Episode 122 - The Secret Ingredient Behind Tays & Co’s Award-Winning Design Magic

#122 | Laura & Joshua Tays | Tays & Co. | The Secret Ingredient Behind Tays & Co’s Award-Winning Design Magic

In this heartwarming episode of The Curious Builder, Mark Williams chats with Laura and Joshua Tays of Tays and Co about their journey from humble beginnings and career pivots to becoming award-winning designers. They share the story of building their business, the challenges and joys of working as a couple, and their passion for creating timeless, welcoming spaces that feel like a big hug. The episode is equal parts inspiration, relationship goals, and behind-the-scenes look at the creative process—from humble playrooms to stunning dream homes.

Listen to the full episode:

About Laura & Joshua Tays

A knack for color, a love of people, and a space in the window of a paint store on Grand Ave. in St. Paul started my journey in design 40 years ago. In that time, I’ve created beautiful spaces all over the US – from homes in the Midwest and cabins up north to western mountain condos and southwest desert getaways.

Resources:

Visit Tays & Co.’s Website

Visit Tays & Co.’s Instagram

Visit Tays & Co.’s Houzz

• Transcript

  Laura Tays  00:00

  That's what I want to create for people. It's like I want them to come into a house and just immediately, like you're in a hug. It feels elevated, but not. Nothing is too precious to use. Nothing is too precious to move around, to be tough with. You know, I try to make it and I try to make it timeless.

  Mark D. Williams  00:30

  Today on the podcast, we had Laura and Josh from taze and CO, and I've known them for a while, but it was really just a treat to get to know them on a much deeper level. And this one really is probably going to be called dreaming dirt in dishes, and you have to listen to podcasts to figure this out. But if you are not moved several times in this podcast, listening to the passion at both Laura and Joshua and how they speak about not only each other, but how they've really shaped their company, you're going to be it's going to be a special episode. So without further ado, here's Taz and Co. Welcome the curious builder podcast. I Mark Williams, your host today, I'm joined by a very special couple. I have got Taz and CO, and I've got Laura and Joshua here in studio. Hey, hey guys, Hola. Hola, so we've known each other now for a couple years. We had an informal group well before I started the curious builder collectives here locally in Minnesota, it was our s7 group. Yes, silent seven. Even though it was a lot of loud, there was definitely more than seven, yeah. And there was nobody was silent, the loudest people of all time. Yeah, all that oxymoronic Well, as we like to do, tell us a little bit about yourselves. I'd love to get kind of dive into your guys's histories a little bit, and we'll just start. We'll start diving in. How did you guys? I mean, you guys have such a cute, not cute. Your chemistry is off the charts. It was interesting. Maybe I'll just pay you with a compliment first. So, and this is really a compliment to your marriage, honestly. And what I've noticed having met you guys over the last couple years, of Joshua how he looks at you. So like, you see these, you see these movies where it's like, you know, Ra you know Gosling. Ian Gosling is looking at, you know, Emma, whatever Watson, or whatever her name was in whatever movie. I can't remember, Bucha, thank you. And it's like, when you speak. I noticed this Laura, like Joshua. I've never seen a gentleman look at their wife the way that Joshua looks at you when you speak, it's like, yeah, no, seriously, I've actually mentioned it to other people in the group, like, because you watch Joshua's eyes like he lights up when you talk like he is your biggest fan. And I even not knowing you guys, honestly that well, yeah, it's very clear that you to me anyway, I would assume you have a very good marriage, and I mainly because of how he adores you. But I, the reason I bring it up, other than to pay you that compliment, is on the website under Joshua's like bio, one of the things that it says was, one of his chief jobs was to make Laura happy. Oh, sure, for Yeah, straight up. Anyway, he's doing that from my point of view. Yeah. I

  Laura Tays  02:54

  mean, he, he is very sweet. He is a very sweet person. And if I'm happy. He's happy. That's the truth, and that's like to his core.

  Joshua Tays  03:03

  So, and I do, I pretty much admire you. I think you're really something.

  Katie Kath  03:08

  Wow. That's very sweet. And, yeah, just putting on a show,

  Mark D. Williams  03:13

  and we are on a show, so well played. I mean, I did start that. Okay. Hey, can you Venmo me that money, Please, buddy? Yeah, yeah. This is a new setup. Well, tell us a little bit about how you started tasing CO and what it is you do. I mean,

  Laura Tays  03:26

  yeah, so, so, essentially, for years, when I was born, essentially, I loved homes. I loved the way homes made me feel. We didn't have a lot growing up. You know, it kind of took time for my parents to they had four kids. They had kids early. There was just, you know, a lot going on, and so it took some time, but they always really cared about their home. My mom spent a lot of time making it the best she possibly could with what she had, and I always loved that. And so I always loved home, how I played as a little girl, right? Was rearranging, literally, like, the the utensil drawer and things like that, like that was what brought me excitement. I don't know why, but it just did, I still do it. She still does it right? I'm like, I need a day to just putts at home and, like, move things around and make them better and more pretty. But so, yeah, it was just always innately in me. And I think I, you know, did talk about becoming a designer someday, but truly, in my mind, it was always that's not something you can really do as a job. I grew up in a very small town, 800 people, so it just, you know, were you in Minnesota? I was, yeah, the little town's called West Concord, but super small town, literally to the point where they had to take three small towns and make them into one school, so, so very small, you know, and just like, not very culturally diverse, just all kinds of things, like, just a little bit sheltered, I think so that seemed like a dream job, dream world. My dad was always very supportive. I literally remember even when I was like, going to school to become a nurse. Him by. Me, like an interior design book, and kind of like, you know, oh, you know. And it was always like, That's very cute, but so he kind of also, I think, always knew that it was something inside of me. But anyway, went down just kind of a different path. Went and started school for nursing, then kind of switched to business management, and then was working more in kind of a management, business management role, kind of in the retail world. Then I met Josh, and that was kind of an unexpected meeting, I think for both of us.

  Mark D. Williams  05:30

  And Josh looks very like, oh yeah, where were you going to nursing school?

  Laura Tays  05:34

  Well, I was just going. So I started in just Rochester community college, and took my generals, and then transferred to Winona. Okay, so, but yeah, after, after working in that world, because I worked at the Mayo Clinic for a while, not as a nurse, but as a like a PCA, I just was, like, it just wasn't for me, not necessarily the care portion, but I think it was just, it was probably the bigness of the hospital, honestly, that kind of turned me off, and it just wasn't personal enough, right? I think again, going back to my growing up in a very small town, I like small groups, and I'm just more comfortable in that kind of world. And people know each other. Everybody knows everybody, kind of a thing. So that's changed over the years. I think I'm much more comfortable in a city now, and tend to get a little bored in a smaller town, but I still love the feeling. It's very nostalgic. So anyway, so yeah, we, we met. He had children, two, two children that are now, of course, my stepchildren. But so he had to be up here. And I was living down in Rochester, Minnesota at the time, and needed to, needed to come up here if we were going to be together, right? Because he was going to stay where his kids were, of course, so I kind of dropped my whole life and moved up here because he was, for sure, the one. And, yeah, it was like a whole new world for me. So I transferred in my position at the time, which was in a retail management and some district management of retail stores, and that lasted

  Joshua Tays  06:58

  maybe a year. Yeah, it wasn't super long,

  Laura Tays  07:02

  and it just kind of fizzled out, and I just wasn't happy in that job anymore. I tend to put my all into jobs way too much, honestly, to the point where I think it can be really bad for me actually. You know, just the balance part is really difficult for me, because I care too much about whatever it is I'm doing, I want everything to always be better, achieve more, do more, and so I think I just burnt myself out, honestly in that world. And he was like, just quit your job, like you're not happy. We'll figure it out.

  Joshua Tays  07:31

  How many years ago was this that would have been? So that would have been about 12 years ago? Yeah,

  Laura Tays  07:37

  probably about 12 years ago. So I quit. I didn't, I basically didn't work for like, a year. I mean, yeah, basically not for about a year I stayed home. That was also awful for me, because I'm not a person who stays home, which is great if people can do that. I like, commend that, and I I love to be at home, but I just have to, I'm a busy person.

  Joshua Tays  07:56

  I think you have this sense of, like, needing to be needed, yeah, you know what? I mean, yeah,

  Laura Tays  08:01

  for sure, which I think probably everyone to some degree, but yeah. So he was like, you know, you have always been so passionate about design. Why don't you just, like, try something, try it out. And I'm, I'm such a I'm not a risk taker. He's a huge risk taker. You know, I'm kind of, yeah, that's a nice dream. And he's more of a like, No, it's not, it's a reality. Just do it, kind of a person and kind of pushed me, there was basically a fundraiser at our kids school, essentially. And you know, different people would offer their services as part of the fundraiser, or items, or whatever services, or whatever it was. And so he's like, Well, you could just offer your design service and kind of donate your time, and it's getting yourself out there. And I was like, All right, so we did it. Got my first job, I guess, from that, and then, and it was just like a little playroom. It was very simple, but I did crush

  Joshua Tays  08:55

  it. And so we did. So we had 12 houses on that block, on

  Laura Tays  08:59

  the little literally, the same, really, basically, it was like one after another, after

  Mark D. Williams  09:03

  that, yeah, so you gave away, basically for this charity, or for this auction, a design service, and then got to 12 other

  Laura Tays  09:10

  Yes, it was like everybody on that street

  Mark D. Williams  09:13

  was, I was just at two charities a couple months ago for really good causes. And I was, Have you, have you ever tried that model again in terms of, like, donating your now that you're a very established, award winning designers,

  Joshua Tays  09:25

  you know, it's just before you asked that question, it popped back into my mind. I mean, I've thought about it from time to time just to expose ourselves to areas that we're not in. But, I mean, I think I also thought Ian to be

  Katie Kath  09:38

  a good person, and also, I'm just gonna add that part, oh, God,

  Joshua Tays  09:42

  of course, of course, too. But I mean, I think, like, if I want to just be doing something good and nice for people, I probably would choose something not related to work, because right then it would feel it would just so

  Laura Tays  09:54

  it doesn't feel like work, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But no, I mean, we haven't, but that's actually a. A great

  Mark D. Williams  10:00

  I mean, just the fact that you did the first one, you literally started your business off. Yeah, that's true. That's kind of it just was like, wow, that's really interesting.

  Joshua Tays  10:07

  Actually, points to something that, you know, Laura, Laura has kind of a firm policy about, like, we don't advertise. And I think that the very

  Katie Kath  10:16

  first, probably very stupid mind, it's business minded. I'm very different. I think

  Joshua Tays  10:20

  that the very start of our company just proves advertising works. So those of you thinking of advertising it, yeah,

  Katie Kath  10:29

  well, initially, I suppose, right, you know, but it wasn't really advertising. It

  Joshua Tays  10:32

  was, you just didn't mouth it. Just didn't think of it that way. The product was the advertising. Yeah, no, I guess

  Mark D. Williams  10:38

  that's true. Well, let's I want to go back to Josh's story to get up to a rapid now, this is just too juicy. The topic. What's your thought process on not advertising?

  Katie Kath  10:48

  I've just always, I don't know what my hang up is about it. And I think more and more recently, like, you know, I think people, you've just our employees, you know, everybody kind of thinks it's a good idea. I'm just such a I'm such an organic minded person, right? So like, I really like, if, like, we're going to be featured in a magazine or something like that, I want it to be that I earned that, that someone reached out, saw the work, thought it was incredible, and then was like, hey, we want to feature you, versus like, I'm reaching out, trying to get or paying to be in it, or something, which is not a bad thing to do. I completely understand that people do that, and it's very smart, and it sometimes you just need to. There's so much, there's so much design and beauty in the world, right? Like, how are you supposed to be noticed, right? But I guess I've just always, I've always liked that it's earned or

  Joshua Tays  11:39

  something, yeah, I don't know. I've always caught the sense from you that like there's a a diminishing of your value. If,

  Katie Kath  11:47

  yeah, maybe it feels fake to me, Ian, or something like you buying somebody, if

  Joshua Tays  11:51

  you have some kind of monetary contribution, or you actively seek out the validation in some way, shape or form, or seek out the way to get in front of people that, in some way, shape or form, that ticks in the back of your brain is like, you didn't actually do this. It it's not because what you your work was good, or you are good. It's because you did some kind of reach out. Yeah? Well, that's incentive. I

  Mark D. Williams  12:17

  think it's, you know, it's kind of like not everything is binary, black and white or zero and ones, right? I mean, I think you can see the self awareness that you realize that this is the construct that you've created around your mind and your brain and what what motivates you, and there's really no right or wrong on it, because you just acknowledge, like, Hey, I understand this. It reminds me, actually. So Michael Jordan, you know, famous competitor, obviously, he used to make up slights that didn't exist. He would say, like, Hey, Josh insulted me. And Josh be like, What do you talk to, you dude? And like, he if there wasn't an actual slight, he would make one so that it's kept him motivated. Sometimes you might not even know it. I think we all do this to some varying degrees, and sometimes we're on it, probably not as self aware as you like. We do create certain things that are motivating, because you could also have the inverted motivation. I'm I am published, therefore I have to be good, because now I'm published, because it could be because, because, you know what, it's a little bit. This is a I'll ask you this question. It's one of been one of my favorite family questions for a long time. Is it harder to dream or harder to achieve. I'll let both of you answer this. Is

  Laura Tays  13:23

  it harder to dream or harder to achieve?

  Joshua Tays  13:30

  That's, that's a there's, I think there's significant pain in both. I think if you dream like because if you dream and you never work to achieve. You have this longing for something that could be in your life, but also this like pain that's inside of you about like, well, I can't, or I shouldn't, or it'll be hard, you know, I'll never. And there's this. You see this. You see people that just kind of like ache their whole life, like do something in their life because they have to, but not because they like, really, really want to, or it's like the desire of their heart. And so there's kind of a tremendous difficulty in just dreaming. So I don't think it's difficult to dream, but if that's where it ends, there's like, a lot of difficulty in that and to achieve. Sometimes you get lucky and you achieve with very little effort. But on the majority, of the time, achieving takes more effort than you think you have in the tank, more than more than you probably imagined. But because you have a dream to fuel that need to achieve, you can minimize some of that pain with it, I guess. Yeah.

  Mark D. Williams  14:59

  I think that's very well said. Thanks.

  Laura Tays  15:02

  I think for me, it's probably harder to dream because it's, it's almost like, unbearable if I'm not achieving, if I'm not, like, constantly working, constantly having a task like that's very difficult, if you like, stop and think about doing all these things, and I'm constantly trying to make things better, or be more creative, or do something fresh and new, or whatever. There is so much energy to that, but that is very natural to me, versus dreaming. There is a part of it for me that has always been like that will never happen, though. So just kind of don't try not to get too big of dreams. Because, you know, I've always kind of shot myself down in that regard, I guess. And I don't know if that's from, I don't know, growing up, you know, in a smaller town and not being exposed to a lot of people that are doing a lot of really big things, you know, it was like, and not that that was a bad thing. You know, there was, like, this beauty in kind of a quiet life as well. But it has been always a little bit of like a fantasy world to me. I think, like in my gut, I know I'm, like, very capable of a lot of a lot of success, like I do have a lot of confidence in my skills, but I am also, like my worst enemy, and I'm very, very hyper critical of myself, even when you know I might be getting feedback that something's incredible that I've achieved, that to me, was hard, but seemed like, Well, yeah, I will always have in my mind a response of, well, it could have been better. Or they're, you know, people are just saying that. Or, you know, I have this weird thing that I do, I guess, that doesn't kind of allow myself to dream so freely, or something or or be validated. Yeah, I don't really accept a lot of validation. For some reason,

  Joshua Tays  16:59

  I think something I notice in you that that leans on that side of like achieving versus dreaming is like the act of doing is tangible, right? So it's right here, it's right now, and it can fill so much space. So like, there's no room for anything else to come in. If you are attacking a goal of some sort, whatever that is, right? And if you are stepping back and allowing space for, you know, dreaming or validation or whatever else, there is also space for bad stuff to come in. So there's space for that small feeling, yeah, like, fears,

  Laura Tays  17:48

  really, at the end of the day, right? Yeah, fear is like, not succeeding in whatever that dream is, right? Like, yeah, I do think I sometimes can let fears paralyze me to a point, right? Like, I think everybody does that to some degree. You know, they're like, Well, you don't know if you don't know, if you don't try. And, you know, there's all those sayings that everybody says, but yeah, do

  Mark D. Williams  18:06

  you? Do you feel that you have joy in the, in the, in the dream, you know? Because it seems like I was just thinking about, because I speak in analogies, evidently. And I was just thinking about pressure creates the diamonds, you know, I think observing the work you do, which is incredibly beautiful work, you guys are very talented. And, you know, you hear about, like artists, the tortured souls. I mean, there's all these stereotypes that accompany, you know, painters and sculptors. And ultimately, design is, is an art form in many ways. And so I wonder how much of that process is also painful people, yeah, but people love to say, hey, that's your superpower, but we all are constructs of the of our life that shaped us the choices we make, and it doesn't come out in our work. And I ask about joy is like, you know, you clearly find meaning in what you're doing, but do you find that it's hard for you to have joy with the work that you're doing because you're so critical of yourself,

  Laura Tays  19:03

  he wants to say, 100% it's hard for me to have joy, for sure. I mean, that's like, honestly, a really good observation so quickly and early on in this conversation, for you to see, yeah, I think I say that a lot, actually, I say a lot. I just want to feel peace. Like I don't feel peaceful. Like, I say that a lot to Josh, like, at home, privately, like, and the thing is, is, like the pressure, it truly is internal, like it's coming from myself. It is not outside pressures. I mean, on occasion, right? Like you want to please your clients and things like that. But, I mean, I could have a client say, oh my gosh, this is the most beautiful thing ever in the whole wide world, and I will still be like,

  Mark D. Williams  19:42

  you're holding yourself to such a high standard, so far beyond your client is actually not your issue at all, because you are so far beyond what your client would ever expect.

  Laura Tays  19:50

  And like you said about you know that sometimes that's like a positive. I do think it's a positive. I think it's a negative. Of course, just well. Living in that kind of state of mind all the time, and I do work on that, like, right? I'm constantly thinking, like, how can I just relax and, like, not be so tough on myself and like, but I also think it's what drives me and pushes me to not just accept, okay. You know, especially in design, if I'm like, looking at a space, it's like, yeah, it's okay, like, or it's, it's probably more beautiful than most people might ever be able to experience. But I'm still, like, there's something off, or there's something's not quite balanced, or, you know, could it be, could it be better? So, yeah, I'm trying to learn to be more joyful, you know? But, yeah, it is. It is like a heart. It's a personality thing, for sure. For me, I am a little bit of a, like a tortured artist. I would say that inside my own brain. I

  Mark D. Williams  20:46

  mean, I say that as your friend and someone that has been with you, I can see it in some of your reactions. And so in not that we not a psychologist, but I do find it interesting. Well, just from the standpoint that I don't think any every asset has its con, and every con has its asset, like every pro and con, like, they all balance out. You know, today I was talking to designer who's extremely extroverted, and, you know, her husband is very introverted, and it's very similar in my home. And so it's like, there's no right or wrong. They're just different. And like, they complement each other very well. And you know, I'd love to hear your point of view on this, Josh, that you know what, what do you see? I mean, I'm guessing. I mean, honestly, this might even go back to the way that I see you value. I'm curious if you knew that about yourself. I'm guessing you Did you also feel it. But I wonder if you knew that everyone else could also feel it that I wonder if, what maybe this is going back to, like a dating it's like we're going back to the to me right now, everything is relationship, because you guys balance each other out so nicely. I wonder, from your point of view, Josh, do you even know that? Did you know you were doing it? Or was that why you guys are so good together as a couple and as a as a working relationship as well? Because it's like I see the joy oozing out of you, but the joy is directed at you, Laura. And so it's interesting that I bet you that there's a balancing in your relationship and in your work. That'd be my guess.

  Joshua Tays  22:13

  Yeah, I think. I guess sometimes I know that that's happening, and sometimes I am aware that my wife needs some of that, because we do have a lot in our career and our life that is worth being joyful about. Last was it last night or two nights ago? Either way, in the last couple of days, we were just at home, I had to take in the neighbor's trash, and he he has an easement to our property, so through our property to get to his. So I walked through our yard to his and took his trash can back, and was walking back, and like it looked like we were out of the nicest Park in town, just these trees overhanging the drive, and it's dusk and lovely, and everything was perfect. And I just was like, oh my god, this is, this is the life we've created for ourselves. And meanwhile, we're do we're also like, trying to landscape and do all of this fixing up of this older house that we bought, and sometimes get caught in the minutia of that and all of the like, things that we have to do,

  Katie Kath  23:24

  or it's not what we want it to be, yet, you know. And,

  Joshua Tays  23:28

  and I just, I was able to see that moment, and I had to go inside immediately and peel her off of the couch where she was working on a project, of course, at like, you know, seven or eight at night or whatever. And I was like, You got to come out here and feel this feeling. You need to see what our like, what this is. And, yeah, I think she's perfectly capable of feeling that joy, but because she is also, aside from, you know, a critic of herself. She's so driven that sometimes that's like, all that's in her face is that next thing. So, yeah, I do try to give her a chance to step back and see what what's already happened and what is you know in the moment with us. Yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  24:18

  this episode is brought to you by adaptive if you're still chasing checks and juggling spreadsheets, it's time to upgrade. Adaptive is revolutionizing how builders get paid with AI powered bill pay, automated draws, one click payments and built in Lean waivers, Faster Payments, fewer headaches and total visibility. Adaptive takes care of the back end chaos so you can focus on what you do best, building. We've used adaptive for two and a half years, and trust them to keep our projects moving and payments flowing. Learn more at Adaptive dot build and simplify the Pay Process today. For more information, you can also listen to episode 10 and episode 15. This episode of The Curious builder is brought to you by Olive and Vine socials. If you're a builder, a. Designer or an architect looking to grow your brand without dancing on Tiktok or spending your whole life on social media. Listen up. Alvin vine social specializes in Pinterest marketing, blogging and email strategy for luxury home brands, they help you turn your beautiful work into a strategic SEO driven content that drives real traffic and connects you with your ideal clients without burning you out, ready to grow smarter and not harder? Visit olivenvine socials.com and tell them the curious builder set you just so you know, I've been working with Alyssa over at Olive and Vine for three years. She helped us launch the podcast. She's helped us grow our brand at Mark Williams custom homes. I could not do what I've done without her help, and I'm more than happy to announce that she's our latest sponsor for the curious builder podcast. Let's go back to your beginning, Josh, and you know you had, you know you were doing live events. You're doing graphic design. How did you find your way? Let's go back to the origin of the company, but let's get back your background. So Laura comes into your life, what was kind of your background? And let's talk about the seeds that started. So you had these 12 jobs that happened on the street. How did you decide to leave the job that you would have been in to start days and CO and let's walk through, you know, kind of briefly, where you're at today, and we'll talk a little bit more about

  Joshua Tays  26:15

  that, sure, I guess. So I I like to be helpful, you know, like, I think he

  Laura Tays  26:21

  was doing what you pointed out and saw a need of mine, yeah? Which was, Oh, if I could just see these ideas I'm having, right? I'm not a technical person. So any of the beautiful renderings or anything that you see that come out of tasing CO that's all Josh. So do those in house? Yeah? So absolutely, oh, wow, he doesn't love it impressive. Yeah, thanks. So, so, yeah, I had a need, for sure. He was just like, maybe I can figure out how to do SketchUp. Yeah, at first, do it while I'm at work.

