Stephanie’s journey has taken her from San Antonio to New York, LA, and Atlanta—and from College to the Letterman Show, the Olympics and to the realms of interior design.

Stephanie is a self-described ‘hobbyist’—she’ll try anything once—and our conversation ranges from theatre to ballroom dancing to gymnastics—going back to when, as a child, she dreamed of competing at the Olympics (‘despite never having taken a gymnastics class!’), which slowly morphed into a dream that came true—working behind-the-scenes at Tokyo 2020.

We discuss making up for lost time, the myth of make-it-or-break-it moments, and her accidental fall into interior design—spurring her love of ‘all things vintage’ and spawning her business: Redesigned Classics.

Stephanie’s story is one of exploration, fearlessness, and taking leaps—not just strides—into unknown territory, and emerging better for it.

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I’d love to know more about your childhood. I know you studied at the University of Nebraska. Where did you grow up, and what were some of your interests?

I was born in San Antonio, Texas. I lived there until right before middle school and then we moved to Nebraska. I was always really involved with choir and drama and the theatre arts. I've done swimming and figure skating and I tried fencing and diving and ballroom dancing, but never was an elite athlete at any of them.

I always love trying new things. I joke that I've tried a lot of sports, but I've never been particularly good at any of them. [laughs]

I think that my background in theatre and drama is kind of what led me to my degree in broadcasting when I went to college.

I started out thinking I was going to be a news producer. Then I got an internship on the Late Show with Letterman my senior year of college, and from there I naturally transitioned into reality TV projects and documentaries and it’s grown from there, so that's how I got my start in producing.

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I noticed that on your Instagram that you call yourself a hobbyist. What are some of your hobbies now?

I love trying new things, and I think that's where the hobbyist comes in. I'll look at random Groupons or search things on the internet to do around town, and anything that I think looks particularly interesting I'll try.

I've looked into painting and ceramics lately, that’s something that interests me. I always say I'll try it at least once. If I like it, I'll continue with it. If not, then I'll try something else.

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I read that you started a ballroom dancing club when you were in college?

I did! My best friend and I had a ballroom dancing club.

You could take it as an elective and she was like, we should do this. It'll be fun. And it was really fun. There were a couple of us that really enjoyed it, and so after the class, we thought that we should continue.

At the club we would get together and dance, and around town they'd have Salsa night or Latin night and we'd go to these dances and it was fun.

I taught for a little bit after college as a part-time job, but then I got busy with life and work and I haven't done it since.

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Do you do any sports?

I still like to go swimming, but I don't do it competitively or anything. I have taken an adult jazz dance class recently, that's been fun.

With the Olympics, I was looking into adult beginner gymnastic classes, but I haven’t found one yet. I'm not going to be the next Shannon Miller, but I could learn to do a cartwheel.

I tried diving in college for a little bit. It was absolutely terrifying and it was so painful! You don't think about it, but when you're hitting it from like a ten meter board, it's like hitting a brick wall. I would come home with bruises all over. I did it for a summer, and then I was asked if I wanted to train to be part of the college team. They needed members obviously, or they would not have asked me. [laughs]

I tried it for a couple of months and I was like, this is not for me. I'm done. I'm not any good. There's no joy in that for me.

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I'm going to talk about your day job a little bit. You just worked on the Olympics. What was that experience like? Have you always wanted to work on the Olympics?

When I was little I remember watching the Barcelona Olympics with Shannon Miller as a gymnast, and I knew I was going to be the next Shannon Miller. I've actually never taken a gymnastics class in my life, so that dream had to be modified a little. [laughs]

I've tried lots of sports, but I've never stuck with anything long enough. When I got into TV and broadcasting, I thought that this is a great way to still get to be a part of that history without being an athlete.

That's how that dream started. I’ve wanted to be part of the Olympics since I was five, but the dream of working at it in the TV background came during high school.

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What was your day-to-day life like during the Olympics?

It wasn't too hectic, which was nice. I was working on a show that dealt a lot with highlights, so we were clipping a lot of material and looking for the big moments like Simone Biles and Caeleb Dressel, Katie Ledecky in swimming; looking for those gold medal moments and putting them together into packages. That show, we had airing yesterday, actually.

