Designer and television star Tamara Day's sunny personality, can-do spirit, and signature style have made her the go-to expert for dramatic before and afters.
Lights, camera, and action weren’t part of Tamara Day’s script for her life back when she was a kid growing up in Kansas. And yet every week, millions of people tune in to the popular home improvement show, Bargain Mansions, to see how the self-taught designer has transformed yet another broke-down palace into a warm, inviting home featuring her signature blend of glam-meets-cozy. “We’ve renovated more than 50 houses since 2019 and been on three different networks,” she explains. “We’re one of the only DIY Network shows that got taken over to HGTV, and now we’re the legacy show on Chip and Joanna Gaineses’ new network, Magnolia.”
Long before Day was hitting her mark—and making a mark on foreclosed properties—she was getting hands-on experience in home construction that would serve her well throughout her life. “My dad worked for a company that moved us every three or four years,” Day explains. “We were always buying houses that my parents could really fix up and put their sweat and elbow grease into. I spent weekends helping Dad with all kinds of projects, and that’s where my love for building and design started.”
By the time Day got to Kansas State University, she was way more interested in styling than studying. Unfortunately, she had no idea that interior design was a viable career option. “I didn’t have a path figured out, so I majored in communications,” she says with a laugh. “But there were red flags everywhere that it wasn’t my passion.” Count frequent moves as one of those red flags. “I was in a different place every semester, so I could change everything—I already knew how to do a lot of things. I was never afraid to break out the paint. I just thought, ‘I’ll paint it again when I leave,” she says. “ I also thrifted a lot and figured out how to repurpose things. I had nothing but time, and it was all so fun!”
After graduating, she married Bill Day, a man who knows a little something about real estate investment. “My husband grew up in a family that owned 75 rental properties. He bought his first house when he was 16,” she says. Together, they began renovating and flipping homes—even as their family grew to include three sons and a daughter.
After a relocation to Kansas City, Day began a huge renovation—what she calls her “first bargain mansion”—only to have it interrupted by the Great Recession. “It was 2008, and everything went to hell,” she recalls. “I just watched that Bernie Madoff documentary on Netflix and was traumatized all over again. Basically, the economy tanked, and our income tanked, so I had to put my youngest in a backpack and figure out how to keep the renovation on track.”
While she managed to complete construction, there wasn’t much room left in the budget for new furnishings. Day solved that problem by running the roads and hunting for treasures at estate sales. “My sons loved what they called ‘driveway days’—we’d spend the first part of the day driving around, and then we’d paint and fix things up in the driveway.”
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Neighbors took note of her handiwork and began asking Day to shop on their behalf, too. “I started hosting open houses with tons of inventory twice a year, and I’d invite all the moms with their side hustles—oils, jewelry, Mercy Candles, Convivial Candles—to sell their stuff, too,” she explains. “We were all just moms starting out, and we harnessed our mom power. It’s been fun to see how successful some of these businesses have become.”
Her own included after shoppers became clients. Eventually, word of the respectful renovations Day was doing around Kansas City, as well as her gift for modern design eventually caught the ear of a talent scout. “This was around 2010 or 2011, when she came to the see my kitchen—before the all-white kitchen-and-open-shelves era—and I had already done it. I was on-trend before it was a trend,” Day notes. A few years later, Bargain Mansions was born.
Pre-show, Day says she was basically charging family and friends babysitter and gas money for her services. Post-show, Day has moved to the big leagues. She launched her interior design and lifestyle company, Growing Days; she’s got a wallpaper and rug line; and she’s debuting new product collections.
During this summer’s edition of Lightovation, Day will launch a collection with Quorum International (TM 3004, TM 3111) that will feature more than 50 products in three different series. Each series will integrate multiple materials and finishes while reflecting Day’s understated yet refined style. Day also is collaborating with showroom Varaluz (TM 4507) on a lighting and furniture line that will launch later this year in addition to her current mirror collection.
RSVP here to get your sneak peek to Lightovation and Tamara's debut collection with Quorum International at Dallas Market Center's inaugural Interior Designer Preview Day event.
Despite everything on her plate, Day still finds time to collaborate with “real-life clients” on large-scale projects. “I’ve been working on one house for almost two years now,” she explains. “There’s no way we could have a three-year design-build for the show. We did 20 houses in 11 months this year for television.”
Day credits her incredible team for keeping everything on track (“This is not a one-woman show, even though it looks like it,” she says), and she notes that having so many creative releases helps keep her sane. “I have so many ideas in my head. In a million years, I couldn’t get them all out in one place,” she says. “That’s my favorite thing about my job—I can get the ideas out, and it saves my house from constant construction.”
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