  Joshua Tays  26:53

  Yeah. At first, it was like, Okay, you need someone to hang up art and decor and help you unload trucks and load the storage area and whatever. And it was like, that's great. That's we can bond, we can do these things together. It'll be fun. And then, yeah, then it was, okay, I'm having such a hard time showing my vision to people. How could we do that? And so I just was like, Well, you know, I know people model stuff. We why not? We'll try it. And so we took that on during a project, and I would kind of like, you know, have these real long work days and also be out of town. And so I could, you know, if I got back from a show done with a show at 10 or 11 or whatever, I could spend the next till three or whatever in the morning, like, just kind of drawing, and know that I'm not keeping her awake, or, you know, being a bother or anything. So had time to kind of like learn these things, and then once, you know, once it got decent at it, it was really helpful to the business. And we probably would have made the choice to just kind of dive all into it, if we were both risk takers earlier on, but we essentially got forced into taking the risk. Because, like I said, I was doing live events. Was doing sound, you know, for things kind of all over the country, and

  Mark D. Williams  28:15

  so music, movies.

  Laura Tays  28:16

  He was an audio engineer, okay, actually, what his title was, and so he got to travel all over, and it was all different types of things,

  Joshua Tays  28:23

  yeah. So I started in the industry, touring in bands, playing bass. I moved to doing sound with bands, and then I, you know, I toured around with bands, and also, you know, churches and some stuff locally, and then got into what they call the corporate world of this. And so, yeah, that included things for large corporations, they do sales events and award shows and,

  Mark D. Williams  28:45

  you know, like a live, like a live

  Joshua Tays  28:48

  podcast, something like that, like NPR, or whatever, you know. So you know,

  Mark D. Williams  28:52

  you've hit it big when you produce the curious builder podcast, live, huge, huge, huge.

  Joshua Tays  28:56

  I will be leaving my card and praying every night, so we'll see. Yeah, but yeah.

  Laura Tays  29:03

  So I think we always dreamed of like, he loved his job is so, like he was very good at his job. And I think we always dreamed of like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if you could not do that job anymore? So your aid not gone so much, because literally, already, how

  Mark D. Williams  29:19

  old were you? How old were you? How old were your children at that time

  Laura Tays  29:23

  when we met? They were eight or four, yeah, and so and, I mean, that was the majority. I mean, until COVID hit, really, he was gone about half of the time, literally gone on the road. So we were very used to that. And actually we our relationship kind of flourished that way. You kind of always miss each other, right, right? Yeah. So you're very focused on each other when you're back together and even when you're apart, right? He's trying to be helpful and whatever. But yeah, when COVID hit, it was, like, there are no more live shows. Yeah? I mean, he was self employed, like, so he worked for lots of different companies. They would call him, Hey, we have a show. And so you're

  Mark D. Williams  29:59

  essentially. Were moonlighting with graphic design to help support. Was it called TAs and CO at that time? At what point did you name it TAs and cos?

  Laura Tays  30:06

  No, it wasn't. No, we had

  Joshua Tays  30:08

  a sweet name. It was terrible. What was it

  Laura Tays  30:11

  posh digs. So I literally had somebody once I COVID, I posted something on, you know, on like, Instagram years ago, right? And, and something under my posh digs name, and some random person, you know. So I was like, there is nothing about this that is posh. I was like, Man,

  Mark D. Williams  30:34

  the emergence of trolls knows that means you've made it right.

  Laura Tays  30:36

  And then I was kind of like, you know what? They're kind of right, though I wouldn't say posh is the way I would describe, yeah, the design at all. But, you know, I think I was just trying to be cool or something, I don't know, like, come up with something real quirky, like,

  Joshua Tays  30:49

  it's a band name, right? Yeah? So that's

  Mark D. Williams  30:53

  amazing. So fast forward. So COVID hits, Josh is out of a job, yeah? Yeah. You've been honing your craft at this time for four or five years. Yeah,

  Laura Tays  31:01

  he was literally working two full time jobs at that point. He was doing all of my renderings for every project, and really was very heavily involved in all of the projects, but also on the road. And then, yeah, that stopped, and it was like, well, let's go. There's any time, you know, now's the time. And it was absolutely the best thing we ever did. Like, it was, we are very good together. We we are a ying and a yang, right? There's so many things that we like, align on and are similar on, like, a lot of the same things, but we're also very different personality wise. Like, obviously, I think you can tell very quickly, like, he leans very optimistic, you know, glass half full. I'm like, everything's gonna fall apart, you know, like, but we balance each other out in that way. Because sometimes I think he can almost go too far the other way, like, too positive, or too whatever, where it's like, hey, but we should consider that things could happen. And, you know, we have to have a plan for those things. So, yeah. So, yeah, it, it was, like, kind of the best thing we ever did. I think even though he was kind of, you know, helping full time and whatever, there was never a true ownership for him in like what we were doing. And so I think that was really good for him to be, to feel like he was truly like a part of it. He had a role and things like that. But that took time, right, like it, you we are very good together. But man, that first,

  Joshua Tays  32:20

  I would say it took almost a year. Maybe I was just gonna, I was just thinking in my head, like, it probably took us, it probably took us three, four years to, like, really dial our

  Laura Tays  32:33

  roles and things like that, right? Yeah, because we're both still, we're both very stubborn people, and we're both very driven, and we both kind of want to be the one, right? Like, I'll be the one to make the choice, or I'll be the one that, whatever. But I think once we kind of figured out, like, you be the one in your department, and I'll be the one in my department, and we, like, don't step on each other's toes too much. That was good, but yeah, those first like, especially because it was like, COVID hit, okay, everything stops. You're not going anywhere top of each other, on top of we've never been together full time, really. Even though we had been together, we've been married for whatever, eight, nine years at that point, that was not a thing, you know, it was like. And then we were working together out of our house, constantly sitting right next to each other at this small little table at the time. So

  Joshua Tays  33:22

  Mark, I'm gonna, I'm gonna drop a truth bomb on you right now. I don't always look at her the way that I look at her.

  Laura Tays  33:29

  And tell you if I were to

  Mark D. Williams  33:30

  eat next to him, the noise, the the

  Joshua Tays  33:34

  glare, it's like, it's like this, I'm trying to work and I'm mine. Her Apple is in my ear, yeah? And it's just like, I'm trying to be like, Oh, it's cool.

  Laura Tays  33:50

  He will. He'd give me this look, death look over his just disgust, yeah. And then that look, in turn, would make me live it right? It's like, wow. I'm just trying to, like, nourish my body. And you can't, you know, I like, a basic need of my life. So, so that, you know that was tough. Some of those moments, some of those moments were like, you know, it literally was, I literally can't stand the way you eat. I cannot stand the way you chew. This is like, I can't, and I had things too. It was like, just stupid little things like that that you're not you don't pick up on when you're knotted together constantly. So we, kind of, early on, were like, We got to get a studio. We got to get out of this house. We can't be here. And in the same literal like, five,

  Joshua Tays  34:39

  five feet from the lip. And just so the we were working in the lofted space in the condo we were at which we could, we could fall off of it into the living room so it was didn't

  Laura Tays  34:52

  have a railing. No, we took it out. It was ugly.

  Joshua Tays  34:56

  We just said Coach mode and

  Mark D. Williams  34:58

  made it feel better. Yeah. Yeah, did the kids ever put pillows down below and jump off into the pillows? No, they

  Joshua Tays  35:03

  didn't really do that. Yeah, no. I mean, it wasn't a terribly high it

  Laura Tays  35:07

  was like five feet up. Oh, okay, yeah, so it wasn't super high. But anyway, so yeah, but that worked itself out. We got a condo, or we got a studio.