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You mentioned earlier that in college you got to work on the Late Night show with David Letterman. How was that?

That was a dream job. I applied and thought that I’d never hear back. I got a call—I had applied for the summer internship—and they told me that due to the massive amount of applications they weren't able to get to me that year, and that they were rolling my application over to the Fall. I thought that was their nice way of saying thank you, we’re not interested. [laughs]

Then I actually did get a call for an interview and it was great. I interviewed with every department—it was a couple hours long. I got to see all the different areas of the studio, so the interview itself was so exciting for me. Then I ended up getting the internship and it was great.

I hadn't lived in New York before, and I fell in love with the city. I fell in love with the show. It was amazing. Then it was 2008. The economy took a hit and there was the writer's strike and the show shut down. I came back to Nebraska and wasn't able to continue with the show. But it was a great experience and it was a great resume builder.

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You've been interested in so many different things all your life. How did you settle on majoring in communications?

Part of the reason that it appealed to me so much is that I got to work on so many different shows, especially as a freelancer. It kind of scratches that itch of, one week I'm working on a DIY show for HomeDepot and the next week I'm working on the Olympics and the next week I'm working on a show about felons for reality TV.

I get to do a lot of different things. I'm not necessarily stuck in one genre or one specific job, and I'm not in a cubicle every —so that's part of why I don’t feel restless.

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How do you decide what jobs to take? Do you try to avoid being boxed in?

I love getting the opportunity to travel and getting to try new things, and as a freelance producer, once a gig ends, I'm unemployed again—so I'm always looking for the next job. I base it off of what sounds interesting to me at that moment.

I wouldn't say I'm actively pursuing not to get boxed in. I'm just pursuing what I think appeals to me at that moment

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How long have you been freelance and how did you prepare yourself for that transition?

I graduated from college in 2008 and then I ended up at a marketing job for about four years. That wasn’t what I had gone to school for, and it's not what I want to pursue.

I had gotten married at that time, and I talked to my husband and told him that I really wanted to try this path and pursue it a hundred percent. I moved out to LA in around 2015, and I've been freelancing since then.

I felt like I had not been pursuing what I had wanted for that last couple of years, so by the time I hit that point, I was so ready to make that leap and go. I was so ready to go out there and do it. I wasn't necessarily nervous, I was just ready to start this new transition.

I was so excited about it that I didn't have the hesitation or the nervousness that maybe I should have had. I did know a couple people out in LA already, so that was comforting.

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Did you feel like you were making up for lost time?

Yes, absolutely. I felt like I was starting behind maybe my peers that I had graduated with.

It gave me an extra drive— an extra inner fire that I was five years behind my peers. I felt like I didn't have time to waste, so every day that hustle was there.

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I want to talk about one of your earliest production projects, To Love and Support. How did that come about?

I've grown up around military bases in San Antonio, and then in Omaha, Nebraska. My dad is a big history buff. I always remember watching war movies with him as a kid. I was always fascinated by that lifestyle. Then once I got married, my husband joined the air guard.

That was my first time experiencing the military lifestyle up close. I'd always viewed it from afar, but I'd never actually lived it—and when my husband joined it was very different from how I had perceived it. I wanted to explore what the spouse goes through.

As an air guard spouse, my experience is also very different from full-time service member spouses as well. You hear a lot about the service members and what they go through, there's a lot of documentaries about that, but you don't see as much from the spouses side.

I wanted to explore that for my own selfish reasons of being put in this role and wanted to hear from other women and men—that's how it started. I was living in Omaha at the time near the base, so I had access to a lot of great service members and their spouses and I started from there.

We interviewed members from World War II to present day, because I wanted to see how the role of the spouse has changed and how the military has gone about its services towards the spouses. In the beginning there really wasn't a lot of concern for them, there weren't a lot of programs for the spouses. That's changed a lot now and there's a lot more services and programs.

The spouse has changed too. We now see men that are spouses, and their wives are in the military. There’s a lot of different scenarios now that we didn't necessarily see before.

It was interesting to see and go through the generations and hear from the spouses.

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Oh, wow. What are some of the most memorable projects that you’ve done recently?

