She went to the hardware store and bought five gallons of paint in different colors.
“I want to paint a mural in the corner of my bedroom,” she said. “Then I realized it didn’t take 5 gallons to paint a few square feet. But I was stuck with $200 worth of paint. So I decided to paint my whole damn house. I painted a huge mural along the My whole hallway, along the stairwell, my cabinets and wall trim, my ceiling, I’m like, I’m getting rid of this paint. This is making my house colorful and bright very quickly.”
“It’s very much art therapy,” she said. “This makes me feel so much better. I’ve always wanted to have my own space, but I just couldn’t. This is the first time I feel like I have a canvas and I can do whatever I want!”
Slowly, she transformed her home into a work of art. “When my friends saw my house and they asked me to post it online, I was like, ‘This is crazy, I’m too old for TikTok!'”
But during a slow period at work, she decided to give it a try. She cut the two shots into a simple video showing a bedroom window surrounded by a DIY wall of greenery and posted it to TikTok. Within a day, it had one million views.
“It just went viral and it’s my first video!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what’s so special about this! I haven’t really used TikTok. I just thought, this is so easy, anyone can do it!”
So she continued making videos documenting her paintings, sharing renter-friendly decorating tips, and making response videos to some of the crazier comments. “Baby boomers call it a tacky preschool aesthetic,” she says. “People think it’s young, but I just think it’s funny!”
She said she stopped reading her comments because some of them are quite toxic, especially on TikTok. “I can’t believe people get upset over how other people decorate their homes. This is not your home, calm down!”
In January 2023, she lost her full-time job, falling victim to layoffs at the then-big tech companies. But instead of looking for another career path, she decided to turn to content creation. She parlayed her internet fame into a new career as an interior decorator, taking on projects for open-minded clients, giving her the freedom to be creative, build brand partnerships and create her own wallpaper designs.