  Mark D. Williams  35:16

  Is that the studio that I visited? Yep, so

  Laura Tays  35:20

  and, yeah, we've been at that studio for what, three and a half, almost four years, almost four years now, which does track, I guess, with COVID being five years ago. So, yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  35:29

  that's, that's, that's pretty great how, I mean, I can totally relate. My wife and I dated long distance. And, you know, it's that rush. You don't see each other for a week or two, then you see each other. It's like, this story book thing, and then you're there every day, and they're like, man, it wasn't me, though. It was definitely the wife, like, man, you're annoying when you're around all the time. Where I was like, Hey, I was like, a happy dog. I was a happy dog at a park. Like, there's balls everywhere. This is great. Yeah, it's so funny. The same with the eating thing, whenever, actually, anyone, our family, eats cereal, which I don't eat cereal a lot, but the kids, it's the it's the milk, the way you like, it's like, oh gosh, my wife, banana. I love your thing. Like, I'm sorry that nourishing my I'm gonna use that line. I'm sorry that nourishing my body is offending you, right? Yeah, it's such a great line, because apples do sound not really like it's that satisfying crunch of a Honeycrisp. Look at him. He's already just getting nails

  Laura Tays  36:15

  on. The funniest thing is, like, even now we do, we do work physically, like, side by side a lot, right? Because he's doing the rendering, and I will stay in your office on until lunchtime. Yeah, then I'm about to show I

  Joshua Tays  36:29

  just want to, I just want to have some soup right now. So I'm going to come in your office

  Katie Kath  36:33

  for sure. It's like the minute I need to eat. I'll come

  Mark D. Williams  36:36

  in to talk to him, because you can relax, because now you can do two things at once. You can eat and talk totally and

  Katie Kath  36:40

  he cannot. He keeps, not multitask, but yeah, you can eat and talk. Yeah.

  Joshua Tays  36:46

  So that's the extent of it. Yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  36:49

  that is amazing. So your clientele at the time, so, I mean, you've worked on, we'll talk. Maybe I'll just tease this now. So if you are not familiar with days and CO, you need to go check out their website. It'll be in the bio. But you know, last year, you guys won Best in Show for the Midwest design awards, and you guys cleaned up. Was like, 14 awards. It was like, you know, 23 Dang. I was pretty close. Oh, and I was being, that's even me being exaggerating, my normal self. Usually people take whatever I say and divide it by two. But in this case, people, I was really close. Anyway, my point was, I mean, that house was insanely beautiful. And where, I guess, where I'm going with this is, how did you see that ramp up to the work that you're working on now? Because, you know, your stuff is because I assume you're building stuff around the country as well. It's not just Minnesota,

  Laura Tays  37:34

  yeah, I think, honestly, it was the a little bit luck. I mean, I think, obviously, you know, we have skill and talent and things, but the kind of the very first new build project that I got to work on, right? Because when I very first started, like I said, my very first project was a playroom, and then it was like, Oh, we want you crushed it, but I crushed it, yeah, you know, so, but thank you. But then it was like a full main living space. And then it was like, Oh, well, you're gonna have you do a small remodel of our house. And it just kind of grew. But eventually I got, this is a full build, and there wasn't a lot of budget constraints. Obviously, there was never, like an endless budget. But how did you meet the person? Or how did that they saw work? Basically everything, everything up until, you know, we were published, which I don't even remember when that first happened was that everything was word of mouth. I never, I didn't post. I didn't have a website. I didn't have a website. Mark until this year, live ever. Okay, so, like, when I say I'm, like, really driving home, this, like, I don't advertise thing, like I was really driving at home, which is I completely get is not smart, I think

  Joshua Tays  38:44

  for seven years, a splash page that said, coming soon,

  Mark D. Williams  38:47

  literally, literally, that's amazing. Talk about a teaser. I really

  Laura Tays  38:51

  like to build it up. Yeah, when

  Mark D. Williams  39:00

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  Katie Kath  40:11

  So I got very lucky, because I think I had always when I was working on smaller projects or remodels or things, I was always thinking, man, wouldn't it be amazing if I could really do what I know I'm capable of doing? Well, then I got this opportunity, kind of fell in my lap, and it was like, do the cool thing, try the extra customized item, and things I hadn't really gotten to do. And I think it was just right away I was able to then show a whole nother side or level of design that I was capable of. Do

  Mark D. Williams  40:42

  you feel like that was the thing that really tipped the scales or put rocket fuel on your it

  Katie Kath  40:46

  was that project for sure, yeah. And it was, yeah, it's the Gull Lake cabin project. If anybody wants to go look it up, oh, I'm gonna check it out now, yeah. But it was like that was kind of our first real it was his first kind of full rendering a home and we

  Joshua Tays  41:01

  render some partial projects, but yeah, but the full Yeah,

  Katie Kath  41:05

  and yeah, it was a, it was a really good result. The house was really beautiful in the end, but it was truly like, yeah, it was truly my

  Joshua Tays  41:15

  baby. I wonder so if I just want to circle back to this, if, if what we're trying to get out here is, what's the takeaway for a young team trying to find their ramp up, I would say the through line which got us to this project, which really kind of kicked off our, you know, kind of like colossal portion of our career, if you want to call it that, is that At every, every project we ever had. Laura was insistent that it be better than what the budget of the project is. So she like we had, it was a lot of smallish projects, but we over extended what we were offered like what we should reasonably be offering people. It was giving more than what time maybe that what we were what we were being compensated for. It was extra time to find the one piece that fits inside of this budget that feels like a piece in the next level up and and not accepting anything less than that, which made every one of these projects, which were, you know, a little bit smaller in scope, a little bit smaller in budget, feel like something that would be enticing to someone that wanted to do a true like kind of dream home. I

  Mark D. Williams  42:39

  mean, that's really, thoughtful. And, you know, well, said again, Josh, you should be a poet laureate here. Well, I'm

  Katie Kath  42:45

  just really he, like, makes me look terrible. No, no, I always say He's like, he's super well spoken, yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  42:51

  well, I forget the thing. He said he had some what was the technical thing? He said, I don't know, but you and I, maybe, maybe Laura and I are more similar. I'm like, you lost her at the inline murder Tommy boyco, but, oh, that's because it was audio tech, non linear editor. Yeah, there we go. It's like, what is he talking about right now? Yeah, when you were, I mean, was that a deliberate choice? I mean, it seems like it was that you were always going to under promise and over deliver. I mean, that's the tagline, if you will, meaning like you always want to give more than it was expected. Was that a drive that you were conscious of? Or, like, when did you become aware of it? The way that Josh just articulated,

  Joshua Tays  43:29

  I actually can't believe that you weren't conscious of that, because it was like, it's just that.

  Katie Kath  43:36

  It's that thing that's baked into me, of like, it's not good enough. A little better, it's not good enough. But see, there's the positive of it, yeah, there is like, and I truly it like, he said, like, it's, it's kind of a non negotiable in my brain, you know? And sometimes I think I do kind of drive certain people probably on the project crazy, because I'm like, it's not right, that's not the right thing to do, and we shouldn't just do it because it's easier or it's faster. Do

  Mark D. Williams  43:59

  you find yourself in conflict with builders? Because sometimes, you know, everyone has their part to play. Because you do, you do architecture, or we do architectural design, you do architectural design, but you also work with architects as well, correct? Yeah. So when you have a builder, like, obviously, the one you worked on, it was like, what maca architecture, Marka and nor son like that was three, you know, separate people. And we won't use that job for the question, but just to make sure that this question frames is like, as a builder, you know, one of our jobs is to get the job done, to build it. And then second is, obviously, to align with whatever the budget expectations are. Yeah, when you are there is an art form. It's not science, it's art, and it meets in the middle. I know you know this, because he wouldn't be here if you weren't. How do you balance that? It you know you know what. This is good, but it's not quite good enough, especially when a lot of the other people, including the client, don't really see that. Yeah, have you ever run into conflict where either the project has held up or. Someone's asking for, you know, this spec or design, or the builder saying, hey, we need to move. Has that ever been an issue?

  Laura Tays  45:06

  So, I mean, everything has, like, I think, a learning and a growth process, right? And I think we're continuing to do that all the time, right? How do we better do this? How do we how are we more efficient? How are we trying to stay on budget, all of those things, and there's absolutely been missteps. Like, there's just, you know, you push somebody too far, or you say, Oh, I think this is really important to the space, and we should do it, but maybe it is a little bit outside of what they were hoping to spend, and things like that. So I think that's definitely something that's been on my mind in the last, like, probably year or two, of like, how do I be as respectful as I can with a client on considering, of course, their budget and trying to stay within that? And one way, like, I think that we've kind of tried to communicate that a little bit more now with clients on the front end is, you know, kind of saying we have this way we can design where, like, we can just design the space based off of what it is. You're telling me you want, you're telling me your dream. You're showing me inspiration photos like, can I just build design it, which is not always the smartest way to do it financially for us, probably, but design it and then let you we bid it out, and let you choose what gets removed. If anything gets removed, if it's over what we were hoping to spend, then take things out, but then you've seen what's possible, and you can be the person to make the call on what drivers see, what needs to stay like, because sometimes you do, you think of things often, almost always, I'm thinking of something that the client didn't even think of, or didn't even know was possible for their space, right? And probably anybody that's doing design can do that right? Because you're like, Hmm, I can. I What about this? Or this would function better, actually, if they did it this way, or things like that. So, but it's such a hard thing, I think, when you're designing custom homes, to really know, like, what it's going to cost, because sometimes it's the first time you've designed

  Mark D. Williams  47:01

  that. I mean, it's, it's a prototype, yeah, right. I mean, unlike starting

  Laura Tays  47:05

  from nothing, or I'm starting from, like, maybe something I've kind of done, but there's this new take on it. And so I just try to be as honest with people about that. Now, I don't think in the past, I always was, because I think I just wasn't even aware, you know, it was like, Oh, I'm gonna design this super awesome thing. And then it's like, you get the bid back, and you're like, holy cow. You

  Mark D. Williams  47:25

  know this might I meant to say this earlier in the conversation. My dad was a builder, built maybe 800 to 1000 homes over his 3040, year career. And I remember asking him as a kid, I said, when you go through your home, what do you see? And he said, I see 10 things I could have done to make the job or could have made it better. And I think he said is, like, you could never go through a house and not see ways to make it better, and you know, you were kind of using it as a negative. But I think that's true of anyone that creates something they in. I think, you know, I can only speak for myself, like I look at how my career has progressed, and the level of talent and skill and knowledge I've acquired. The homes I build today, I'm proud of every home I've ever built. They've always been good quality, but the sophistication and the architecture partners, the design partners, were just a we're a different animal than we were, you know, 15 years ago, even 10 years ago, and even five years ago. I mean, you continue to evolve and get interested in new things, and it helps define who you are. But there's no home that I can't go into and find out, you know, 10, you're probably fine. 50, oh, yeah, you know things, and it's not what you don't know, and it's not, I don't think it's necessarily a negative thing. No, I think it's just being aware now what we choose to share with the client, like I wouldn't go to a past clients home it'd be disrespectful, in my opinion, for me to go and point all the things I should have done differently because hindsight. But I think it goes back to now I'm speaking to just the broader audience of builders. Is just that, you know, we're building prototypes every time, and I think it would be extremely self righteous for any of us to think that we can nail a prototype right on the first time, you name anything. I mean, I mean, I was just listening to a book tape about the Wright Brothers developing the airplane, you know, hundreds of things crash. You know, Thomas Edison famously said he goes, I didn't create a light bulb. I created 1000 things that didn't light up, or something along those lines, like failure, you know, precedes success for sure. And it is that iteration process that makes you what you are. And you know that, I think the real thing is, can we learn from the thing that we would have improved so next time it's better?

  Laura Tays  49:25

  Yes, for sure. So I think that's definitely like, what yeah, like, we're always trying to do effectively is like, Okay, this could have gone better, or this could have been whatever. We could have considered this budget more, or we could have communicated something earlier, or whatever, and that all comes with like, the more you organize your processes and how you're doing everything. And you know, we really would love best case scenario every time to be that the house is 100% designed, every selection is buttoned up, and everything's documented in its hand over, and it's bid and it right on budget, and we start right on the day that's. He was the optimist, yeah, you know. And that's like, I mean, and that would be like, ideal, you know, but it's just like, you know, sometimes you get the client comes in, they're like, Oh, we want to break ground in two months. And you're like, well, holy cow. Like, it's just it takes so much more time than that, and, you know, so, yeah, you can kind of make people frustrated sometimes, when they want something that's just, they don't understand that. Maybe it's not possible or not. Maybe you can't do it well in that time frame,

  Joshua Tays  50:26

  when it comes to kind of the possibility of conflict with various trades people or general contractor on this concept of like, we have to do it right? It's, it's, it's inevitable, right? Because we're all people, and everybody's doing a job, and there's, you know, everyone has their own sense of ownership in that. So if we're coming at things with kind of new ideas, different ways of doing things that are going to be challenging and or not require, like, going through that same traveled path, following that, that rut, that place that feels easy, you know you're not going to mess up, that that brings fear into people. What if we don't, to your point, do it right the first time? What if that has some kind of cost, and this feels scary and just that initial like, trigger can just start a conflict. And I think that also, because people have been doing this for a long time, they've experienced that kind of like, let's try something new, and been burned, you know, and have their own prejudices going into this. So like, oh, well, you're the designers. You're designing something we can't build. And I don't, I don't think this of everybody, but it's a thing that can happen. And often for us, we're not working with the same teams over and over. So it takes a minute to build this rapport that says, like hey, we can do this together as a team. That says like hey, when you when you come up against something and it's not the way you do it, instead of just doing it the way you do it, give us a call. Maybe we can figure this out together, you know, and we can have our like, collective brain trust be better than any of the individuals of us. And so yes, there can be conflict because of it, but it's also as long as everyone involved is willing to try and ameliorate that it can be squashed and also end up being the things that that that become, like these Apex moments in careers for everybody. So

  Laura Tays  52:48

  we because nothing that's easy is awesome, and you know what I mean, and also, like super easy ends up being super awesome, exactly. It's the things that are very difficult, and when you achieve those and they turn out, and you put everything into it as a team, that it's like, holy cow, you know, we did that cool thing or whatever, and made it successful, yeah?

  Joshua Tays  53:09

  And then for those trades people, you know, that part of the project that they were involved in, like, that's a thing they can do now, and that's a value add that they have, where before, it was this intimidating thing that's keeping me from getting to these 10 other jobs that I got to do. But now they have a premium product, a new skill, and it's and and then we have this also cool working relationship that we had to get through some hurdles to.

  Laura Tays  53:36

  But it might depend on the type of builder too, right? There's so many different things to consider and that. So I think the biggest thing that we've learned over the years is sometimes it's about having these conversations really early on, of like, do you want to be a super customized builder and provide, you know? Or do you want to, yes, still build beautiful homes, but you need to. You are all about like, this, schedule is priority and this, you know, I mean,

  Mark D. Williams  54:01

  so much of it depends on the client. Oh, for sure. You know, my favorite quote last year, I've said it 1000 times in the podcast, is boundaries create freedom. And there's so many boundaries that give beautiful shape. You know, the budget is a boundary, the design team, the builder. Those are boundaries the client. You know, I think the client often needs to be self educated that they I don't want to say that boundaries not negative thing in the way I'm saying, Yeah, I think boundary is like bringing shape to what it is, no different than the land. You know, we're on a really tight lot right now for me. So who's project? And we have to get super creative on how we build it, because there's just no room on the site to do anything. Yeah. And I was just thinking, speaking of that you know about. I think the courage to fail is super important in terms of a mindset we have. In fact, I just had this call today. We're doing our 12 zip panels on the outside of this home, and there's not a lot of builders in Minnesota that have done our 12 I've asked around, and everyone's like, why? They don't even say yes or no. They just say, why are you doing this? Like, Well, okay, that answers that question, yeah. And there is someone so Michael anshel from orogawa and shell does a lot of remodeling. I've had him on the podcast, and he is just a, you know, an incredible person of knowledge. And for me, I'm like, Can I hire you to come teach our framing crews to how to do work out this detail? Because my framer was already, like, wait a minute, I have to have four inch nails. My guns are two and a half. I got he was already throwing shade. Yeah. I'm like, we're doing this. Like, this isn't, this isn't a, if this is a when, like, let's, let's do this. And I said, don't worry about it. I will bring in somebody. And the first person I thought of was someone had on the podcast. And, you know, I would say, I mean, this isn't meant to be a humble break. I guess it is. But like, Oh, let me get a microphone. But like, asking for help is a superpower. I don't know most things. I am not. I don't, I don't suffer from asking for help. My first call was to another builder, and said, Hey, can you help me educate my guys? Because I'm not the detail guys. I I'm a big vision guy. I'm, you know, I want to be the encourager, the rah, rah, rah. I want to figure it out. But sure, shooting like, I don't care if I forgot, fly someone in from Switzerland, like, we will figure this detail out. Yeah, won't be me, but it will be someone who knows what they're doing, and, you know, within one phone call, he's like, Yeah, let's do it in two weeks and let's get it done. Like, great, yeah, that's awesome. Anyway, the point of it is, you can't be afraid of failing, especially if you want to do something different. Now, if you want to do what's always been done, that's fine. We have a place for that. We need those homes. I'm not there's it's really, where does your creativity and where does your business want to go? You've already demonstrated like, you know, this person at the Go Lake cabin, you know, gave you full flight to like, let's go. I have a question. I wanted to ask you, what percentage of the work that you do, interior design and architectural drafting or drawing, of the jobs that you do, how many, how often? Or is it both? And how often? Is it just the one?

  Laura Tays  56:54

  I would say now, and more recently in the last year or two, we are typically doing both architectural design and interior design and furnishings. It's, it's kind of like a full the full meal deal, start to finish. Kind of a situation

  Joshua Tays  57:12

  you want here, a really cheesy thing, yeah, okay, make this up.

  Mark D. Williams  57:15

  I always forget. Okay, you already know what he's gonna say. I already

  Laura Tays  57:20

  want this. It's just very cheesy, and it's probably, it's great, it's alliteration.

  Joshua Tays  57:23

  So the thing is, I like to say when I like to say that we like to say we go from dirt to dishes. So we want to be in the process from the point we're breaking ground and even just thinking about the grounds through the architect architectural development, through the interior finishes and design all the way down to the place settings, so that every inch of this, like vision of life that we're creating, we've touched and made sure it's all a perfect little match. Well, I

  Mark D. Williams  57:57

  don't know what we're gonna I was gonna call this dreaming and achieving. But I think it's dreaming, dirt and dishes.

  Joshua Tays  58:05

  It's very alliteration. I do love my I do love, love that. But

  Laura Tays  58:10

  I, you know, maybe, yeah, maybe 75%

  Mark D. Williams  58:14

  Yeah. So a lot. I mean, that's amazing, yeah. How often are, you know, in our market, specifically, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. You know, you know, geographically, geographics have a huge part to play in terms of where the client engages. You know, I always, often say that the coast, it seems like it's architects first, because that they're more used to that scenario. The South and the Midwest tend to be a lot of designers. Upper Midwest. In the Midwest also tends to be a lot of builders, like in Minnesota, particular we have, I would say builders have a sort of a stranglehold, and I think it's due to the fact that the Parade of Homes and housing first has been around for 75 years. It's the oldest in the country in terms of so people have grown up seeing builders. I guess my question is, is the clients that come to you? Are they already attached to a builder, or are they coming through your brand and through the Coming Soon? Website referrals, the advertising, through all the average the ridiculous amount of advertising, never mind the five page spread. You just had a magazine editorial that you earned, yeah, yeah, that was a good one. I haven't read it yet. It's on my desk. Anyway, that the question stands, how who's first? Are you first? Or is a builder coming to you and then bringing you

  Laura Tays  59:24

  on? I would say it's probably, it's probably half. So it's 5050, you know it's and there's a lot of times people come with a builder, sometimes people come with an architect.

  Joshua Tays  59:35

  It's almost always client driven to us, though not necessarily the builder brings the client right to us.

  Laura Tays  59:42

  That's true, yeah, because I, what he said earlier, is we aren't just because of, I think our projects are spread all over. We aren't just like, oh, we work with these two builders like, all the time. It's like, it's kind of almost always a new scenario. It seems like we're like, with another new builder. Oh, this is a new scenario, especially when they're spread. All over.

  Mark D. Williams  1:00:00

  What about in state, out of state? How much work are you doing outside the state of

  Laura Tays  1:00:03

  Minnesota? I would say at least half. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so yeah. And even the projects that we've had in Minnesota, majority of them are not even like in the cities, right? You do a lot of stuff up in that. We do a lot of stuff. And that's where that first house was, right? That's that very first home that I think kind of helped kick off things for us, was up there. And so then it's kind of like people think, Oh, they do like homes, you know, you know, it's just kind of people think, which is

  Joshua Tays  1:00:30

  great, not a bad spot. You know, I would love to

  Laura Tays  1:00:34

  do more projects locally. You know, one of the things I always like think about is like, and maybe this seems silly, but my parents have never been in a home that I've designed. They've never gotten to walk through a space that I've designed, never, no. And there's something about that. There's something different about at least, and maybe this is, you know, a humble brag, but there's something different about the homes that we design when you're physically in them, because feel different. They feel different. And I hear that a lot from like clients,

  Joshua Tays  1:01:05

  kind of overwhelming, to be frank,

  Laura Tays  1:01:07

  it's just very, it's just very, I and a lot, I'm sure there's tons of designers that do this, it's just so thoughtful. And, like everything, is very textural, and it's a different feeling than you can really portray in a photograph, I guess is what I'm saying. I

  Mark D. Williams  1:01:24

  mean that being said like your photography is amazing. I don't I didn't spend enough time looking at the new website. I was still under the Coming Soon website, sure, and I've seen, obviously, the one that you did, that you won all the awards on and and the one that you did next to us in Medina. I saw some of those photos, which was beautiful, but it seems to have a very organic, earthy, textural was not the word I would have come up with, but it fits, obviously. And you said it, but it is that synonymous with most of your design. It feels, it feels, I want to everything I see in your in your I want to touch

  Laura Tays  1:01:56

  it. Yeah, I would say, like, we can do a lot of different styles, you know. And I think sometimes you do almost get pigeonholed because of what you've already done. So people just think, oh, they do, like homes, and it's like, oh, we do. We can, we can do all kinds of different design. But there definitely is a through line of, like, organic materials, texture, like, you're gonna see a lot more of that stuff from us than, like, loud or patterns or not that I never do that, not that I never incorporate wallpapers or fun things, but there's something very timeless about nature, right? You never get sick of looking at a tree. A tree is beautiful forever and ever and ever. So bringing that indoors with like an old piece of wood that's got all that character and there's wormholes in it and checking and different amazing things that make it not perfect. To me, is perfect, perfect when things are all brand new, everything, there's no character. Nothing has life behind it. To me that falls flat and it doesn't feel warm and not real. It's not real because nothing is perfect and it's not going to stay that way. Is the other thing, you know, when people are like, well, I want perfectly shiny everything. I'm like, it's not going to stay that way. So why not lean into things that are going to age and patina in such a beautiful way that, like, they tell a story like, oh, that's where my kid dropped that thing on my floors, and that dent came from that. And that's that memory that's there forever and ever, every time you look at it, you know, and just adds to the beauty and the memories, like, and I probably get that from growing up in an old, old home that my parents had to fix up and like all those things made me feel like safe and home, and I just want, that's what I want to create for people. It's like, I want them to come into a house and just immediately, like you're in a hug. It feels elevated, but not. Nothing is too precious to use. Nothing is too precious to move around to be tough with. You know, I try to make it and I try to make it timeless, like, truly, it feels fresh, like, I think our projects, when you look at them, that it's like, oh, wow, that's a fresh, new take on it. But it doesn't feel trendy, typically, at least in my opinion, right? It doesn't feel like, oh, that everybody's doing that thing, which is hard to not do, because, you know, I see stuff all the time and I'm like, oh, that trend that's caught on, you know, everybody's doing whatever. Oh, that is pretty cool. I'd love to put that in all these projects, but it is going to kind of like, time hold that project. And they do try sometimes to do a little bit of the funky stuff, you know. And I'll get that shot down by some clients, right? They're like, butter yellow. And I'm like, come on, it's cool, you know? I mean,

  Mark D. Williams  1:04:30

  there's butternut squash. I was going to tell you because I wanted you to keep going there. When you doubt yourself, listen to what you just

  Joshua Tays  1:04:38

  said, Mark, I am so glad you said that I was dude. I had been when she very first talked about how, whatever, she's not good enough. I thought about this, and I wanted to say, like, oh, you know, think about wabi sabi, right? It's why it's so beautiful. And I was literally just going to be like, Honey, can I challenge you in front of the whole pod? You. To think of yourself this way. And then I was like, bro, don't do it. It's not you. You don't know. You don't know how it's gonna go over. So I was like, so

  Laura Tays  1:05:09

  Right? Because maybe I do find myself to be flawed,

  Mark D. Williams  1:05:12

  but you are because of it. Yeah, exactly. You are all the things that you just said, that five minutes soliloquy that you just said at 107 you can skip all the other parts and go to 107 anytime you feel like you're not good enough, or that your work isn't what you want to be. You listen, you go to 107

  Joshua Tays  1:05:30

  Well, that's rap. Thanks. Very nice. Yeah. Thank you

  Mark D. Williams  1:05:34

  guys for coming on the podcast. I don't think we could possibly end it any higher than that. So,

  Joshua Tays  1:05:38

  oh, that really was the end. We're actually 10 minutes over. Oh, that's great. I was joking, sweet.

