Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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88 bostoncommon-magazine.com or medicine. After an undergraduate degree in marketing ("not really my thing") and sev- eral years as an account executive ("I was hor- rible"), she found herself dreading work every day. That's when she glanced longingly back at her first love, interior design. "One morning I had the realization, 'Enough is enough. I'm too young to do a job I hate,'" she explains. "That afternoon, I walked into Boston Architectural College and applied to the program for a master's degree in interior design." Attending a program with an architectural backbone offers a designer the added chops of understanding the skeleton of a client's build- ing. Still, she didn't tell her parents what she'd done, at least not right away. "Most people don't tell their folks they got a tattoo or a pierc- ing. I didn't tell my parents I was going back for a master's degree," she says with a laugh. Starting over in a new field is difficult enough, but Nayak also took up bartending as a means to support herself through school. For 13 years—while in school and while getting her own design practice going—she supplemented her income as a vivacious mixologist at some of Boston's trendiest restaurants and clubs, including Venu, Felt, and Pravda. (The restau- rant scene is where she met her husband Brian O'Donnell, who owns and manages restau- rants in and around Boston.) Though her ca- reer change made her parents anxious initially, her father was nevertheless her first and best mentor. "My folks are those beaming-with- pride parents now. It just took a little while." mantra no. 2: "IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT TO MAKE SOMETHING LOOK EFFORTLESS" There's really no such thing as effortlessness when it comes to meaningful work, though, according to Nayak, that's precisely what it looks like when a home's décor is in sync with its owners. Natural. Individual. A room that says, Of course this couldn't be done any other way—and now, there's nowhere these people would rather be. "There's a lot of work behind it," says Nay- ak. "The design in my head is effortless, but the implementation to get it where it needs to be—that takes work." Namely, getting on the same page as clients, understanding how they live, what they want, reading between the lines ("because a lot of times they're not even sure of what they want"), then sourcing the project and making sure it comes in at price point. "At the end of the day, it should be breezy and not too matchy-matchy. That's when it looks like someone tried too hard." Nayak's own career ascent follows the effort/ effortless motto. As much as she's a believer in following her gut, and as much as she loves the spotlight ("being a nightclub bartender is a lot like being on stage"), she never set out to be on television. She credits her first break to a com- bination of luck, putting herself out there, and extreme preparation. As she was finishing her master's degree, Nayak responded to a casting call recom- mended to the student body as a learning opportunity: ABC Family was launching a reality show on designing teens' bedrooms (Knock First), and wanted young designers to audition. They gave her two scenarios: a high- school boy who had to share a bedroom with his infant brother, and a tween girl who wanted "ONE MORNING I HAD THE REALIZATION, 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I'M TOO YOUNG TO DO A JOB I HATE.' THAT AFTERNOON, I CHANGED MY COURSE." — taniya nayak a room that would bridge her love of being on stage and her love of reading books. Nayak gathered "a ridiculous amount of materials" for the presentation, and because the audition staff didn't have a table for her to use, she had no choice but to spread her collection across the floor. When she landed the part—which would lead to designing the bedroom for the son of Aerosmith lead guitar- ist Joe Perry—she realized how arbitrary suc- cess could be. "The producers said afterward, 'You know why you got the gig? Because you knew to get on the floor and get down [to] the kids' level.' But it was 100 percent not inten- tional," she says. "I had nowhere else to put my things." And with that, her television ca- reer was born. A similar thing happened when Ellen DeGe- neres's design venture with QVC put out a casting call for a brand ambassador. As she waited her turn, Nayak wandered into the staff kitchen and noticed a refrigerator clip- ping that mentioned the product line was pronounced ed (as in education) and not ee-dee (like DeGeneres's initials). During her audi- tion, she worked that nugget of information into her bit. The producers looked at one an- other, eyebrows raised in a "how'd she know that" expression. Effort, effortless. mantra no. 3: "I JUST DON'T WANT TO LOOK BACK AND THINK, 'I COULD'VE EATEN THAT'" For a tiny, svelte 43-year-old who spends most of her days in and around restaurants, Nayak has a surprisingly angst-free relation- ship with eating. Her preference is "clean food," like quinoa and fish, but she's capable of being "that scary eater, shoveling in food like a beast." Her secret? If she's going to overdo it one day, she doesn't overdo it the next. However, the one non-negotiable piece of the food pyramid, she says with a wide grin, is chocolate. "If there isn't chocolate at the end of every meal, someone's going to get hurt." Which, she concedes, just might be the best recipe for happiness. At gut level, she under- stands that well-being means the balance of self-control and pleasure, and focusing on what you do have rather than what you can't. Also, sometimes, on feeding the beast. .