honest with you, they love her. It's really nice to see. To be honest with you, they love her. It's really nice to see. What really inspires me right now about Sarah is that she's taking a very technical point of view on things and wants to know, for instance, how a joint would be made in a piece of wood to accomplish a certain detail in a piece of wood to accomplish a certain detail. And that impresses me because it's like, okay, now you're building it, which is cool.
Speaker 4:You know anytime that your kid they're not kids anymore finds what makes them happy. And it's not about money, it's about what we do if it gives you fulfillment. That's what makes me happy when they're happy with their careers and what they're doing, making people happy. Boy, I couldn't be more proud. My name's Bill West Kusing. Was raised in Portland, oregon, moved to Alaska in 1982. Hardworking guy, built a small business that was successful, true and honest and just very grateful that, and honest and just very grateful that I've been given the skills that I have and the family that I have, and more credit goes to my wife than myself.
Speaker 1:It's sweet, it's really sweet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it seems like so much of what I, you know, my perception of learning about you and how you do stuff, very much seems to be influenced by, you know, your exposure to whether it was the hotels or these unique projects your dad was working on, but then, you know, not only just being exposed to the environment but also like engaging with it, with the textiles and the colors and all that stuff, I mean, I would imagine. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:now in interior design is because I had the confidence that I could bring my dad along to a job when I first started and ask him how am I going to build this built in? You know, we've got beams that we're working around and I wouldn't have had that technical knowledge. I didn't go to school for interior design. So having a 69 year old man that I can Right is what has made me better at what I do. I always had the piece of the storyline and the narrative and I've really, because I'm an empath.
Speaker 1:I think I really like to get to know people and dig deep, so deep that you know I'm like oh I probably, you know, shouldn't call these people. These are not my close friends, they're my clients. It's I have to draw a line with myself because I start to love people so much and I see their fights, I watch them move throughout their space, I see how they parent. So you learn a ton about people and I think the big part of this job is picking up the pieces of information that they're not telling you. People can tell you how they want their space to look, or pull a few images off Pinterest, but it's the things you notice when you watch them cooking in the kitchen or when they go to relax. Where do they go in their house, Like what calms them? Is the bathtub their place of refuge? Where do they sit and play music with their family? And those are the things they never tell me. I just have to watch and pick up on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love how your dad was talking about your increasing skill to do just that observe, and how much that is part of what it appears to be your process, in kind of the overall design. You know it's really cool.
Speaker 1:It's the biggest part.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like I really did learn that from Nike. Nike is such a storytelling brand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I think that there were two points, before we move on to Nike, that I wanted to make about what you just previously said. A, I can totally relate with going into someone else's house and it's almost like you're a fly on the wall. Now, my experience with that was not internal design, interior design. It was when, right after high school, I moved to Utah to snowboard and delivered pizzas. So when you were a pizza delivery person, you would do that. You would walk into homes and just get like a five minute snapshot of what's going on you know, and sometimes it was a party.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you could tell there was like it was going down. You know, Sometimes there was fighting, it was going down. You know, sometimes there was fighting, it was all over the place and for some reason it was like one of my most enjoyable jobs. For that reason.
Speaker 1:Totally. I mean, I, I used to. We used to walk the neighborhood when we were younger and I loved walking by the houses who had all their lights on so you could watch like the silhouettes of people moving through the home. A hundred percent. I don't know why that's such a deep memory for me.
Speaker 3:Well, it's because if you're a creative person, you start like I can relate with that and you start creating like a narrative in your head, like what's going on in there Completely. You know, like it's well, that's fun. I mean, it's like this internal storytelling, it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like this internal storytelling.
Speaker 3:It is. Yeah, the other was exactly what you were starting to talk about, which is and I want people to kind of understand, you know, I view your kind of these stepping stones that you have followed, that have led you where you are now and House of Milo and where you're going with that and your interior design career. Part of was, you know, this kind of exposure to construction and building materials and process and tapping into your dad's wisdom and then during and prior to that process, you know, after school, I think you went to. After you graduated high school, you moved to Colorado and went to college. Where'd you go to school? Boulder, university of Colorado. What'd you study?
Speaker 1:I studied communication and business.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because I think at that point I still had no clue what I wanted to do so, I got a very general degree. I wish now that I had gone to school for architecture that would have if I could redo things that's probably the path I would have taken.
Speaker 3:Was that on your radar? It wasn't it really wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 1:I think I always wanted to work with product. I do know I always wanted to work at Nike. I always had that in my sights.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a very good chance. If you would have studied architecture, obviously you wouldn't have gone to Nike, where you learn this kind of process. That makes you very unique and good at what you do now.
Speaker 1:Totally. It all worked out and I see it now.
Speaker 3:You kind of had multiple different product manager roles in different outstore brands.
Speaker 1:I did I was at Keen Footwear when I first moved to Portland. I just I always loved outdoor product and the outdoor community. It probably has something to do with growing up in Alaska. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And staying warm and comfortable in the elements is so important. If you grow up in a climate like that, or even here, oh sure, and I feel like every trip my family went on we'd criticize gosh, these gloves would be better if they pulled up higher over our jacket. Or we're constantly critiquing product and coming up with ideas to make it better, and both my parents my know my mom would cut apart a mitten and sew a longer cuff onto it she was constantly changing and adapting things that didn't work, as did my dad, so I always knew if something wasn't working we could fix it or solve it.
Speaker 1:So I think that was embedded in me from an early age. But going to Keen Footwear happened I don't even know 2005 or something and I got hired as a assistant product line manager and I was working on, you know, those rubber toed sandals the.