I feel very fortunate, I've gotten to work on some really great projects. I got to work on a documentary on the inauguration of Barack Obama, which was great. We went down to DC and got to see the inauguration live, which was a great experience.

I got to do the European championships in Glasgow, which was a wonderful opportunity. I was the festival producer for that, so I got to see all the artistic acts that came through on the festival stage. Then of course, getting to be in Glasgow in Europe for two, three months. We did a lot of prep work for that and we went over for several weeks beforehand to get everything ready.

Most recently I helped with a documentary on adapted athletes about a wheelchair basketball team from Alabama. It was so great to see those athletes, they were so inspiring. That was really fun.

I've had a lot of great experiences. I feel very blessed.

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Your experiences are so diverse. Do you have a favourite genre to work in?

I think that it mainly depends on the show. For the most part I like comedy, I like lighthearted things. I always say that I don't like scary movies. That's not a fun emotion, why would I want to pay to feel that way?

You've been in TV for a long time now. What do you think is the biggest thing you've learned about yourself from working in TV?

In TV and the entertainment field, it's easy to lose sight of who you are and your morals and what's important to you. A lot of times it can be very superficial. It's not real life, and it's easy to get wrapped up in it and think that this is the norm and it's not.

I've learned that you have to stay grounded. It's good to have people around you who know you for who you are and not for what you do, and are able to bring you back to reality.

It's a difficult field, and sometimes it's easy to feel like, ‘This is my one chance. This is my one opportunity. If I don't say yes to this, then I'm going to lose my chance.’ That's something I struggled with early on, so I took some jobs that were not a good fit because I felt that if I didn’t then I wasn’t going to have a career and I wouldn’t be able to go onto the next thing.

You're given lots of opportunities in life. I don't think there's one big chance, make it or break it moment. There are lots of moments along the way, and so you have to know that it's okay to say no, sometimes, to projects.

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What was the process of moving away from home like?

I had a very supportive husband, which helps. He actually stayed in Nebraska because his job was there and I was out in LA.

For five years we lived in different states, commuting back and forth. When I first got out to LA, we thought that I'd give it six months. We'd see if I could even find a job. Then I ended up getting work and then I got another job and another one.

It ended up progressing, and six months turned into four or five years. About a year ago we were reassessing before COVID happened and agreed that we should probably live together again. He wasn't thrilled about the idea of LA. He had just decided to transition into real estate investing, and he was like, ‘it's a terrible market in LA, everything's upside down.’

He had allowed me to go and pursue my dreams, and I wanted to be able to help him be in a market where he could pursue his. We decided to move to Atlanta about a year ago, and now we're living together again and both pursuing our passions, which is great.

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What are your thoughts on living in LA?

I think you have to have a certain personality to love LA. I don't have anything against LA, I just feel like for me, it wasn't the right place. The industry is very prominent there and I felt that sometimes LA felt very one-sided to me, it felt like it was just the industry.

That might have been true too because I work in the industry, so that's where my surroundings were—but coming to Atlanta, it was more like, ‘Do they make movies here? We didn't even know!’ So it feels a little bit more rounded.

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What made you choose to move to Atlanta?

I feel like LA, New York and Atlanta are the three big major cities in the U.S for film, and I was ready to leave LA. I love New York—that's hands down my favorite city in the world, I would move there tomorrow—but my husband was over winters. He didn't want to see snow ever again. [laughs] So that left Atlanta.

I'm originally from Texas, so I like the south. We had friends here and they were very encouraging and welcoming. I think it's been the right choice for us.

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You lived in New York previously. What did you love so much about it?

It has such a unique energy and vibe and there's nowhere else like it. It's a huge melting pot, there's just so many different cultures and generations.

Every time I'm there, I feel successful and something about the city makes me feel energised.

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I want to talk about how you got into interior design. You've obviously got a creative, artistic background, doing drama and theatre, but interior design is in another realm. How did you get into it?

That was actually because of my husband. Like I mentioned, he has recently started getting into real estate investing and he's acquired some properties, and we've gotten a couple of Airbnb's.

When we were starting out, we didn't have the funds to hire all these contractors and decorators. He asked me if I could stage the places and decorate them for him and I said, ‘why not?’ I had no idea what I was doing but I ended up liking it and enjoying it.

