Makers, Creators and Thinkers: Part 4 - Brittany Jepsen

Makers, Creators and Thinkers: Part 4 - Brittany Jepsen

By Donna Wilson

 

This week we speak to creative extraordinaire Brittany Jepsen - the founder of creative studio The House That Lars Built. We visit Brittany in her inspiring home in Utah and chat to her about her life and work, her approach to creativity and the craziest thing she ever bought for her home..

Hi Brittany! We are so happy to speak to you. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. 

Hi! My name is Brittany Jepsen and I started a blog called The House That Lars Built in 2008 not knowing it would become a business, my livelihood, and my passion! It’s grown into a creative services company where we 1) create content 2) sell bright and whimsical goods from our shop and 3) share beautiful finds from around the web and 4) license our designs.

My work studio is in the basement of our house so my work and personal life is super intertwined. I have two boys – 6 and 3 years old, who will be the death of me! Ha! I joke, but really they’re my entertainment, my snuggle buddies, and my constant fear inducers. I love my work and I love my boys and I’m grateful I’ve made it possible to do both. I’m especially grateful for the flexibility to go work in my kids’ schools when I want and tend to their needs. 

My mom had a sign growing up that said “a creative mess is better than tidy idleness” and I think I’ve adopted that. I love seeing my boys getting creative and building and fixing and moving all around the house.

 

We love your mum’s quote!

Ha! Yes! I always could feel that my mom’s ultimate motivation was to see us thinking outside the box and trying out things in a new way. I see myself taking on that role too with my kids and my work. I will go to extreme lengths to make sure that we are creating the best product, project and it’s definitely a result of seeing that what I’ve done is different than what anyone else has done. 

You launched The House That Lars Built in 2008 as a blog. It has since developed into a very successful creative business. Tell us about the journey - the ups and the downs!

 

I never could have imagined where my personal blog would lead me. I started it at a time when there was no such thing as influencers. I shared what I was working on because I loved it. Over time I started sharing DIYs I was working on and people started to make the projects I shared. It was so fun to see people take part in making things with their hands! Over time I got asked to design work for many different companies, which was a real highlight for me. Other highlights included a book called Craft the Rainbow in 2018, and a follow up journal called My Life In Color, getting to decorate the White House for Christmas last year, coming out with our own scissors with Fiskars, renovating our home for a renovation show called In With the Old.

Funny enough, a lot of highlights are accompanied by low moments. Creating the book was one of the most stressful, all consuming projects I’ve ever done. I missed a lot of holidays to complete it. The renovation show was similar. While it was fun to show what we did, it completely took over our lives for a good period of time. There are highs and lows to everything! 

Being a small business owner in itself is a lesson in highs and lows. The landscape of blogging changes all the time, the algorithm on social media platforms changes our business structure. Over time we’ve had to develop new ways to bring in revenue so that we can make sure to stand strong when other things are not working out.

Where do you live?

I live in Provo, Utah with my family. We moved here after living in Copenhagen for my husband’s schooling. Somehow we just never left! And at this point, I don’t know where we would move to because we both feel a little homeless. I’m originally from California and his family is all in Denmark. I miss city living, but living amongst the mountains and so close to nature is always awe inspiring. 

Who lives in your home? 

I live in the home with my husband and our two kids, Jasper and Felix. And since I work out of the basement I sometimes have employees that come in and out. To me it’s a house made for a working mom. I can go downstairs when I need to work and then get all the craziness of parenting upstairs. Right now, my kids are in the thick of imaginative play so there are always toys out. It’s a bit of a madhouse.

Your house is absolutely beautiful! Did you do a lot of work to it?

We bought this house in 2020. We had been keeping an eye on it over the years because it’s so unlike the architecture of the area and I really gravitated towards it. It was built in 1992, but was inspired by a house in Nauvoo, Illinois from the 1840s. When we bought it, the kitchen and all bathrooms were removed so we had a lot to do. The plan was to take our time putting things in that we really love. We ended up filming some of it for a show on the Magnolia Network called In With the Old, but there are still so many rooms that we need to do. The idea was to revive the historical nature of the home and combine it into our own aesthetics. I love color and pattern and it was really important to get that into every inch and cranny. The basement is a reflection of my business, The House That Lars Built, and we’ve used a lot of the wallpapers and fabrics we designed for it. It’s bright and bold. Upstairs is slightly less wild, but still an emphasis on color and pattern. I always say that my taste is a mix of French and Swedish, but always playful and fun.