Speaker 1:Newport and it wasn't really my look, but I found out there that I loved working on product. I loved understanding what a consumer would want. Talking to people, watching them go in the river. Talking to people watching them go in the river, seeing what materials might be more waterproof than others or what neoprene was the most comfortable on the foot. Going to the factory in Guangzhou and just seeing how it was all made and put together was so fascinating. Seeing how it was all made and put together was so fascinating. I mean, there are 40 people on a product line.
Speaker 1:One person's putting on gluing the outsole to the midsole and then passing it along and just seeing how many people it takes to create one shoe that we wear around did have a deep impact on me. It made me respect. You know the clothes, I wear the shoes, because I know how many people had to touch that and work on that and the thought that went into something. I think sometimes we forget that.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times we forget that we do yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I guess at.
Speaker 3:Keen, I love that.
Speaker 1:It is really cool and it also made me realize if I make one change on this shoe, you know, like this strap color is not working or it's a little uncomfortable, I knew how many lives it was going to affect. You know it was those 120 factory workers that you know we're going to have to go redo that one part and so to see the downstream effects I think you know was really really good for me. But working in the product in so fun, just getting to listen and hear what people want and to work with designers to design something that would make it better instantaneously, and then fly over to the factory and see it produced in front of you or 3d printed and then put on a shoe and then you can try it out for yourself. It's so cool it is cool.
Speaker 3:So you were at keen, I was at keen, uh, and then I think you got um. You applied for a job at nike.
Speaker 1:I did yeah, I applied for, applied for a job at n. I did. Yeah, I applied for a job at Nike because I what was the story behind that?
Speaker 3:coming to interview.
Speaker 1:Gosh. I just think I loved the product process. I loved creating a shoe, briefing it, seeing it come to life. I knew that was the world I wanted to get into and that was kind of solidified at Keen. But the style of footwear wasn't really my look. I briefed a shoe that didn't have the big clunky protective toe and I remember the owner, rory, came up to me. He's like Sarah, you know, the rubber toe is our brand and that was kind of the moment that I realized if I could not take the rubber shoe off. The rubber toe off the shoe?
Speaker 3:I don't know if I was going to be a deal breaker.
Speaker 1:It was. It just felt like it really was boxing me in and I didn't love that look. I had a really hard time wearing them at sales meetings too. It was really hard to put that big rubber toe together with you know outfits, especially more feminine.
Speaker 3:Oh man, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1:So the rubber toe kind of broke me at a certain point and Nike was in the same vicinity. But I was always really intimidated by Nike for some reason. I wonder why it was you know the best of the best always worked at Nike, but I had gone to school with a girl or a woman whose father worked at Nike. And he was, you know, a really big designer at Nike.
Speaker 1:He designed the Air Jordans, I think, three on and the Air Maxes, and he would come to visit and they'd always bring us the coolest new shoes that weren't even out yet and I got to hear his stories and what he was working on and what athletes he was working with and I was so excited about talking to him and I just had this idea of what Nike was like in my brain and so ever since I was in Portland I knew that's where I wanted to get to, but I was very intimidated. So this I think it was a product merchandising job came up and I applied for it and I got an interview and I went into the interview and Nike does interviews with, like I think there are like 10 people in the room. It's a panel interview.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh, sounds like applying for PA school.
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, Is it like that oh man, it was terrifying, it is terrifying, but I got in there and it was so comfortable. I felt like I'd known these people forever.
Speaker 3:Speaks volumes.
Speaker 1:It really did. I instantly knew like this is my place, these are my people. I would love this, and the woman who interviewed me was Andrea Corradini and she had been on the ACG team forever.
Speaker 3:Tell people what that is ACG.
Speaker 1:It's all conditions. Gear ACG was Nike's first arm into the outdoor world, the Moab I don't know if you remember that shoe, but it was kind of the Wild West for Nike when ACG started.
Speaker 1:It was just I don't know. I want to say like three or four different designers that just started taking trips to Moab kind of shoes would we need on this sticky rock and just playing around on the recreational trips and designing, you know, alongside of it. Um, but ACG came out of nowhere. Um, but I always loved how quirky the product was, how colorful. Um, I still remember that first, first river sandal. I'm trying to think of the name right now it's escaping me um, but it had that really bold fluorescent pink nike logo and it like a really, really um, kind of squiggly outsole uh-huh with like a topographical footbed.
Speaker 1:But I remember it just popping off the shelf at REI when I was little and that was the river sandal I wanted. It was so different looking yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you remember the aqua socks?
Speaker 1:Yeah, those ones were sweet, they were I wanted a pair.
Speaker 3:so bad and my birthday is in August, so I got a pair for my birthday went cliff jumping on Coeur d'Alene Lake and lost one of them on the first jump. Oh, bummer. But they were fun, like I think they were neon pink, yeah, I mean it was like.
Speaker 1:Everything was just so different looking.
Speaker 3:Totally.
Speaker 1:And it stuck out in that outdoor world. Yeah, that was just like tans and taupes and you know, I guess, colors that would blend in with dirt and dust, and so to see something bright and fluorescent and fun, I just, I always loved ACG.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:Andrea started in ACG and she was just this beautiful, charming woman who was so easy to talk to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you guys. It sounds like you have a really fun. Obviously current relationship, but then previous professional colleagues, friends, like it. Talking to both of you makes me want to work at Nike.
Speaker 1:That's how Nike was, though.
Speaker 3:I believe you, after talking with you know it's funny. And now for people you know, andrea is still at Nike and she's now the global vice president of women's footwear, which is, you know, I would imagine, quite a promotion up from product manager of the ACG line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean she's always had pretty big roles there. She is just a really, really incredible person. And I think what's really cool about Nike is she'd you know we'd have our weekly one-on-one and she'd say, hey, you want to go on a run and do our one-on-one. I get to run alongside her and talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the best yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was really cool. It's such a huge corporation that that's how meetings can be conducted.
