ONALASKA, Wis. (WKBT) — An Onalaska woman went viral last week for her interior design. Zillow Gone Wild featured the house last week, with one homemade sign that caused a stir online.
Lauren Hegenbarth, who lives in the house with her husband Austin and three kids, has an affinity for interior design.
“That’s just my style—the modern farmhouse type stuff,” Lauren said.
Her house is adorned in signs that label spaces and feature sayings about family. Her style is something Austin teases her for.
“Well, there’s a lot of signs,” Austin said. “I like to bring that up. I like to say, ‘Well, where’s the pantry? Oh shoot, there it is. Because there’s a sign above the pantry that says pantry.”
Lauren gets many of her decorations from TJ Maxx and Hobby Lobby, but not all of them are store-bought.
She made about half of them herself, all of which blend right in with the store-bought decorations. One sign in particular hangs in the master bedroom and it reads “Welcome to poundtown.”
She made it as a surprise for her husband when he was out of town.
“Oh I loved that. I loved it. I thought it was hilarious,” Austin said.
When they decided to sell, a photo of every room went up online– including one of the bedroom.
“Our realtor listed it, and he didn’t even realize it was in the pictures and then he started getting messages about the sign,” Lauren said.
The listing was posted on a Friday, and the next Monday, April 18, Twitter account Zillow Gone Wild posted it.
Lauren is a fan of the page, but she and Austin never expected their house to be posted there.
“People get a good chuckle out of it, but I didn’t think we’d be talked about all over the world because of a sign above our bed,” Austin said.
Lauren has always had a flair for sign-making, but her small business has never boomed like this before.
“Around holiday times I would make like, holiday décor. And then I just started in December with the funny signs and I’ve only made a couple,” Lauren said. “My little group I had that had 120 people a week ago and is now… has 5,000 members.”
Lauren says she’s been getting plenty of orders, and just launched a website where people can purchase her creations. The only products on the website right now are
“Maybe I could just take this and run with it and open my own little business!” Lauren said.
Lauren also has a Facebook page for tamer designs, and a private Facebook group for those interested in poundtown-like décor.
The Hegenbarths will be moving out of that home this summer, and Austin and Lauren say the sign is coming with them to what they call Poundtown 2.0.
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