Your style is very distinct, and so playful and happy. We love it! What inspires you the most?

Thank you! There’s a lot of therapy talk right now about getting in touch with your inner child and somehow I’ve always been in touch with it–ha! I had no idea that that’s what I was doing, but I see it clearly now. In fact, the things I loved as a child I still count as inspiration. I’m lucky that I found it so early. I’m sure a lot of that was because my mom was a designer and we had resources around our house. Mary Engelbreit was a huge source of inspiration to me as a kid–her play on vintage, folk, colors. All of those things still ring true for me today. 

That said, I hope that my work and eye is always being refined. I want to cultivate an oeuvre that gets better and better over time because I’m constantly learning how to do it better. Above everything else, I want people to see a joyful life because I fill my home and my body with colors and patterns that evoke joy.


What are your favourite, colours, textures and prints ? Is there anything you can’t stand in terms of interiors? 

I naturally gravitate to yellows and reds and blues–primary colors, but not in pure saturation. In fact, I’d say I have a big dichotomy between wanting to go super big and bold and much more tasteful. So that’s why I have a split between my business and my personal tastes–so I can try it all out. 

A huge part of my story are florals. I just can’t get enough. I still gawk over the beauty of flowers in nature – I can’t believe how each one is different and so beautiful. So whenever I see florals in home decor I need to be surrounded by it. That said, I don’t want to go too crazy on it so I try to balance it out.

One of my biggest pet peeves in interiors is when people think you have to do something because people give you rules about it or specific trends you “need” to follow. A lot of houses end up looking the same because of it, but I really think the beauty comes when we all surround ourselves with things that speak to us, not as a template.

 

Tell us about your time in Copenhagen. How did it influence you?

What was so interesting about my time in Denmark was that it was the time when people were only looking to it for its minimal qualities. Even now if you say Scandinavian, many people still think of it as clean lines. And while they certainly excel at the minimalist lifestyle, there’s a historic visual that I’ve always adored–more of the folk vibes. We are starting to see people embrace that more and more, especially with the embrace of color once again. He’s not Danish, but Josef Frank was an Austrian designer who moved to Sweden. His work is one of my main sources of inspiration. It’s so current yet so exuberant and joyful and abundant. Carl and Karin Larsson are also two artists who I adore. Visiting their home in Sweden was such a life highlight for me. They created a home that was from their heart. They tapped into unique color combinations and focal pieces in the home.

 

 

What is the weirdest thing you ever bought or made for your home?

Hahahah! Years ago I got a sofa in the shape of lips. It was technically for my studio, but I ended up bringing it into my home. It was definitely the craziest thing I ever brought in and it didn’t last because it was made of plastic and so uncomfortable, but talk about fun! 

Another thing are the balusters we created for our staircase. Each one was carved to mimic an old Swedish home. My friend, Jill DeHaan, hand carved a few of them into flowers to represent the birth flowers of each member in the family. It turned out to be a wild project, but I love them so so much.

Please tell us about your kids - are they as creative as you? How have they influenced your style and your home?

My kids are wildly entertaining and that comes through their play and make believe. I was dreaming of having kids for all the projects we’d make together, but their creativity, at least for now, is more focused on building things rather than coloring or painting. It’s actually been really interesting to see how different their brains work than I had pictured. Jasper is 6 and loves to build Legos, or line up cars and trucks or build race tracks. Felix is 3 and sees a lot what his brother does and tries that out. Lately he’s been getting out the paint all on his own and painting (aka making a huge mess) everywhere. A part of me can’t get upset because he wants to paint and that sounds great to me! I ended up turning an antique hutch into an art station in the dining room because that’s where we naturally gravitated when making things. So now all the supplies are in one center. I love that! 

What’s next for you?

The last couple of years we’ve been focusing on product collaborations with other companies and I LOVE how it’s going. It’s kind of the best of worlds–we do what we do best, which is design, and the other company does what they do best–the product! So every time we collaborate the buyer gets something super thought through. So far we’ve done collaborations with a swimwear company called Lime Ricki, cell phone cases with Casetify, a dress line (my dream come true!) with Print Fresh, fabrics with Fableism out in October, and our most recent launch of dish towels with Geometry. Plus, we have fabrics and wallpapers with Spoonflower, one of our longest collaborators. I love exploring this because it’s exciting to mesh two visuals together and see the magic that we can create from it.

Thank you so much!

 

You can find Brittany here:

thehousethatlarsbuilt.com 

@houselarsbuilt 

@brittanyjepsen