Entrepreneur and creative Nicola Bathie McLaughlin takes multi-hyphenate to a new level. The jewelry and interior designer turned lifestyle influencer recently launched a collaboration with Dillard’s, and she juggles it all while working from home. When she tapped us to help outfit a dedicated home office, we were excited to help bring her vision to life – and peek behind the curtain to take a closer look at her creative process.
After a busy morning getting her girls dressed, fed and off to school, Nicola prepares herself for a day of work with an oat milk latte and jog or spin on the Peloton. From there, each day unfolds with Nicola taking on the many roles of a small business owner, depending on the needs of the day, hour and minute. From concepting and designing her ethereal, statement-making jewelry to managing the day-to-day of a growing enterprise, Nicola has a “revolving door of tasks.” And proving that an entrepreneur’s work is never done, she admits, “Once the girls are down for bed, I will sometimes sneak back into the office to catch up on the last emails that came in.”
With her (quite packed!) agenda looking different each day, Nicola needed a space free of distraction where she could focus. Since she works in a creative field, the space needed to be equally inspiring. “I really wanted a beautiful meets tranquil sense of foundation,” she says. As a former full-time interior designer, she wasn’t short on ideas for how the small back house on her property could be reimagined.
We could use so much more space, but I was lucky to find some exceptionally wonderful storage pieces from Frontgate!
Unifying the floors, walls and furniture in a simplified palette opens up the room and makes it feel more spacious. Though the streamlined combination of French blue and creamy white creates space visually, storage still stood out as a potential pain point. “We could use so much more space, but I was lucky to find some exceptionally wonderful storage pieces from Frontgate,” Nicola says of the Etienne Chifforobe, which houses boxes of jewelry, and the Isadora Multifunctional Cabinet, a staging area for completed earrings, necklaces, rings and bracelets.
“A surprise was the chest of drawers that have electrical plugs in the back,” Nicola says of our Etienne 3-Drawer Chest. While the piece provides crucial additional storage in the drawers, the top showcases warm decorative touches, including framed photos and flowers.
In addition to holding Nicola’s jewelry and business necessities, the storage allows Nicola to keep the space clean and organized, a must for her creative process. Having a space she loves and can thrive in helps keep Nicola on top of her to-do list. “I truly can’t think if my environment is cluttered. I think having a space away from your home distractions is so important,” she says.
We’re excited to watch as Nicola’s business continues to grow… and we won’t be surprised if we get a call soon that she’s outgrown her home office.
Follow @nicolabathiemclaughlin and @frontgate on Instagram to see more of Nicola’s home office.
All images by Michael McLaughlin.