I thought that I should probably get some training, so I got certification in it and started doing it on the side—not just with my husband, but doing it online.

I found that I could do a lot of design consultation online, which is great, because if I'm traveling for work I can do it from anywhere. It's a great way to fill those gaps. That’s how it started and it’s grown from there.

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What kind of joy does doing interior design give you?

It's a completely different field. It's not like TV, so it's great to have something that's completely separate from that. It's a break and a different creative outlet.

It's a lot more artistic. I get to look at patterns and colours, which is very different. It’s not like what I'm normally doing and that's fun.

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Do you consider production a creative outlet?

It is creative, but in a different way. You're dealing a lot more with stories. I deal a lot with reality TV and documentaries, so you're dealing a lot with personal experiences and finding that storyline and getting welcomed into people's lives. It's more of an emotional aspect of the creative world.

The interior design is a lot more textural and visual; it's a different kind of creativity.

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Is there any connection between them? Does one fit the other, or are they completely separate in your mind?

It's interesting because I found that they have actually fed each other. Once I started doing interior design, I started getting into more home-reno type stuff. Right now I'm also working on DIY videos for HomeDepot, which feeds a lot into the interior design aspects—it’s a mash of both worlds.

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What's your creative process like as an interior designer? Do you have a fixed time and place that you need to be able to work on something creative?

It depends. When I'm doing the design, the first thing I like to do is get to know my client. What makes them tick? What do they like, what don't they like, and then trying to kind of immerse myself in their style.

That can be anything from looking at magazines to Googling—trying to get myself in that world, especially if it's not a style that I personally am drawn to. I want to make sure that I'm understanding the client and what they want. Their personality speaks a lot about them.

Then as far as the workflow, I try to set scheduled times, but I feel like anyone who works in the creative field knows that sometimes you're not feeling it. Sometimes you don't have the inspiration. Some days you hit the ground running and you're on fire and you have great ideas and flowing, and some days you're sitting there and the design is not coming together.

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When you have these creative blocks, when you feel that inspiration doesn't hit, what do you do then?

Sometimes you’ve got to take a step back, you can't force it. Then I get frustrated. Then the design suffers, then things start to go downhill.

I have to take a break. I have to walk away, go for a walk, play with the dogs, watch a show and then come back to it and be like, ‘okay, am I feeling any different about this now?’

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Are there any habits or rituals that you have to help you get into that creative space?

I am a big fan of mood boards, both in TV and design. It helps me set the mood and tone and set my mind around the project.

It's a source of inspiration for me, and it helps keep me on track. They help to bring me back if I'm having a rough time. I’ll go back to the mood board and refocus myself.

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Was there a moment that you decided to start a company, or was it a gradual, slow process?

I feel like it was a natural progression. I was doing it for my husband and he suggested that I could do it for other people, too. There's downtime in between my day job, so I was trying to find something to fill the gaps, and I realised that I could be doing this.

I started with a company called Decorist, which finds clients for you. I did that for two years, and then I thought, ‘I could do this on my own,’ so I started my company and started doing it for myself.

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How did the name Redesigned Classics come up?

I put a lot of pressure on myself because it was my company name, and it would speak for the brand.

It was something that I thought long and hard about. I actually worked with a company on coming up with a name and a design, and we threw around feelings and emotions and thought about what design style speaks to me.

Ultimately how we came up with Redesigned Classics is that I'm taking a classical approach, I'm taking all the rules and the style guides, and then I'm redesigning it. “These are the classic styles, but we're gonna redesign them in a way that speaks to you.”

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What's been the scariest part about having your own interior design company?

Art's vulnerable, so you always worry about, ‘people are going to hate my designs’, or ‘they're not going to like what I did.’ Though that really hasn't been the case.

If you're communicating well with your client from the start, you can get a good handle of what they like and what they don't. Still, there's always that fear that I'll be called out and people will think I'm a fake, you know?

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Do you ever have that fear in your day job?

Oh, absolutely. There's always the fear that people aren't going to like your work or they'll feel like you're not competent enough—that imposter syndrome feeling.

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Fake it till you make it, agree or disagree?

