Celebrate Jacquelyn Clark

I’m very excited to share this interview with you today. I’ve been reading Jacquelyn’s fantastic blog Lark + Linen for a while now and I can honestly say that I love every post on it! It’s full of inspirational homes, interesting personal details and the thing I love the most about it is that you get to peek inside the mind of an artist – something I always find fascinating. Despite Jacquelyn’s personal blogging style, there were still some things that I wanted to know about her (nosey me), so I thought I’d email her. Thankfully she replied and said that she’d love to take part in an interview, so here it is! Enjoy!

Tell us 5 facts about yourself.

 I live in Toronto.

 I name inanimate objects (like my camera: Clyde and my boyfriends dimple: Eric. Don’t judge).

I would rather be 10lbs overweight and enjoy my food than restrict my diet and be miserable. Life is too short to not eat cheese and chocolate.

I drink tea far more than any human probably should.

 I hate shaving my legs! (but I do it anyway, I swear).

 You write Lark + Linen, a successful blog. How did you start out and where do you find inspiration for your posts?

I’ve been reading blogs for longer than I can even remember. At one point I began saving images in different folders on my computer. After some time I had amassed quite the collection and I realized that maybe I had something to share. I felt selfish hoarding all of these incredible images for my eyes alone. At the beginning my blog was a little all over the place. I somehow managed to blog three times a day (how, I do not know), but I never really had a clear direction; it was more about regurgitating what I had previously found. Since then things have gotten a little more streamlined and a little more personal. As for my inspiration, I find it everywhere! Through other blogs, through my daily life, as long as you open your eyes a little you’ll be amazed at the stuff that’s out there. 

What do you enjoy most about blogging?

By far the people that I’ve met along the way. I’ve only been doing this for a
little over a year, but I’ve already met so many incredible people. I can safely
say that I’ve become friends with some girls who I know will be in my life
forever. 

What blogging lessons have you learnt?

I still have a long way to go when it comes to blogging, but I have picked up a few things along the way:

1. People favor original posts over re-posted ones. I get far more feedback and response when I post something simple (like my new succulents here, than when I re-post the world’s most amazing home.

2. Make sure your images are big and clear – don’t over-do it. I tend to stick to 5 pictures, unless I just can’t narrow down the greatness. When this is the case, and the post is filled with pretty pictures, I generally only write a small blurb at the end instead of a whole paragraph. I find that when there’s too much information in one post people tend to get overwhelmed and end up just skimming through it and moving on.

3. If you don’t have anything you feel is worthy of posting, it’s better to not post at all.  The rule of thumb is quality not quantity.

4. Don’t pay attention to your numbers. For the first while I obsessed over my numbers, my readers, who clicked on what and what people tended to favour. When I made the decision to stop caring, to start blogging for me, that’s when the readers came. I think that people can smell authenticity, and when you’re posting just to get readers people can tell. 

Describe a typical day for you.

Working as an interior designer my days tend to differ drastically from one to the next. I generally wake up (far later than I should) and rush out the door. I grab my
morning tea and head to the office. From there I will answer emails, attend site
meetings, source products or work on working drawings. Sometimes it’s fun and
glamorous (like when I get to go and pick $12,000 Elte carpets) and other times
it’s nitty and gritty (like when I go to a demolition site and have to wear my
steel toe boots and hard hat). When I come home, my boyfriend and I generally
take our dog for a walk to grab groceries (we never plan our dinners ahead and
usually find ourselves scrambling for ingredients last minute) and then we make
dinner together. Lately we’ve been enjoying all of our dinners on our new patio
set on our balcony (it’s so nice having a little outdoor space when you live in
the heart of the city). After dinner we tend relax with some mindless television. He generally goes to bed shortly thereafter since he works at 6 am, and that gives me time to work on my blog post for the next day before heading to bed myself. 

How did you decide to go into Interior design?

For me it’s never been a question. I can’t imagine anything that I would rather be doing. When I was little (as early as 7) I would get excited about going to other people’s homes just so that I could see what they were like, how they were laid out. I would return home and re-layout their spaces on graph paper. I would then proceed to re-plan their furniture if I didn’t like the way they had laid theirs out and sometimes I’d go so far as to knock down walls and replan entire floors. I remember on Sundays my dad would get the morning paper and save both the comics and the new homes section for me to peruse over breakfast. I was a strange kid and I just loved floor plans! I still have a binder filled with designs from my childhood (many of them had lots of bridges and secret doors for ultimate games of hide and seek).

Do you have any rooms that you have designed that you are particularly proud of?

I’m actually working on the main floor of a home in the beaches (an area in eastern Toronto) that is definitely coming together nicely. I’ll be sure to share it shortly!

Can you share one thing you hope to achieve in the next year?

I’ve begun doing small free-lance projects here and there. My goal is to take on bigger and better projects on my own within the next year. That, and I want to learn how to use my camera on manual!

Thank you Jacquelyn, it’s been fun learning more about you. Head on over to Lark + Linen to find out more. P.S: How gorgeous is Jacquelyn’s pic?!

Image: via Jacquelyn Clark