Step Inside This ‘Haus’

One of Lauren O. Victoria’s interior design samples: her own living room MAVN PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOS

Reflecting on the year that she spent running her own business, Lauren O. Victoria says this: “Owning a startup is absolutely insane.”

During that year, she poured all of her time and energy into Aloha Crate, a subscription box service that supplied local snacks. Business was going well, but it often got so hectic that she struggled to fit in time to exercise, cook, or do other basic self-care necessities.

“The hardest part was trying to find balance, and the first thing that falls to the wayside was taking care of myself,” Victoria recalls. “I would just get so caught up in taking care of my customers – which is great, but you can’t take care of other people until you take care of yourself.”

So Victoria went about trying to figure out a way to incorporate the healthy, active lifestyle she wanted within her busy work schedule. She started by identifying the conditions that were necessary for her to thrive – she needed to exercise in the morning and eat breakfast, for starters – and then she found a way to make it all apart of her day.

Victoria’s recipes include healthy treats like these green smoothies made in bulk

“It’s small in the grand scheme of things, but having that amount of structure helped me get through all of the insanity that could come with the rest of the day,” Victoria says.

Now, Victoria is sharing those hard-earned life hacks with others through haus of lov, which she describes as “a digital bungalow for the eternal entrepreneur.” Haus of lov is a multi-faceted website offering lifestyle tips, recipes and more.

“I have stumbled around a lot,” Victoria says. “(Haus of lov) was a way to put the things that I have learned after stumbling around out there to share with friends and anybody who could use a little help … It’s really just coming up with systems that work that aren’t hard and sharing them.”

I would just get so caught up in taking care of my customers – which is great, but you can’t take care of other people until you take care of yourself.” -Lauren O. Victoria

Through the haus of lov blog, Victoria shares things like where to find the best kitchen and home goods, tips on easy beauty and fashion routines, and putting together a DIY home garden with help from some resourceful websites like Gardeners Dream (https://www.gardenersdream.co.uk/). She also divulges the recipes that save her time when she’s busy – things like salads and crock-pot curries. Aimed at other busy professionals, her recipes are designed to be easy-yet-healthy weeknight options.

Victoria also has created her own signature line of coffee mugs adorned with inspirational sayings.

“Sometimes when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you pick up your mug and you’re like, you’re right, everything is going to be fine,” Victoria says. “You have that with your morning cup of caffeine and it just gives you an extra boost of confidence to take on the day.”

She currently is working on creating more mugs, as well as a line of T-shirts.

After a year of running Aloha Crate, Victoria sold the company and now does marketing and space staging for Sandwich Isle Realty. Accordingly, haus of lov also offers tips on interior design and helps people to decipher which peel and stick wallpaper would work better in their chosen room, for example.

There is never any harm in seeking a second opinion, especially when it comes to areas like interior design, thus making haus of lov the perfect place to turn to if you’re in the middle of redecorating.

haus of lov offers custom coffee mugs

With everything that Victoria does through haus of lov, she hopes that she is able to take some of the guesswork out of life and help people develop their own systems to facilitate healthy, active lifestyles no matter what their day-to-day may look like.

“We don’t always have to start from ground zero,” Victoria says. “Busy people don’t want to make tons and tons of decisions all the time because we already have to. In ways that we can make our lives easier, a guidebook or a system is super helpful.

“I hope that haus of lov can make people’s lives easier.”

For more information, visit hausoflov.com.