October 08, 2020
Little House on Maui
Q & A with Makers of Little House in Maui
Lauren + Matt LaDoux
What’s the meaning of your business name?
We fell in love with creating when we purchased the fixer upper that we live in now, which we named Little House on Maui. It only felt appropriate that we name our business that, Little House on Maui is was brought our vision to life.
Tell us how you got started!
In 2017, we purchased our fixer upper here on Maui and from day one, I called it our Little House on Maui. We gutted the entire house in less than a month and quickly began renovating it with our own two hands. Along the way, we fell in love with creating. We made our first dining room table that year and from there, we just kept creating and expanding.
What are your favorite materials right now?
Obviously, wood! Haha But, I am loving poplar wood at the moment. I’m obsessed with the hardness of it and if you can find the right cut, the grain pattern is greyish and linear and the wood can be very light. I love the cool tones in poplar.
When did you decide to become a designer/artist?
I don’t know if I ever decided to become one, I think it decided to make me one. I worked in Marketing and Advertising before this. Then Covid hit and I had some free time to get creative again. I never had any intentions of Little House on Maui being this but here we are and we couldn’t be happier.
Were you encouraged to follow your dreams and create for a living?
Matt has always supported what I wanted to do if it made sense for our family. We knew that I wouldn’t stay in the corporate world for forever and he’s always supported whatever that looked like.
Is there a single purpose that keeps you focused?
The love of it. That’s it.
What about your medium makes you keep going back? What makes you
stick with it?
The endless opportunity to keep creating new and beautiful things. I have so much more to learn, I’m excited to continue to grow and be able to produce more items with my knowledge.
Is there something that the world should know about you and/or the work that you do?
Everything I create I create for my own home. There isn’t one item that I’ve made that I wouldn’t/isn’t placed somewhere in Little House on Maui.
What’s your biggest challenge as a maker?
Having my work space be in my home and balancing motherhood. It’s hard to disconnect once I’m immersed in a project and shift from that to my tiny human. It’s something I’m working on and I know we’ll figure out.
What’s on your current music rotation while creating?
Oh man, I would say I rotate between Lana Del Rey, Caamp, Fleetwood Mac, Angus and Julia Stone, Post Malone and Lauryn Hill. I’m all over the place these days.