The Practice, Vol 2: The Daily Details Behind A Creator Bringing the Personal Style Discourse to Home Decor feat. Tremont Home
on ways to make work from home more enjoyable, her favorite snacks, and places of inspiration and admiration
Welcome to Volume 2 of The Practice, aka an ongoing Substack series on how interesting creatives and scientists spend their daily lives in pursuit of work that lights them up–including routines, rituals, boring bits, and best parts of what they do. You can find the longer intro to the purpose of this series in the initial interview with TikToker and Dance Theatre of Harlem Ballerina Kira Robinson here.
Note: These articles will be 50% free (6 questions). For the full interviews, consider becoming a paid subscriber for $8/month (the cost of a magazine at the grocery store!) here.
Today, we have Delaney Lundquist, known as Tremont Home on TikTok and Instagram. During the day, Delaney works as a graphic designer, but in her spare time, she makes content and gives guidance on personal home decor style, thrifting, and doable DIY’s. As she says on her website, “I focus on creating content about thrifting, vintage, and DIYs that empower others to create a cozy home that is unique to them.” I love her content for its inspiration, usefulness, and encouragement to creatively engage in a sustainable way that is accessible. Her answers made me laugh out loud and reflect on my own ways of making daily areas of home more special. Enjoy, and go check her accounts out!
Describe your work how someone from the outside would describe what you do.
I think many people who know me from my instagram account @tremont_home think that I am a full time content creator, but I do have a full time job as a graphic designer at ClassPass. As I have presented myself to the outside world, it probably looks like I flounce around my house indulging in (sometimes comedic, sometimes trying) projects to make our house cozy and reflective of our personal style.
Describe your work how you see what you do.
In my role as a graphic designer, my job is mostly synthesizing performance data we get from the broader marketing team into all of our creative output — ad and email campaigns, web design, paid social, art direction for shoots. And then on my lunch breaks and off hours I flounce around the house doing my projects ;)
Describe your most important ritual or routine of rising, or lack of ritual. Are you a coffee person? Do you scroll, or journal, or both? Is there a place you sit each morning with your breakfast? Get specific.
I do fucking LOVE breakfast. I wake up most mornings motivated to get up because I am excited to eat, have coffee and, as I like to say, “use the internet” (this feels comically dated but is appropriately all-encompassing). “Using the internet” means scrolling Instagram, responding to DMs, going through my inbox and reading newsletters that jump out at me or getting derailed by some online shopping. Just seeing where the links take me! Zooming around the internet when done in the proper dose (which is nearly impossible to achieve) is one of my greatest pleasures.
I do this for about an hour at our kitchen island which I think of as my own personal coffee shop. This is such an inane anecdote but here you go: at our last house (which was on Tremont Ave), we had a little bar with two stools in the kitchen and I would set up shop there occasionally and say I was working at Cafe Tremont which made the whole thing kind of silly and whimsical. Even though we have since moved, I still refer to working at our kitchen island as Cafe Tremont.
How do you start your work? Is there a space you go to, a background album or soundtrack, a lab coat, a place that starts you? How do you get yourself to begin your practice of your work each day.
When I migrate from the kitchen island to my actual office is when it’s time to Go To Work. I plug my laptop into my big screen and have my Wacom tablet set up there, and I turn on my two cozy desk lamps. If it really is feeling like drudgery to get my ass in the chair, I will light a candle and pretend as if that alone will imbue me with the power to get to business.
Is there a point in your work day or week where you feel most in flow, or the least distracted? What does it feel like for you when your work feels good?
Because most of my meetings happen in the morning, midafternoon is when I really can dig into projects. Boy oh boy, do I fight and procrastinate digging into meaty work — starting is the entire battle for me! Once I force myself into starting a project, I can be heads down for the rest of the workday.
Reverie: Where do you experience boredom, daydreaming, or slowing down in your day? How do you create enough space for ideas to strike?
It’s easiest for my mind to wander when I am physically prevented from being on my devices — so when I’m in the shower or falling asleep. I’m very bad at reaching for my phone at moments of boredom in the middle of the day.
Beauty: Tell us your one non-negotiable OR favorite part of getting dressed/ready/hygiene for the day.
Because I WFH, I rarely get dressed-dressed. I’ve tried, and it’s just not something I care about! But I will always wash my face and SLATHER it with various goops and serums and moisturizers until it feels juicy. The Merit Great Skin serum is an element of that process that never gets swapped out for anything else.
Recipe: Tell us your beverage and lunch of choice during your work day.
A fizzy beverage is absolutely a requirement (seltzer with a splash of juice or a screamingly tart kombucha). And then a snack platter would be ideal — salami, cheese, sliced apple, crackers, olives, some sort of dip. YUM.
Exercise: How does movement factor into your life? Do you see a relationship between exercise, moving your body, and the creative work or ability to sustain that work?
Oh god I DO have to be working out for my mental health. I use ClassPass and go to classes 2-3 times a week. I love reformer pilates but I also do HIIT and yoga depending on how I’m feeling. If I’m not purposely getting a little sweat a couple times a week I am sluggy, mean, grumpy, miserable!
Connection: Tell us about your role models, or describe the type of person who inspires you to keep growing in your work.
I am always inspired by those who are unabashedly pursuing their hobbies simply for ~enjoyment~
Tell us about a habit or ritual you really, really tried to like, but that simply does not work for you.
I am ~2 weeks in to trying to do morning pages from The Artist’s Way and I don’t want to seal my own fate prematurely but DAMN they really feel like punishment. I’m gonna give it a bit longer to see if they burgeon into some sort of creative awakening but right now they really suck!
What advice would you give 16-year-old- you about your day to day creative work? What advice do you think 96-year-old-you might give you about your work?
For 16-year-old me: even though your profession is in a creative field, that work does not have to be the thing that creatively fulfills you. It’s okay to branch out into things outside of your expertise to fill your metaphorical cup. From 96 year old me: hurry up and let go of those limiting beliefs!
Who is the coolest creator/inventor/scientist you think more people should know about?
Krista Tippett — I really enjoy the universe of writings and podcasts that have spun out from her original radio program, On Being. Her interviews with everyone from scientists to poets can pull me out of the sort of existential malaise I occasionally find myself mired in. [She recommends the Mary Oliver episode, linked here.]
For more from Delaney, follow along on Tremont Home on TikTok and Instagram.
Thanks, as always, for your time and attention.
Margaret of Bad Art Every Day