Interior design student spends summer working for HGTV show designer

Liberty University junior interior design student Elloa Mathis lived out her passion for design and got a glimpse into her future career during an internship this past summer working for designer Heather Fox, host of HGTV’s “Should I Stay or Go.”

The show is filmed in Mathis’ hometown of Minneapolis. Fox and her husband Brad have hosted two seasons of the show, where they renovate, design, and flip homes in what the show calls “one of the hottest real estate markets in the country.”

Mathis said the idea of working for the designer was something she thought of, but it seemed out of reach.

“I always kind of joked that someday I would work for them since they were in the Minneapolis area and I had my interests in design,” Mathis said.

As it happens, Mathis is friends with the Fox family’s nanny and, through the connection, was able to secure an interview with Heather Fox over winter break last year.

“(Heather) was so nice and calming, which was great because I was definitely nervous being interviewed by an HGTV designer. At the end, she said, ‘All right, let’s do it, I’ll see you this summer.’ It ended up working out so well, and it was a huge blessing.”

From early June to just before classes began in late August, Mathis spent her days either in the design studio or in clients’ homes witnessing and participating in projects at varying phases. Even though these projects were not filmed for the show itself, Mathis said she thoroughly enjoyed simply being around the team that produces a nationally aired show, and she noted that the progress was documented for the Fox’s YouTube channel.

“While I am not a part of any specific episodes airing, it was still an incredible experience to have the ability to work with a team that has been aired nationally, gain so much knowledge from lessons they have learned while filming, and to witness the incredible following they have gained.”

She organized the studio materials inventory, scheduled and sat in on design meetings with clients, and visited homes to viewing ongoing projects.

“When I came in, we were doing 15-20 residential projects. Some were just one room and some were a whole house build, and it was really cool to see from the ground up, from construction meetings to seeing stylings and staging for pictures,” she said. “It was really cool because they let me come along on basically everything, and they really wanted me to learn every piece and step of a project,” she said.

Mathis said she hopes to someday work in residential interior design. Her interest in the field started in high school when she took a few design electives, but it wasn’t until she visited Liberty and spoke with Lisa Campbell, a Family & Consumer Sciences interior design associate professor, that she was inspired to pursue a career in the industry.

“I never really thought of it as a career, but then when I came to visit Liberty and talked to (Campbell), it sold it for me,” Mathis said. “I love the creativity of it and being able to make spaces my own or create what a client is envisioning. You kind of get to play while you work, and I also really like being with clients, and to be a designer you really are in somebody’s home and get that unique work environment.”