Speaker 3:Well, again, I mean it. It your time at Nike seems like it was an integral part of your workup to where you're at now.
Speaker 1:It definitely was. It helped me critique product or experiences and know and identify what's not working. I think there's such a deep insight process at Nike. There really is, in order to create a shoe. We would do these big off-sites and spend a week with an athlete in their homes in looking through their closets. We'd go to basketball practice with them. We'd meet with their family. We would be the fly on the wall and Nike would invest so much time into just collecting insights and it was so fun.
Speaker 3:Oh, it sounds so fun.
Speaker 1:It was, so it really was amazing. And so just to learn how that process works and how to do it and what types of questions to ask.
Speaker 3:God, I could learn a lot from you. That's really cool. And what strikes me, I had a job once where I worked for USADA, where I would go and draw blood.
Speaker 1:What's.
Speaker 3:USADA US Anti-Doping Agency. Okay so like they needed someone in Central Oregon to go and draw blood on athletes that are pro in whatever their discipline. Is that get tested for performance enhancing drugs? Unlike someone who's there to help you design your signature shoe, they were not stoked that you were hanging out at their house. I can imagine it. It sounds fun, because who doesn't want someone who's there specifically then taking information to help design a shoe for you?
Speaker 1:That sounds super fun. It was really fun, I loved it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Not that many people can say they've had that life experience. My friend.
Speaker 1:And the people that work at Nike. I mean, you're working with designers that came from Louis Vuitton or Jimmy. Choo or Google. People have come from such amazing backgrounds. I always knew I was working with really talented people that I could learn a ton from, but on the flip side, it was such a high level of pressure all the time.
Speaker 3:I believe that, I totally believe that. Let's hear from Andrea real quick.
Speaker 5:She shares a little her kind of story of her relationship with you, from starting at the interview and kind of up to present day into the office to interview for a role I had on my team and she came just highly recommended from a mentor of mine at Nike and I don't think I had met her before we might have crossed paths at outdoor retailer show or something but really she just walked in and I mean it was within the first few minutes I knew she was something just incredible. I mean her energy was so light and she just was fantastic. And that was my first meeting was actually interviewing her for a job on my team. The thing with Sarah once you get to know her, I would say she's probably one of the most authentic humans, in the deepest sense of the words, one could ever meet. I mean, she knows herself, she knows what she stands for, and so she just presented that way and you know exactly what you're getting with Sarah in the best possible way. So, yeah, she got the job. I think one of the first observations I had with her which came across in interviewing her but really when you started working with her could see is how she could see a bunch of things, whatever that would be, whether it's consumers, whether it's trends, whether it's, you know, pieces of footwear, and she can just her mind just starts curating, her mind just starts pulling things together that I certainly could never do and she creates this narrative and the story that she sees and it's a very authentic. She can explain it, she can walk through it, but she just has this way of seeing the world that is a curated vision. That is just so beautiful and it's just such a gift and I think she leans into that and she's unapologetic about it. She sees things that I would never put together and she did that in every aspect of working with her and then obviously beyond, when we were working together at Nike.
Speaker 5:She was always about the consumer. I mean, she was always around, what they were looking for, what they wanted, and she does the same now. When she did our home, it wasn't about what she saw in our space for what she would like. She definitely pivoted towards how do you live, how do you walk the house? Where do you like to wake up? She'd ask all these questions and then she put together this curation that was so unbelievable again that you'd never put together yourself.
Speaker 5:And I agree, I think she just pulls from so many different experiences in her life and yet totally meets you where you are in this really cool way when you're researching to figure out what consumers are looking for and you're trying to, you know, think about the product you're going to create for them 18 months down the road, I mean, you're always working right way sooner than a consumer is going to experience this. So you have to be, you have to be a bit predictive in nature. You have to understand where trends are going to be, not where they are. And and she just had the best gift in that and she'd go far beyond studying you know where fashion was or where couture was. She would look far outside the industry, into different trends, what was going on in the different places of art and music and creativity, and pull that all together to really get us to say, hey, this is actually what we need to be briefing.
Speaker 5:And she had a very innovative thought always, but would always ground it in just this, like the balance of art and science. She just had this innate sense for and just looking beyond the expected. There's people that are like spotlights and like here's what's in front. This is really obvious and sometimes that's really helpful and and and very much needed. But then there's the seekers you know the searchlights, and she's always just searching around the corner and unearthing different spaces and places that bring new thought. Um, and I think about um. It's so funny.
Speaker 5:I'm sitting here at my kitchen table, that new home which she picked out for us and I love it, and it's here and I'm looking at these bookshelves that she also helped us wrap around our couch and I was like Sarah, these bookshelves are so huge, what are we going to put in these bookshelves? And she thought about it, thought about it. She called me that night. She goes I know what we're going to do. I know what we're going to do. We get in the car, we go down to Powell's bookstore, to the used bookstore, and we sat there probably for three hours and got all these beautiful used books that were of subjects of interest. And we came home and they're all displayed by color, stacked on these bookshelves, and it wasn't just like ordering colored books, it was going through the experience of doing it together and finding cool subjects and then matching them all together and it's the most beautiful piece of art. So that's how she thinks. You know, it's not the obvious and it's always an experience.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean, I remember her coming into my office and telling me she was moving to Bend and my heart dropped Because you know, she's so fantastic At the same time. At the same time, you know, you're so excited to see her go and do what she wanted to do. And she clearly knew she wanted to go out on her own and explore the world of interior design and I think our house was kind of one of her first projects. Of course, now she's got just beautiful homes everywhere, but it was that moment where everything, you know, when it's like the universe perfectly designs you for your role in the world and, if you're lucky enough, you find it Like that's what I got to witness and it was so awesome. And then that, you know, then I dropped all the anger I had about her leaving me and we've just remained. I mean, she's just so, she's so.
