Meet Hannah Dahl Ross

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hannah Dahl Ross. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Hannah, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I discovered my purpose through a sacrifice, obsession and some risk-taking. A few years ago, I quit my design job. As a graduate in interior design from SDSU, I initially followed in my mom’s footsteps, driven by my passion for interiors and creative self-expression. However, once I started working in the field, I realized it wasn’t what I had envisioned. I felt out of alignment with my creativity and believed I had something unique to offer and share with the world.

I love experimenting and trying new things, so I left my job with a strong desire to create something that truly represented me. On my 25th birthday, I had an epiphany to incorporate my last name, Dahl, into my business name, The Dahl House. I was already experimenting with a small business, selling vintage home decor and marketing my pieces in my own home or little outdoor sets I’d curate. For a while I was experimenting with different styles & colors with fashion & painting my apartment walls, and I finally settled on a color ~ pink. And it was the perfect shade of pink. That color gave me a sense of healing, safety, and happiness, sparking a spiritual awakening. I realized I wanted to immerse my business in this pink world that felt so warm & fuzzy to me, and to evoke those feelings through design. This color oddly helped me feel so comfortable and in-tune with myself, a strong feeling I hadn’t felt in a while. I became obsessed.

With a love for nostalgia, I envisioned creating a vintage life-size dollhouse, incorporating styles that I was inspired by, mingled with pink, Barbie & Shabby Chic, and also a little old Hollywood glam & Victorian, but I lacked the space to express this style combination concept. While searching for studios and apartments, I found the perfect spot in Los Angeles, a city I actually hadn’t considered living in before. But these older 1920’s Spanish style, old Hollywood studios had all of the vintage charm I was searching for. Orange County (where I was originally living) didn’t have these ever so crucial charming features. The bones were so important to me. My stubbornness wouldn’t settle on finding a somewhat newer spot around OC (staying closer to friends and family); everyone kept trying to convince me that I could just find something newer and add old charm to it, but I disagreed and followed my heart and my gut. Despite never having lived on my own and without a consistent income as a freelance creative, I took the risk and moved to LA, driven by pure determination with my clear vision and lots of passion. Once there, I started curating The Dahl House.

Once other creatives started coming to my Dahl House, hearing their stories of how inspired they were to create here, and how happy my designs made them, it really touched me and gave me so much confidence and satisfaction to know that my art positively impacted their lives. People were traveling by from all over to shoot here. Some brought their parents and wanted tours. It was really, really heart warming and gave me a sense of purpose. I hadn’t felt this purpose feeling so strongly before up until this point.

From residential interior design, selling vintage home decor, transforming my studio into a photo shoot rental location, and now to content creation and renovating our 1920s home in the country in Oklahoma into the next Dahl House 2.0 (a multivenue event rental space), I’m having so much fun sharing beautiful things with the world. Everything has felt in flow, and I’m so grateful for the opportunities to evolve through various creative endeavors.

I also owe much of discovering my purpose to my community of Dahls. Sharing my creations on social media and fostering a community of lovers & supporters has tremendously helped motivate me and fuel the pink fire in me to keep going, creating & sharing more with those who find enjoyment in what I’m passionate about.

My supportive team of my family, friends & community has helped the dreamer in me become the doer.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’ve been content creating in the home decor, lifestyle & fashion space and social media managing for the past few years, while also full time Dahl-ing — running my own small business, The Dahl House (TDH).

I started out selling vintage products, then that turned into a photo shoot rental business with a vintage style decorated studio, to now currently selling handmade items (mini & large bows), while also dreaming of expanding The Dahl House into a broader range of vintage inspired products.

I’ve recently moved from Orange County & my old Dahl House in LA to Oklahoma (Bowklahoma) with my husband and our pups to be closer to family. Here, we are living simpler, slower paced & content lives while transforming our 1920’s home on a small prairie into the new Dahl House ~ which we intend to turn into a multivenue event space for weddings, bridal showers, parties, etc. one day. We’ve been sharing our journey through social media, which has been a beautiful way to connect & tell our story/share our dreams and ideas with everyone.

It has been such a dream of mine to expand The Dahl House into these new avenues, and I’m so grateful to build this dream together with my husband here in Bowklahoma. I want more people to be able to experience The Dahl House in person, and I hope that it could inspire others to put their heart and soul into creating through self expression and sharing their ideas with the world. Anything is possible as long as you believe in your own magic. Sometimes sacrificing and leaving your old life behind can help inspire you to try new things in ways you wouldn’t have imagined.

Make sure to follow along on our home renovation journey for updates for when we launch our new Dahl House! I’ve also been super passionate about interiors and design still, and have been wanting to create something unique to offer to help my audience with discovering themselves through design. I’ve been slowly in the works of an exciting venture of offering virtual interior decorating consulting services! I’m so thrilled to share more about this passion project soon.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Hyper focusing, determination and creativity.

Focus on one task at a time. Narrow down your priorities. This might mean sacrificing aspects in your life, like your social life. You can’t do everything at once and be everything to everyone. But you can really achieve something if you set your mind to if it. If you can focus and really get into immersing yourself fully in that task or project. It’ll just definitely take lots of sacrifice, in many aspects. This goes for determination too. Really hyper focus on your goals and believe in yourself, regardless of what others may be saying or thinking. If you let others get to you, it’ll only bring you down. Continue to strive for your dreams regardless of any challenge or negative thought. Believe that you are uniquely you and remind yourself that constantly. Everyone has something different and unique to offer. And really let your imagination run wild when it comes to creativity. When we were little kids, our imaginations were so powerful and creative. We didn’t have any big adult problems yet or let any environmental factors influence our thoughts. Try to channel your inner child imagination and let your daydreaming become your reality.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

I owe so much to my husband, his parents, and my parents for their unwavering support. They always have encouraged me to try new things and have never doubted me, even if something failed. They taught me how to be resilient and not let ego or a small failure get me down. My mom has taught me how to be creative with what I have and how to be independent. My dad has taught me how to always lead with confidence and to never give up. My mother & father in law have been the biggest entrepreneurial business mentors in my life, teaching me everything I know about how to run a business while also giving back, being grateful & generous. My husband’s positivity and support has been invaluable, reminding me not to stress about the little things. I’m so grateful to have found someone that I can be so completely myself around ~ we are little kids at heart. We even act like little kids together, and he helps bring out my inner child’s whimsical imagination. This is truly what helps fuel my creativity with my ideas & designs.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thedahlhouse.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannahdahlross?igsh=MXE3NWwzc3I2Y2Nidw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr