The life of a young Interior Designer working in rural Tasmania

An interior designer starts her own business in rural Tasmania, who’d have guessed? Not the town of Smithton that’s for sure. I was replying to the ‘what do you do for a living’ question with ‘I’m an interior designer and I run my own business’ and just waiting for that confused look to appear on their faces…. ‘what the heck are you doing out here in the cow country?’ Or ‘aren’t you a little young to be running a business?’ But I was going to prove to this little town that I could make my business venture work… I am a scorpio after all, and we are stubborn and persistent to say the least.

Where it all began

Many of you are thinking why? Why move to a rural town? What’s here for you as a designer? Well to put it plain, the love of my life. My partner scored his dream job here in Smithton and who was I to stand in his way? I wasn’t ready to give up my career in design but realistically I didn’t think I would be able to pursue my passion here. Until one day I just thought stuff it! If there’s no one here that is able to hire an interior designer, I will have to start my own business and hire myself. 

Then, I jumped right in. While still working full time in Launceston, as a Kitchen Designer, I started preparing myself for the move and planning out my business venture. I designed some business cards, built my own website, learnt everything I needed to know about bookkeeping, social media, marketing, profit and loss sheets and projecting my future finances. Yep, all the fun stuff. I won’t lie, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I have learnt more in the last year and half than I did in my entire University Degree.

Forever trying to pat cows… turns out they eat grass, but not out of your hand…

Now What?

So here we are. Week one living in Smithton. Now what? The first week was hard. I didn’t know anyone in this town, I was essentially un-employed, and freaking out! How was I going to kick start this business? I walked into every business on the main road of Smithon and introduced myself, and asked if I could display some of my business cards in their store. 

Then I waited… and waited and the phone didn’t ring. No one was seeing my cards. But what happened next was a miracle wrapped in a young badass hairdresser who had just bought her first business. Her name is Jayde and she is my partner’s hairdresser. It’s at this moment I realised how tight-knit the community of Circular Head was. All it took was word of mouth and then BOOM. Not only my first client but a young, passionate new business owner like myself who was eager to create a salon that was the edgiest Smithton has seen. (click here to see Jayde and Co salon before and after photos)

So now I have my first client but I need more like her to make this a viable business. It was happening slowly, inch by inch, project by project and here we are today 2 years later with a full pipeline of projects to fulfil my soul!

When I’m not working, I’m exploring…

An average day in the life of me

For the first year of business an average day in the office of Savannah Denny Designs looked like walking the 5 steps from the couch to the dining table which I called my ‘mobile office’. This was back in my ‘I don’t believe this is going to work, so i;m not going to build myself an office’ stage, and the dining table will work fine even though we now have nowhere to eat! 

But a day in the office looks much different now. I now work in a fully functioning office fit for a design firm with a view over Smithton and all the way to the ocean. I enjoy the peace that comes with working from home but I still have hundreds of emails to reply too, phone calls, orders to be processed, designs to work on, billing to do, bookkeeping to stay on top of and the list goes on. But thankfully I only spend 3 days a week in the office. The other two I am on the road headed to see a client, or pick up orders, source new finishes for upcoming projects, conduct consultations, meet with the trade, sit down with the joiner and plan out the next project and again… the list goes on.

Fast forward

Fast forward a year and a half and here I am today. I have a full calendar of upcoming clients and projects that are allowing me to express my creativity and an amazing group of new friends supporting me on this adventure. My original goal was to run a business that would keep me going creatively biding my time till we can move home. Into what is now a full-time career that allows me to support my family, and in a place I now call home with a proud as punch smile across my face.

I can’t say that living in an isolated community isn’t hard for a city girl, because it is, but I have learnt to embrace it and enjoy the peace, slow my life down and be grateful for what I have. I now love being outdoors more than I ever have before and always look forward to heading down to Marrawah, taking my dog for a walk on the beach and perching up in the dunes to take pics of my partner surfing.

It’s a small community with a big heart who has opened their arms wide and embraced a young woman striving for the career of her dreams. I owe everything I have mentally, emotionally and physically to this little community I now call home. And I’m not the only one who thought my story was worth telling. The Advocate newspaper wrote a beautiful story called ‘The Country Creative: Savannah Denny is Tassie’s most remote Interior Designer’ to take a read click here.

sav xo