Speaker 5:I just have to say and I don't know if this is worthy of making the cut or not but she's also just so humble. And I recall we were, we were doing like the five mile loop up at um, what's that park in Bend? The um Chevlin park? We were doing the run, you know, and she was she was doing this house for this, you know amazingly important person and she's, like you know, sometimes I just get the worst imposter syndrome and I'm like what you she's like? Yeah, I mean, even I just questioned, am I right for this?
Speaker 5:And I just remember thinking like there's just still that humility there with her. You know she's always going to push herself, she knows she's excellent, but she also knows she can always grow and learn and experience things. And it's just that humility which she, by the way, is not shy about. You know, she's just very confident and authentic, but very grounded. I don't know, she's just amazing. I just love her. It's hard to say without actually my voice choking up. She's so amazing. But I would just say to Sarah you are uniquely and perfectly designed for exactly what you are doing and I am so proud of you. My name is Andrea Corradini and I am the Global Vice President for Women's Footwear at Nike. Just tell her I love her.
Speaker 1:I feel so lucky the people I've connected with in my life.
Speaker 3:That's cool.
Speaker 1:Incredibly lucky. I mean, she was my boss for six years and anytime Andrea got a promotion or moved from merchandising to product, I would be the first person she would pull and have interview on her team. And God, yeah, I really do feel lucky. She's always seen me in that way.
Speaker 3:There's only so many searchlights out there. You know, I love that analogy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do too. Spotlight and searchlight I mean.
Speaker 3:You know, and there's obviously incredible value in both, but it is. It's cool. Yeah, that was fun audio. I mean I felt like you know people in an effort to kind of share the story behind House of Milo. Like that speaks volumes to me.
Speaker 1:It totally does, and I think there was a part that Andrea spoke about how we were going to fill this console that went behind this gigantic couch in her home.
Speaker 3:There's pictures of that on your website. Yeah, there is.
Speaker 1:There is, but I think the most fun part of it. At Nike they always said one plus one equals three and I take that with me. It's not just you know, it's the sum of all of the parts and I think doing that project with Andrea and sitting on the floor in Powell's and picking out books together and showing her different pages, or going to different sections and curating this collection together was so fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:And deeply personal.
Speaker 3:For sure I get that. I would very much encourage people to go to your website and check out like the full deal to kind of helping with furniture and space arrangement. I mean, obviously I don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:You've got it.
Speaker 3:Kind of like over. The overview of what you guys offer is pretty neat, but the you know your catalog of work is each one of those pages tells a story. Catalog of work is each one of those pages tells a story. And when I jumped on hers because I was able to kind of you know correlate the bookshelves and you know it's in all of them. I mean, they're all so unique and they all tell such a different story and it's really cool.
Speaker 1:It's fun when I get to do it with the client and I feel like most of my clients really are involved. I tend to work with a lot of creatives. I don't know if it's because of Nike, but they don't just want to brief me and send me off. They want to be part of the process the whole time, and it makes it so much more fun and more interesting. And you know, sometimes I just had a client who was doing drawings. He'd draw on his iPad and then he'd show me and I'd make one little tweak or suggest a different material and we just kept going back and forth. And it's so fun when we get to do it like that. Yeah, I think you make the coolest outcome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's a skill set that you honed. And going back and forth and designing other stuff, you know, and engaging with that process is a skill.
Speaker 1:It definitely is a skill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no doubt I think my favorite. I have two top my top two favorite of the homes you've done. I love the Sunbleached Lodge. Do you remember that one?
Speaker 1:Yes, does it have big, big, open white? Yes, it's like very roomy. That was a remodel. Yeah, it's so good it is. It's a really cool house.
Speaker 3:I bet. And then the Irvington Tudor.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah bet.
Speaker 3:And then the Irvington tutor. Oh yeah, that one was amazing too, man. I love it. I love it and like learning I get what you do now in such a better way. I mean, it's really cool. You're really good at it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it was kind of a natural process. I feel like when we were all in in our 20s, we were interested in what we wore and how we presented ourselves to the world through our shoes, through our pants, and then, as you get older, the home becomes so important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a different form of self-expression.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it starts with who you're presenting yourself to be to the world when you're young. Be to the world when you're young and it's almost like, as you get older, it's more you know creating, expressing yourself, that you're comfortable with yourself in your environment, and it's authentic.
Speaker 1:And thinking about how are other people going to be comfortable in your space? So I think it's just like an evolution.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a hundred percent Of the same thing essentially you you shared with me before we started recording about. Let's see what was it. It was the work trip, the Nike product trip that you where you first experienced staying at the Soho house in Berlin. I was hoping, cause, you know, in terms of your timeline I'm not exactly sure when interior design came on your radar and when you wanted to start going in that direction or if you were getting. I guess maybe a better way of saying is pulled in that direction, but it seems like, with what you're sharing, that experience played a role in that.
Speaker 1:It really did. We were in Berlin, for I think we were just looking at retail with the Western European team and we were in Berlin and Nike always books really amazing hotels. I mean they really take care of you when you travel. You fly business class. I mean spare no expense, because it was all about the experience for the team there.
