Image courtesy Nicokam Photography
People were urging Nicole Bader to turn her newfound home-rehab skills into a business. She had been assistant producer for The Maury Povich Show, but since returning home to Lancaster to help care for her ailing father, she had struggled to find her career niche.
That’s when her then-boyfriend said something that rankled: “You’re afraid to be your own boss.”
“And I was,” she says now. “I was afraid to take that jump and go out on my own, versus staying safe and working for others.”
But she’s also the type who doesn’t want to hear that she can’t do something. That remark inspired her to make the leap and start her own unique business in 2015. Today, Nicole Bader Interiors tackles the gamut of home-related services—interior design, painting, home staging, home renovation and furniture restoration (nicolebaderinteriors.com).
It’s a story that starts in a New York City television studio before winding back to Lancaster and a dad’s basement stocked with home repair tools and supplies.
Bader was a communications major at Indiana University of Pennsylvania when she answered a Craigslist notice seeking an intern for an unnamed television show. The show turned out to be Povich’s nationally syndicated talk show. On her first day, Bader helped put pantyhose on a transvestite who was, on air, revealing his secret to his wife.
It was the start of four years of “controlled chaos,” as she rose from intern to assistant producer. Bader learned—and still explains to others—that Povich guests are “very real.”
“These are people that reach out to the show,” she says. “Ultimately, there’s definitely an entertainment value, and everything is very well produced, but the majority of the time, I felt like I was helping these people.”
In 2012, she declined to renew her Povich contract and went home to Lancaster to help her mother care for her ailing dad. She endured periods of unemployment and unfulfilling sales jobs. Her father, Len Bader, had always taught her to follow her dream, but she struggled to define it.
“I feel like a lot of people go through that struggle,” she says. “Who are you? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What are your passions?”
After her father died, Bader and her mother decided to sell their home and make a fresh start. In the basement was a clutter of Len’s tools, all devoted to the half-finished man cave that he intended to complete someday.
“Saw. Saw table. Concrete molding. Half drywall. Prepurchased drywall. There were gallons of spackle. There was everything I needed to complete the basement.” After a friend appraised the materials at $30,000, she thought about selling but couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Besides, she needed to finish the basement for home showings. Friends with construction expertise offered to do the work, but she insisted that they teach her how to do it instead.
“They didn’t take me seriously,” she says. “They didn’t think I could do it.”
The self-confessed girly-girl learned to paint, hang drywall and lay carpet. She got the basement 90 percent completed, and the house sold within 30 days.
On one of those fix-up days, Bader’s mother, Cindy, suggested that she use her new skills to make money. After being laid off from a sales job, Bader worked with Wendy Downie, a real estate agent and investor.
As they flipped apartments together and Downie taught her the basics of real estate, Bader applied her artistic eye to learning interior decorating and staging. She made mistakes and learned from them. Since starting her business, her clients have been “nothing but a blessing.” Her friends have pitched in, too, designing her website and offering marketing ideas.
“I’ve learned so much from others and their talents,” she says. “I’ve taken that and made it my own.”
After selling her parents’ house, Bader bought her own home, rehabbing and decorating it as a showcase for her diverse services. Today, she is painting, de-cluttering and installing new flooring, all to stage homes that usually sell quickly. It’s “the greatest satisfaction” to help people move to the next phase of their lives.
“My wonderful friend Wendy and I are basically furniture hoarders at this point,” Bader laughs. “My basement is filled.”
One client living in a Lancaster rowhome with her four kids needed to upgrade the living room carpet. First, Bader suggested finding out what was beneath. Up came the carpet, and when Bader was done pulling 2,000 staples, sanding the boards “to the bare bones,” and restaining, the client had a gleaming, new-old hardwood floor.
“I remember coming home with callouses all over my hands, and that was when I felt legit,” she recalls.
Work has grown to the point where she subcontracts, and she has “wonderful, tough men with muscles who can help.” She’ll spend a day patching drywall or installing new trim, “and then I go home and put on my makeup and have a glass of wine.”
She hasn’t yet learned how to use the power saw because, she admits, it scares her. She has, however, overcome her fear of spiders, mice and other creepy crawlers that literally come out of the woodwork.
“I swear, the basement is where thousand-leggers go to die,” she says.
Outside of work, she plays with her 2-year-old rescue cat, Bodhi. She loves the Lancaster revival, as “the community has come together and built a wonderful city.”
Her mom is very proud of her newfound direction. She believes her dad would say, “I knew you could do it.”
“Every day, he’s with me, because I’m using his tools,” she says.
Bader’s big risk now means that she is a business owner and—yes—her own boss. She has never been happier.
As millennials, “a lot of us are searching for the right path,” she says. “You jump from job to job, not knowing what you want to do. But ultimately, don’t lose sight of your true interests and your passion. Believe in yourself and don’t be afraid to be your own boss someday.”
