Guest Post - A Day in the Life of a Designer

We are starting off my week of guest posts with a bang! Staci from Staci Edwards Design graciously accepted my request of writing up a "Day in the Life of" post.  She is an incredibly talented interior designer (check out her portfolio), an innovative blogger (she came up with the fun Cupcake Bake-N-Blog party) and I am proud to call her my friend. So without further adieu, here is Staci - hope you enjoy!
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Hello to all the readers over here at What's Up Whimsy! I am so happy to be doing a guest post for Shannon today while she is off enjoying her vacation...Jealous, but happy.  For those of you who don't know me, my name is Staci Edwards and I am a Designer and Blogger in Oakville, Ontario.  Feel free to visit my blog here.  Shannon, who has quickly become one of my Twitter and blog besties, contacted me last week and asked if I would do a guest post about "A Day in the Life of a Designer" (hence the title of the post), and I was very honoured and excited to participate.  I will do my best to keep the post fun, because as I found out while taking notes about my day, it turns out that my day to day routine is not as fun as I thought it was.  Funny.  Anyway, here goes...

6:00am - Wake up.  Yawn.

6:15am - Go for a run.  Despite the fact that I go for a run 3 times a week, I am not really a "runner"...I run about 3k, because that's all my little lungs can handle right now, but I do increase my run time each week to go longer.  Soon I will be a runner.

7:00am - Back home to get ready for day.  Thought: I love my hair when it is first done, but it falls flat and lifeless by mid to late afternoon.  Sigh.  If anyone knows of a magic product to prevent this, please do tell!

8:30am - Return some emails and make phone calls.  While doing this I eat a large bowl of fruit, melons to be exact.  I'm not a big berry fan unless it's a shake of some kind.

Via Hot N Steamy

9:45am - Leave, stop at Tim Horton's for my morning green tea (gotta love those antioxidants).  These are two of my favorite people at Tim's.  I know them as "Cookie" and "Cookie's Brother".  They are always so pleasant and smiley, which really helps to start my day off on a happy note.  Then off to the carwash (a clean SUV is a happy SUV) before I hit the highway.

10:00am - Head to Client A's basement reno.  I leave later in the morning to try to avoid traffic because no one wants to pay a designer for sitting in traffic.

10:16am - Someone catches me singing in the car, but Lady Gaga's song Bad Romance is on, so I continue belting it out in true Gaga fashion.

10:30am - Arrive at Client A's to follow up with electrical rough in.  Doesn't this look fun and glamorous? The funny part is that I really do love my job, but in photos it doesn't look as fun as I once thought.

11:30am - Leave Client A's.  Head to tile shop to return samples.  And because I feel bad about the lack of eye candy in this post I take a photo of my favorite tile that I cannot wait to use somewhere! Don't you just love the look of copper tile?

12:00pm - Leave tile shop, and head back to the highway.

12:09pm - Let a guy cut in front of me to get onto the highway and he didn't say thank you...Hate that!

12:14pm -  Onto highway to sit in traffic of course.  Thought: Shouldn't people be at work?

12:18pm - Behind a Phil Barn truck and now wondering what I would look like as a caricature.  Maybe like this?...If were a cowgirl that is.

12:30pm - Home to eat and deal with the 10 emails I have received since this morning.  I work from home, which is good in a way, but I am looking forward to having a real office one day and I want it to look like this...

Via Design Inc.

1:30pm - Leave and head to Client B's commercial office reno

1:45pm - Arrive, follow up with brick application and flooring/base installation, and meet with client.  Don't you love this brick on the walls? There is still a fair amount of work to be done, but that is my favorite element, it adds so much to this space.

2:30pm - Leave (with my now flat, lifeless hair) and head back home, or "to the office" I should say.  Once there I do all the fun stuff I promised to leave out of this post, such as: CAD drawings, invoicing, scheduling, phone calls, and of course emails.

5:30pm - I wrap for the day.  I have vowed to never be one of those business owners who let their business run their life, so I keep fairly regular office hours.

After I shut work stuff down I have dinner, try my best to not have dessert, and then relax for what's left of the evening.

Well, there you have it, now you all know about the exciting days designers live! Thanks again so much to Shannon for asking me to do this post on her very lovely blog.  I hope you all found my post a little interesting, and I hope to see you in blog-land soon.
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Thanks so much Staci for such an insightful (and incredibly funny!) post.  Don't forget to go and check out Staci's blog and website.  She is the best!! Stay tuned for tomorrow's guest blogger!

P.S. I have to get one of those fancy signatures!