Speaker 1:And the Soho House had just opened up and I think it was in the early beginnings of Soho House. But it was this hotel that felt like a home. I felt like I was staying at my fancy British friends in her little guest house. I mean, the room had these beautiful antique rugs, this beautiful like fluted console that sat under the TV. But it was an antique. It wasn't something that you know was purchased two years ago.
Speaker 1:When the hotel opened the floors were all heated and they were like old Portland craftsman home floors, so weathered. I can't remember what wood they were probably a fur of some sort and this beautiful canopy bed and these beautiful antique nightstands. And the bathroom was floor to ceiling subway tile with really, really cool trim details, I think even like a really thin pencil tile that went around it in a different color and they were heated. I remember the floors just feeling so warm and comfortable and everything just felt like God. How do they know me? How did they know this would make me feel so at home? And I remember sitting on the bed. Usually you come to your hotel room and you're like, okay, we're just going to drop our stuff and leave. You want to get out of there, or at least that was my hotel experience growing up. But this hotel I would pull out the different books I think they had a bonnie rate book in, you know um and I remember flipping through this and being like how'd they know I?
Speaker 3:I would like this.
Speaker 1:You want to read yeah, there were so many different books I wanted to flip through and just the entire experience of staying in that hotel was so incredibly thoughtful. Also, at 5 pm every day, this guy in this very well-dressed suit walks around with a bar cart and makes cocktails at your door. I mean, you can order a margarita and he'll be out there shaking it and pouring it over beautiful ice. I have never felt so taken care of.
Speaker 1:I think hotels in general and now this is happening a lot more are the most incredible hosts. They've thought of everything to make you comfortable and they have a really, really pinpointed understanding of who's going to be staying there and how to make them comfortable. And I think, seeing that hotel and imagining you know their brief and who the client that they thought would be staying there, I remember thinking like, wow, this is a skill set to really understand this person and how they're going to be moving throughout the hotel. What kind of amenities are they going to want? What should we make the gym look like? What kind of sports does this person do you know? They knew me and I think when someone can really know you, it feels amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one of the best things to be known.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and express it in a space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it was just the first time where I realized, like God, I could do this. I love this. I absolutely love the way this makes me feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I really am someone that is. I'm an empath. I feel everything around me constantly and space is a really big thing for me. If I'm in a space that does not feel beautiful or cared for, I want to get out of there as soon as possible. I can't relax, I just feel on edge. I can't relax, I just feel on edge. I need to be in spaces that feel thoughtful and cared about and really beautiful in their essence. It's always really mattered to me, so I do think it has a really big effect on human beings, whether we realize it or not, being in a beautiful space. It has an effect on how we think, how we feel. I know there's a color I think it's called Baker Miller Pink that they paint on the inside of jail cells and I think it can really calm an inmate, I say for like 30 or 40 minutes, but just little things like that. There's a deep psychology to interiors. For sure there really is, yeah, and I think what really gets me For sure.
Speaker 1:There really is.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think what really gets me I've been thinking about this a lot lately is that when we build homes, interiors are the last piece of the whole puzzle, the process, because it comes at the end, and we spend 90% of our budget and our thought on the exterior and the bones and the structure and how it's going to look from the outside, and I think we spend 87% of our lives inside, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, and it has such a deep effect on how we feel, yet it's where we give the least priority. I feel like I usually come into projects when you know the budget's getting cut or people are exhausted or stressed. I really, really wish the architecture and the interior design could, you know, be more of a partnership up front and be thought of in tandem, I think partnership up front and be thought of in tandem.
Speaker 3:I think Are there builders in our area or other areas where you're doing work, where you've tried to develop that process.
Speaker 1:Yes, there definitely are an architect in town that I've been working with where he'll bring me in right at the get go.
Speaker 3:That's cool.
Speaker 1:It's really cool, but I think to get clients or people, people you work with, you know invested in the beginning and and to really understand that we're gonna be they're spending most of their time on the inside of this home right, um, yeah, that's it's.
Speaker 3:It's almost like you got to get to them before, like, encourage them to consider that before they've even found a builder.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:How do you do that? I don't know, I'm just spitballing, it's cool. It's a really cool way to think about it makes complete logical sense to me.
Speaker 1:It does. But staying in that hotel was, you know, the Soho house was the first time I realized how deep of an effect it had on me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I get that, I totally get that. I don't know the whole Soho house like network is cool.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're so cool. I mean I like that it's a hotel that's built like a home Well it's like a club. It is.
Speaker 3:For creatives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you ever stayed at one?
Speaker 3:no, I just, I mean, I didn't realize they were, so I mean they're all over the world they are, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a really clever idea. Yeah, it's brilliant.
Speaker 3:Um yeah, sohohousecom, people should check it out. I I, I had heard. I think is there one in new york city. Yes, there is I think my wife stayed there for her 40th birthday, but I didn't know it was what it is. You know, if you live in a small town and you don't travel that much, you're not exposed. You know, I just didn't know. But man, it makes me want to go.
Speaker 1:It does, and until you've experienced a space that makes you feel really good, you don't realize that's a value set. I mean, at least in my experience, I think most of the time when I'm working with clients, it's the female that is the most invested, the husband's like, ah, I don't care. I mean, I'm totally generalizing here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but there's some I mean generalizations and stereotypes or you know, there's some degree of truth to that or trends that support it. But I get that and yet you can see how people might want to reconsider Completely when I read that stat 87%, you know, isn't that crazy. It's super crazy. That's like almost 90% of your life you spend indoors.
Speaker 1:Yes and yeah. It makes me really upset that we don't you know it doesn't get more thought and more consideration, because I really think it would benefit us. I mean, it benefits me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you know you have to live in a beautiful space. I guess one point that would be worth making is you know, that doesn't mean either, spending a lot of money.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. It's the care, it's the care.