  Mark D. Williams  1:05:46

  Yeah. Well, actually, I do have one thing, because part of my end on a dad joke, I guess, was I wanted to, I was looking at your team, and I was looking, and I have never met an interior design company, an architectural design company that has a chief security officer and a wellness director on staff,

  Laura Tays  1:06:03

  right? Yeah. I mean, we just was a hard cost to swallow. It really was, but we found it to be, I mean, really a non negotiable for us, because, you know, we were speaking to joy. You know, sometimes you can't find it, you know. And so our, our chief wellness officer, she really brings that to the space. She wants you to refocus on taking a minute getting a little snuggle. You know, whatever you need to do. And then always, security is important. So, you know, anybody coming in that's on Amazon thinks twice Amazon when they're delivering packages to our studio. Are

  Mark D. Williams  1:06:37

  they so you've got for the audience, what you better just they're very confused right now. Are these English Bulldogs?

  Laura Tays  1:06:42

  They are mini bullies, mini bullies, mini bullies. So if you think of a bully or a bulldog,

  Joshua Tays  1:06:48

  yeah, there's this dog that was really popular in rap videos. I like, that's where we went in the 90s. They're like, they're just built like this. They almost always have their ears cropped their faces like this, wide, yeah? So they look like, you know, like a bolt, like a like a pit bull, but different, like they're just sure jacked, yeah? And that's, they're a miniaturized version of the hip hop legend,

  Laura Tays  1:07:16

  literally, the cutest dogs, sweetest dogs in all the world. Leo looks like you a permanent puppy, like his face like he just is so cute. I mean, we stare at him all the time, and everybody does this to their own pets, right? Well, but, but it's calling. Look at Leo. Did you see that? Oh my gosh. Did you see

  Mark D. Williams  1:07:34

  that? Josh is like, Would you stop eating your apple in my ear? Totally.

  Joshua Tays  1:07:40

  Those dogs almost cause car accidents daily. No jump. I mean, they're so cute, sticking their head out the window, just and

  Laura Tays  1:07:48

  always stopping us to Oh, those are beautiful dogs. I'm like, I know, right, yeah, there's so funny. Yeah, they're pretty great.

  Mark D. Williams  1:07:57

  Thank you for coming in studio, of course, and we had some technical difficulties, but luckily, we had a sound engineer on

  Laura Tays  1:08:04

  staff, smooth, yeah, I know we appreciate it. Thanks for for having us on this is very cool. You that You've done this. I love that you're so curious. I also always trying to learn. And like, you know, yeah, be better at all the things. It's cool because, like, you know, I think a lot of people, like, we all, especially in a creative industry, I think everybody can get almost like, an ego like, well, I know it all, but none of us know anything agreed, and we're constantly trying to figure it out, and we're all kind of like drowning all the time, yeah, so it's so much better to just, like, hold hands and, like, ask questions

  Mark D. Williams  1:08:41

  and we're better together. I mean, it's the tagline of not only the contractor coalition, but my personal brand. It's collaboration over competition. And I for the for the podcast story. I just, I love people's stories. Yeah, you know, if you're listening to this and you weren't moved a couple times, you should get your pulse checked, yeah, you know. I think that's kind of the point, you know. And I think someone had said it recently. I can't remember where I heard it, but just, you know, just because we're building a multi million dollar home, potentially, you know, there's still people working on this home in the best relationships are the ones where the clients realize that, and I'm not saying we're not good custodians of their money. We certainly are, but realizing that these are, these are people that are just, you know, they're putting their all in. And listen to you talk about the passion that you put into that it's really, it's a beautiful thing. It's no wonder there's so much interest in the home space, because it means so many things to different people, either to create something you didn't have, or a passion in you that you want to get out or to recreate something you had that you want to share with others. It could be all of them together, mixed together. I think that's what makes it beautiful. I I mean, homes have a very special place in all of our lives. I mean, now I'm getting philosophical here. I mean, right, you've got, you know, when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, you like, you know. You grab some fig leaves and some maybe killed some animals to get some fur because it got cold in a cave. Like, the next thing was, like, shelter, yeah? Like, this is fundamental to humans and rich

  Katie Kath  1:10:09

  spot to like, land. Everybody needs to land and to feel safe, yeah? And not everybody has that, which is, like, the really hard part, but 100% like, completely all in on these projects it. There are people behind it. And I think, like, sometimes, the first time I will walk into a home after it's done and it's quiet, I'm about to install it, right? Nobody's in there. Yet, I will be like, overcome. I will just cry, like, just like this. This is about to be a space for all these memories to happen and for these people to, like, finally get in here, right? They wait so long, and there is, there's stress throughout the build process and all of that, and it's tough, but, man, it's so worth it. And I'm, honestly, I'm usually just like, super envious, and I'm like, I want to live here

  Mark D. Williams  1:10:51

  your kids. Or do you ever think, like, you know, you know my kids right now, at the age they're nine, seven and five, and they're like, they want a pool. And they see these homes we design, or like, miso, who's this home that we're building right now? And my joke is like, Yeah, I can't afford our work, honey. Oh, and like, you know, like, I don't know what to tell you. And you're like, Dad, how come we don't have a pool, or how come we don't have this? And like, for sure,

  Katie Kath  1:11:11

  yeah. And you know, if you ever do get ahead, you feel like it you need to invest it back in the business. And it's like, it's hard, it's hard to invest in your own life. And that is definitely something we fall victim to all the

  Mark D. Williams  1:11:23

  time. Well, in the same deal, you put all this time and thought, and sometimes you're just exhausted, you know. I mean, do you put it in your own house? Maybe, do? Maybe you don't. I would imagine a lot of people don't because they're

  Katie Kath  1:11:31

  just like, don't. Yeah, we're gonna try, though. We're trying our darndest. Yeah, we bought this house whereabouts a year and a half

  Joshua Tays  1:11:37

  ago, so close by, yeah, just down seven. Yeah. Oh,

  Katie Kath  1:11:41

  here we go, nine minutes away from

  Mark D. Williams  1:11:43

  you. Oh, nine minutes that means, actually in the neighborhood often. Well, how about you stop in for coffee? I guess I will more often, or sparkling water. Guy, I don't know if you're here, well, I'm here, here for it all. Thanks again for coming in. You guys appreciate your time. Thanks, Mark,

  Katie Kath  1:11:55

  absolutely thank you. This is the first podcast ever for us, really, yeah, we know nothing about any of this stuff.

  Mark D. Williams  1:12:05

  Well, good. That's actually my favorite. So my favorite thing is, basically, I was liking an episode is to get into, you know, things that you're passionate about, and it's really just supposed to be fun, organic, and, you know, questions go both ways, and it's really just a conversation. Yeah, perfect.

  Katie Kath  1:12:19

  So, great, yeah. So we'll let you lead the show. I sure will.

  Speaker 1  1:12:25

  Yeah, do your job, man. Would you hurry

  Mark D. Williams  1:12:27

  up? Would you hurry up and start your job? I hope this all. I hope this all goes. I hope we just don't even cut this, because this is actually the best part. Thanks for tuning in to curious builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends, like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.

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