LWL's NEW HEADQUARTERS
I am so excited to show you guys my new office today and share a little bit of the journey of Living with Landyn and how I have gotten it to this place. Living with Landyn really started out as just a hobby. A place where I could share my favorite things, what I was buying, what I was cooking, how I was decorating. I had always been asked about that by strangers on the street, friends & family and the website was basically a place for me to share all of that information. I launched my website in April of 2016 and I had NO idea that less than 18 months later I would be in the position I am today. That my hobby and my passion would turn in to a business that I was even more passionate about than I was that day the website launched last year. As a funny little side story, I was able to pay for my website with money that I earned “garage selling” my clothes on Shop Living With Landyn on IG to so many of you. So, in more than one way you are all a huge part of this brand. I have always been really conscientiousness about not using any of our money to support or build my company and it makes me SO proud to know that I have done this with my own two hands.
Unfortunately there is a downside to experiencing really rapid growth that you are not completely prepared for. My business has always been in and about my home. As part of the brand, I share my life and my home with you and I love that part; however, it can be hard on my sweet family. I didn’t have a way to turn it off, because work was always there and available to me day or night. There was no down time. I know so many of you who work from home and/or own your own business know exactly what I am talking about. My husband has always been so supportive and so proud of what I have accomplished and has never complained, but I knew that I had come to a point where for the long-term happiness of me and my family I had to separate church and state so to speak. I wanted a space where I could go in the morning, leave at the end of the day and come home and let family time and home life be just that. I needed a way for it not to consume my every waking moment.
This chair found here.
As I mentioned, because of the support you guys have shown me I was able to afford to lease an office space. I wish I could adequately explain how proud I am and what a huge accomplishment this is for me. Thank you to all of you. Thank you for allowing me to work with the brands I love, thank you for buying my products, thank you for trusting my advice and opinion and most importantly thank you for loving me just the way I am. I am just so excited about what this means for me and for the Living with Landyn brand.
Alright, now it is time to get to the good stuff. The actual office space. It really is the perfect. It is close to home and to the kid’s school, so it is really convienently located. It is a corner office with floor to ceiling windows that let in so much beautiful natural light. It is big enough for me, Anne Claire and Julia to work in together. Julia has been with me since last fall, but as many of you know she works primarily out of her home in Alabama. While I see her regularly, I needed someone who was local and could be with me in the office every day. Enter Anne-Claire, she is the newest addition to the team and she is my in-house photographer, videographer and graphic designer. It is so nice to have someone that can help me out with the more creative parts of the business. I have leased a second office space right down the hall and that is where we will run all of the jewelry and LWL merchandise out of. As you know I put out an all call for resumes and was overwhelmed by the number of people interested in working for me. 400 + resumes came in! I will be adding to the team in the future, so if you haven’t heard back from me, it doesn’t necessarily mean no. I have a folder with a bunch of resumes that interested me. I will definitely reach out when the time comes to add an additional team member. There's a desk waiting for one more!
When I first leased the office, it came with cherry laminate furniture that was included in the lease. From a business standpoint, it would have been smart to keep all of that furniture and not incur the additional expense of buying all new stuff. In fact, I left that day after leasing the space fully prepared to do that. But, after I thought about it I knew it just didn’t feel right. This year has been all about making pretty choices and I really wanted an office space that would allow me to be creative and inspired. A space that reflected me and the brand and that I would be excited to come to and so would my employees. So, I made a pretty choice and called the leasing agent that night and asked them to please move out all of the furniture the next day.
I now had an empty office space and a vision of the kind of chic, sophisticated office space that I wanted to create….and a very limited budget to create it. One Friday night, Steve was out of town for work and Luke was at a sleepover. Lily and I had a girl’s night and went all over town getting stuff for the office. We started with the Alex desks from IKEA, and built the rest of the space around those. We hit up all of my favorites Target, The Container Store, West Elm, and World Market. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how it turned out. I am a so excited to come here every day and if I am at home doing something during the day, I am wishing I was at the office.
I really did focus on making pretty choices in the office space even down to the smallest details. For instance, while standing in front of the printer aisle at the office supply store, I decided to spend the extra $20 on the white printer because I liked how it looks. There are so many cute, affordable office supplies out there that it is easy to pick a pretty gold paperclip holder over the plain black one or the cute tape dispenser over the standard office issue one. It has all come together to be a space I love and am so proud of. It is such an exciting time for me and I can not wait to see what is in store for Living with Landyn.
WHAT'S IN MY OFFICE