Speaker 3:It's the thought and intention behind it.
Speaker 1:Completely yeah, and it's about knowing what makes you happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the things that are going to really comfort your mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I I think and Andrea talked about it she was one of your first customers when you made the transition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was the first person that hired me as soon as I went out on my own.
Speaker 3:Which was in 2019.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:So when you moved to Bend you and PJ moved over here in 2016. Yep. Just for context, your folks had been living here, you guys were grinding in Portland Milo was little. You were coming over driving home on Sundays, which I can relate with because, I went to medical school in Portland and I've lived here before that Okay, so you're from here right, no, I'm, I moved.
Speaker 3:No, I'm from Idaho but moved here and kind of had this you know late teens into my early twenties chapter of life here and then moved away to go to grad school and then moved back and had like a totally different experience, Right, I?
Speaker 1:mean, did you go to high school here?
Speaker 3:Nope, I went to high school on but I I know what you mean by when you talked about and we're sharing with me that kind of like driving west over the mountains and you kind of get back into the urban. You know busyness and the weather changes and the you know like everything takes, it's just different, right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:It's just different little oasis over here that you're longing to get to, I would imagine. When the opportunity presented itself and the timing was right, you guys made the move.
Speaker 1:Completely. We'd come over for the weekend because we had a one-year-old at the time and we needed help when you're solo in a town because my wife and I were that way with all three of our kids, no family and it's just like yeah, it's nice to have help.
Speaker 1:And we worked with a lot of young professionals who didn't have kids. So it felt very lonely being in Portland and we'd come over here for the weekend and we'd go on mountain bike rides. We'd have fresh, you know, really amazing meals every single night that my mom would make. And then on Sunday I would get this just sinking feeling of dread. You know, and not only that, we had meetings like at 8 am the next morning, so I'd be like, okay, we have to leave by 1. We'd jump in the car and come over Mount Hood and the clouds would drop and it just felt so much more confining and the rain would start. And you know, you do that like seven times in a row.
Speaker 1:And you're like I don't know if I can keep doing this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny how, in different seasons of life, you can some of those things um don't carry as much influence in your life because your focus is on something totally and then you start to kind of evolve and your desires change and all of a sudden, like whoa, wow, I didn't realize how much this actually is impacting the way I'm experiencing where I live exactly right.
Speaker 1:I got you. You know was always available to meet up and there's so many activities that we can do straight from. You know, we could ride our bikes from the house, we can go to bachelor. The lifestyle was so fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1:And easy, yeah, and family oriented. I think I love that kids are welcome anywhere and they're such a part of life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very true. It's a really fun way to re-experience life, too, through your kids. Yeah, you know, like a mountain bike ride as an adult by myself or even with friends is a super fun time, but a mountain bike ride with your kids I mean, that's like the best Totally, because you're experiencing it through them.
Speaker 1:And it's so nice to live somewhere where you don't need to get a sitter all the time, totally, because all these activities you're doing, you want to take them with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no doubt there's those years when they're young and you're, you know, juggling around. I mean that's in all honesty. We bought a travel trailer for that reason Like, we used to take our trailer up to the mountain before it was, as you know, just because we it gave us a space where we could go up and our kids could hang out. It's almost like a condo, right, but we didn't have that then. So we needed somewhere other than the lodge, which would have worked fine, but you can, it's just more comfortable and we could go out and ride. But, yeah, it was fun, fun times when you, when you moved over here, was your goal to to start an interior design studio.
Speaker 1:No, it wasn't. Um, I moved over here. Um, I had got a job at Hydro Flask on their product team before we made the jump. Actually, pj was looking for jobs and he's like I'm a marketing guy. There's no marketing roles, but I see a product job.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's like you should apply.
Speaker 3:And he was at Adidas.
Speaker 1:He was at Adidas. What was?
Speaker 3:he doing?
Speaker 1:there he was doing marketing for the originals team.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Or Adidas' skate line. Yeah, right, and they would skate in the originals, but we were on opposite ends of town, yeah, and Milo was in daycare on the north side of town.
Speaker 1:So I'd leave meetings at 4.30 and jump in the car and you feel like a bad employee at Nike if you leave at 4.30. Like people work really hard there. And so, anyway, I jump in the car and you're rushing through traffic. You know it's going to take you an hour and a half, and I'd get home and he had already put Milo to bed and it was heartbreaking to not be able to put your child to bed at, you know, nine months old and and I didn't feel like it was a great team member because I left early and I was like, how am I going to do this I'm not doing either well, so that was kind of an an obvious choice when this bend hydro flask opportunity came up, but it wasn't. I wasn't really interested in interior designer, I don't. It didn't even think about it until we started looking for homes here.
Speaker 3:Now had you been developing that? I mean clearly that Soho experience at Nike many years before that. It stuck with you.
Speaker 1:It stuck with me and we had we stayed at so many cool hotels. While I was at Nike, I was always taking notes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cool hotels.
Speaker 1:while I was at Nike, I was always taking notes, writing down like the different elements that I loved and the different pieces, like what made something feel like home.
Speaker 3:Why were you taking notes?
Speaker 1:It was more. I was curious why I loved it so much. Like, what was it that made the Soho house so much more of an enjoyable experience than a Holiday Inn or a Marriott? Like what was it? I just I think I wanted to explain it to myself and so I'm constantly taking notes about every space, even friends' homes. You know what scent they might have, that I am just like what is this? Why do I feel so comfortable here? I don't know. You know certain people's spaces you're just drawn to.