Agree a hundred percent. Even in life you find people that aren't qualified for their job, but they've been so confident about it that they get the client or they get that big job. You realize that, well, I have even more experience than they do—but they have the confidence. Even from a hiring standpoint now, when I'm hiring other crew members, you want the confident person, you don't want the person that's going to second guess themselves because then you start second guessing them.

If you can fake it and have that confidence, it will definitely get you a long way.

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With TV, you said that you felt like you had to make up time. With interior design, do you feel like you've got to play catch-up too?

I've never felt like I've been catching up. I guess it’s because it wasn't my main focus. It's always been this side hustle that I fell into.

Producing has always been my primary focus, so I put a lot more pressure on myself in that role than I do with interior design.

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I remember reading on your website that your style is decidedly vintage. Tell me about that.

I'm a nostalgic person by nature, so I love that vintage look. It reminds me of my grandma's house. I'm obsessed with the 1950s era and mid-century modern and those types of movies—they're just feel-good moments for me, so I want to incorporate that into my home.

I try to do it in a more modern way so my home doesn't look dated. But it gives me those warm and fuzzy, nostalgic vibes and that's why I'm drawn to it.

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You mentioned that you do a lot of online consultation. How does that work?

Everything is 100% online, which means I can work with anyone anywhere, which is fantastic. It also means that I can work from anywhere as well. To start I have a client fill out a form.

It's basically a survey for me to get to know them. What room are we looking at? What styles do you like? What colours do you like? A lot of people may not even know what their style is, so with the form, there's pictures and prompts to help them through it. Once we go through that process, then I can get a feel for what we want to do and where we want to go.

I'll come up with some mood boards for them to start to make sure I'm on the right track, and then we'll go into the actual room design. I create everything in 3D so they can see what the room will look like when it's done with all the furniture in place.

Then I provide a shopping list with links to all the products online so they can purchase it all.

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You just got back from Stamford, Connecticut. Where would you like to go next?

I love New York, especially in the fall. I'd love to get a job there in the fall. I'd love to go international again—the Paris Olympics are coming up in 2024. [laughs]

I like traveling, especially for work. If I can be mobile I can work in Austin or I can work in New York, it opens up a lot of opportunities. It's one of my favourite parts of the job.

If they're longer contracts, it gives me an opportunity to see what it would be like to live there, not necessarily just on vacation. I got to do a job in Abu Dhabi a few years ago, which isn't necessarily someplace that if I were travelling myself I would think of—I would probably choose Italy or somewhere. [laughs]

It was great because I got to experience and see this part of the world that I maybe wouldn't have seen otherwise, and I lived there for two months.

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What do you do when you're travelling in a place for two months?

Any free time I have, I like to go and sight-see and play the tourist. Also getting to do the everyday things, like finding my local grocery store and seeing the different foods that they have available there that you wouldn't see anywhere else, that’s fun for me.

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What do you do for self care?

I love sleep.

I'm one of those people that has to get their eight hours, so I’m very protective of my sleep schedule and making sure I get the rest that I need, because I know that it's important to me.

I mean, sometimes work doesn't allow that. There are times when I've come back from a job and I spend a week sleeping and hanging out in my pajamas, recovering. I know that I need that, so I make sure that I have that time.

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How do you keep a separation between the day job and the interior design business?

If I'm not doing the day job, then I'll treat interior design as my primary job. Sometimes I'll be finishing up with a client when I get another TV job, so I'll have to finish that before.

Usually I'll do my TV job during the day, and then I'll go home and I'll set aside a couple of hours and I'll just work on my interior design project. I try not to cross them over because I feel like it's unprofessional. It's distracting for both.

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Do you still view one as the day job and the other the side hustle, or are they of equal status now?

I still view producing as my primary job and I view interior design more as the side hustle. I feel like the producer job always trumps that—if I had an opportunity to take a new design client or a producing job, I would take the producing job.

It's where my background is and where my focus has always been. For me, that's the dream job, and I want to continue pursuing that, whilst the design was this happy accident that came into my life.

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To wrap up, you're a producer, interior designer, hobbyist; what else would you consider yourself to be?

Oh gosh, I don't know. I like trying new things and I find that if you find something and you love it, then a lot of times you can find ways to monetize it; opportunities open.

I just go with it.