Speaker 3:For sure, clearly from that first experience like wow, this is interesting. From that first experience like, wow, this is interesting. And then you think about maybe this subconscious experience and exposure you had when you were younger. And then you know writing down not that many people do that- Right, yeah, I was, I was really cool.
Speaker 1:I you know in every space I was in what kinds of art.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry to interrupt you. Do you still look at that stuff?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, oh every time I'm in I was just at the proper hotel in New York or no, in LA. I mean, I'm taking measurements of what's the perfect placement for a mirror or where do they have their shower heads. Every hotel I'm in if there's something I really like. I've got a whole notes section on my phone of different dimensions of things that really worked. Yeah. Because I figure, if it works in a hotel you know that's hosting thousands of people, it'd probably play well really well in a home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'd probably play well. Really well in a home, yeah. Adds to that cue of like ideas that, when you know you're observing a family, like it's one more option that might come to mind, or Totally yeah. It's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think I really got interested in interior design when I moved to Bend and we started shopping for a home. We would probably looked at 50 different houses and to me at the time it just felt like the same. Look over and over. You know it was the same fake stone fireplace and you know I think we were looking at a lot of they were either built in the 80s, 90s or brand new. Um, you know, but stone fireplaces and like that beveled shaker cabinet in the kitchen and you know, terrible brown carpet and like the hot tub, you know, in the deck outside.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the early 2000s craftsman, I think, is what you're describing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so every house we'd look at had those details and I kept thinking, god, if we buy a new house, this is going to feel really shameful. You know, to pull all these finishes out Like that just felt wrong, and so I kind of knew we were going to need to remodel if we were going to do anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Remodel or build, and it wasn't until I saw what was out there that I really got interested in the idea of doing it myself, because I was like wow, was this all done by the same builder or the same designer? It just felt like a very similar house repeated.
Speaker 3:There was a problem to be solved.
Speaker 1:There was, there was.
Speaker 3:And well, you were paying attention, you know. Yeah. That's what it was earlier. If you're paying attention, you can like the serendipitous relationship you know kind of weave in and out through life, if you're paying attention.
Speaker 1:Totally. And then I realized I had my dad, you know, a mile away. It became easy. Anytime I had a problem or wanted, you know, I saw an issue with our home in our remodel, mr MacGyver, my dad would come over and, you know, instantly start drawing up solutions or what if you use?
Speaker 1:what if you use this material? Or what if you supported this wall with a beam and took this wall out? You know, as soon as I knew I had him around him around, I knew I had the tools to change the space very easily, and so it really got me thinking. And my dad had done I don't know three or four houses here and I did a remodel and I loved it. Usually people well, not everyone, but some people really don't like the remodel process. It scares them. There's a lot of unknowns. I loved it. I never want it to end. I save rooms in my house so you know, in a year I'll have something to work on. Like if it's over for me in terms of remodeling or redoing spaces, I would cry. You know, I really do. I haven't remodeled our master bathroom just because I want to save something for myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny, my wife and I were just talking about remodeling our bathroom. It's got that same brown carpet you were just referencing.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I can imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what else?
Speaker 1:What else I know?
Speaker 3:you brought a lot we have. I don't think I've seen you look at your notes once.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't either.
Speaker 3:Hopefully it's good because the point of this is, you know, I mean, I've learned. This has been super fun.
Speaker 1:I love doing this. This is way more comfortable than I thought it might be, oh, good, tell me about why you named your business House of Milo.
Speaker 1:You know, I have a daughter named Milo and I wanted something I would never get tired of or ever think God, why did I name it that? And I knew if I chose a name that's close to me, I would always love it. Milo kind of runs our program anyway, so I figure it is the house of Milo, I mean. I guess. One other thing that I was thinking about is like what do I see for the future?
Speaker 1:Yeah great, and I was thinking about the future, just of design and building, and I just think more affordable ways to build homes. I think it's, you know, you can't get into something for under, I don't know, 350 a square foot which is crazy. And how we can build at larger scales and make spaces and homes cheaper for people yeah, but still do it in a really well-designed, quality way. Yeah, I just think it's really interesting.
Speaker 3:I do too.
Speaker 1:I think, if we can, there is someone that's actually doing it locally, who's prefabricating these homes in this huge warehouse in Redmond. But it's so cool he's just building. You know, he's doing it in different blocks, it's almost like a Lego set, and then they'll site build and connect the different modular blocks on site.
Speaker 3:That's so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, blocks on site, that's so cool. Yeah, but I've been thinking a lot about how that can be done and how interiors can be done, because just watching people get priced out.
Speaker 3:Totally and which, over time, is going to change the fabric of our community.
Speaker 1:It is it already is. And I want, I really believe everyone should have a nice, beautiful space. I do, and I want that to be available.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know there's got to be a way to do it more efficiently and cost effectively.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, I look forward to seeing how that evolves. It won't surprise me that you're part of that process and solution.
Speaker 1:That's definitely where my head's at right now.
Speaker 3:Well, it seems like when you start noodling on stuff and thinking about it, you get invested in it and you start experiencing it, and it's hard to walk away from that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I've been thinking about.
Speaker 1:You get invested in it and you start experiencing it, and it's hard to walk away from that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I've been thinking about, so I'll let you know what comes of it.
Speaker 3:I love it. Who took the photographs on your website? They're good.
Speaker 1:Chris Dibble. He lives in Portland. He took a lot of them. And he's wonderful.
Speaker 3:Who did your website?
Speaker 1:Anna Anna Jacobs.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:She shoots for Ben Magazine.
Speaker 3:Oh, she does. Yeah, all right. Yeah, she did a good job.
Speaker 1:You know what's cool about this whole article in Ben Magazine is the woman that wrote it was my college roommate for four years she was working for Ben Magazine.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was like, god, is there any way Casey can write it? She knows me so well. Yeah, I feel like it would be really easy for her. And then they sent the photographer over and I was like, oh, hi, anna. And then, yeah, pj was down here and he's like oh, I've talked to Adam, he's going to put you on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Well, it was just so easy because you know your feature in the magazine had already been planned and written and Cheryl sent me a copy. And then I, you know, at first I was like I don't really, I don't know anything about interior design. Zero, well, not zero, but I know what I like. I know it feels good but I don't you know, I haven't given it much more thought than that, and one of the things I love most about doing this podcast is I have learned so much.
Speaker 3:And you can, you know, you can like that's the case across a number of different you know genres and areas of you know information I've learned it's really cool, it's fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thanks for having me. I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3:Thank you for doing it. Yeah, it's um, it's been. It's been a privilege and I'm excited to kind of watch what you do and maybe at one point I can get some advice.
Speaker 1:Of course, anytime you're going, you're going to start noticing spaces differently.
Speaker 3:I already have. I totally already have, which is cool, I mean it. Yeah, I mean even I'll have to show you upstairs. Like this studio I used to have kind of was like my office. Now we're using it more and, like I, they gave me a space upstairs that I'm turning in and it's kind of a I'll show you. It's a funky little space and I want to make it well, I like these oh, these sound, these sound panels yeah, yeah, I made like u these.
Speaker 1:Are they like U-Haul blankets?
Speaker 3:No, it's actual like acoustic foam for sound dampening. There's a number of different like audio supply manufacturers and stores in Central Oregon, and I just went and bought it in bulk and then just framed up those sound panels.
Speaker 1:I mean, I like them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're cool.
Speaker 1:They are cool. I like the texture in them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that one behind you is being turned into a canvas. Well, obviously it's a canvas and it's this local abstract artist in town, mark Jamnick, who's doing a project. He was a guest on the podcast a while back and I got this idea because everybody that's on the podcast I don't know I like some way that they contribute to it as it moves forward and they become part of it. And his contribution is all the guests that have been on the podcast since we started this have written down kind of what community, kind of the essence of it, means to them, and then at the end, when it gets all filled up, he's going to use that and then he uses that kind of as influence on kind of the piece that he paints. Subliminal story art.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's cool I thought you might like it.
Speaker 1:I really love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's got some really neat pieces and he's got some cool stuff that he's working on and I think that, like most things, right, this stuff takes time, right. Nothing good happens quick. I'm convinced of that. Oh, I am too, you know, and I think anything that does happen fast, one should be a little leery, because usually that kind of stuff doesn't have the sustenance to sustain it.
Speaker 1:you know totally I'm I always think of that when I'm in europe yeah no, like just god. They've been building this church for the last 150 years totally yeah, the west has a very funny relationship with stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, in multiple ways yeah, some good, some bad, but just unique, for sure, you know yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1:Anything good does take time a lot of time.
Speaker 3:That could be what you write up there. All right, sarah west husing, this has been a ton of fun thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I've loved it.
Speaker 3:I'm glad that you had fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so easy to talk to.
Speaker 3:Well, repetition teaches a donkey. That's my. I tell that to all my patients. I think why I have. You know, I interact with 25 different people a day, you know patients on average A day A day.
Speaker 3:You know patients on average so that times 15 years, you get pretty good about engaging with people. You know feeling them, where they're coming from. You know I don't get a chance to do a bunch of background research on my patients so that you know it's. Talking with people is easy for me, but learning their story and then integrating that into what feels like a natural conversation doesn't feel like an interview.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Is a really fun skill set that I want to keep getting better at.
Speaker 1:I think you've got it.
Speaker 3:Well, like you, man, it's good to stay humble. All right, sarah, thanks again. Thanks.
Speaker 3:Adam hey. Thanks for listening to Ben Magazine's the Circling Podcast. Make sure to visit benmagazinecom and learn about all the outdoor adventures in our area, as well as upcoming featured community events, local artist profiles, our dining guide and more. Remember, enter promo code podcast at checkout for your $5 annual subscription. Our theme song was written by Carl Perkins and performed by Aaron Colbaker and Aaron Zerflu of the Aarons. We love mail, so please send us comments, questions or art to thecirclingpodcast at binmagazinecom.
Speaker 3:Support the Circling Podcast by becoming a member on Patreon at patreoncom. Forward slash thecirclingpodcast and learn how your financial contribution will help support local nonprofits while also supporting local podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at thecirclingpodcast to learn more about past, current and upcoming episodes. Please subscribe to the circling podcast on all major podcast platforms and leave us a review. It really does help.
Speaker 3:I'd like to say a special thank you to all of those who participated in the making of this episode, as it wouldn't be the same without your contribution, and I appreciate your trust. Check out all the services that Sarah and her team at House of Milo offer, as it's their mission to approach each project with a holistic vision and a commitment to design spaces that are a true reflection of the clients living in them. Don't forget to stay tuned after the show. Credits for Sarah's contribution to the Circling Podcast Community Art Project exploring subliminal story art embedded with meaning. Lastly, if you know someone who you think would enjoy today's episode, please share it with them today. Hey, thanks for your time. Central Oregon, get outside. We'll see you out there. And remember the health of our community relies on us.
Speaker 1:Connection and family. I think community just feels like a larger extension of your family, extension of your family. I mean, I think, living in Bend, I feel like a lot of people here feel like family. I feel like brothers that I've known forever, and there's a Brandi Carlile song that I think of when I was writing that and it's the crowded table. She wants a seat, or she always wants to have a crowded table, a house with a crowded table, and I think that's how I want to live my life.
