Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth. You can check out previous installments here.
When Bri Macdonald was a kid, her parents didn’t buy her Barbie dolls.
But they did buy her Barbie houses.
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Even at that age, she was obsessed with interior design. Her hours of playtime were spent meticulously rearranging the living quarters for dolls who’d never see them. Furniture, decor, landscaping…It was all fascinating to her.
And that fascination didn’t fade as she got older. Her dad, a capable handyman who knows a thing or two about home restoration, always let her tag along as his helper, and she learned the basics from him–enough that, when it came time to pick a career, she went straight for interior design. She ended up getting a job with a “really well-known” Canadian interior designer, she says, and as that designer’s apprentice, got to go behind the scenes on a few TV shows. This experience made her realize she didn’t just love interior design; she also loved the idea of capturing projects on film and putting them out there for the world to see.
So, when COVID hit and TikTok‘s surge to popularity began, Macdonald took her chance.
“The first video that ever took off was, I was in my house in COVID, and I hated my bed, and I was helping my sister redo her room,” she says. “I decided, ‘Okay, I’m going to look and buy a bed, a headboard.’ I found one on Etsy, but it was like $600, and I was like, ‘This is ridiculous. I can build this.’ My first video that ever took off was, I built a DIY headboard and I stained it. I think I built it for less than $80, and it was so nice.”
Macdonald was still in school, so uploading to TikTok became a hobby. Then came the Bluebird Cottage. Last year, right before she was about to graduate, a tiny house-sized cabin in northern Ontario came up for sale. Macdonald knew it was for her. She decided to renovate it and turn it into her perfect “little slice of heaven,” all the while documenting the entire process for TikTok.
That lengthy series is what helped push her account to nearly 200,000 followers. Now, a little over a year later, Macdonald (between working on other projects, as she’s now graduated and is a practicing interior designer/renovator) plans to return to the cottage for more videos this summer. She’s also got some other plans, including a partnership with Habitat for Humanity.
We’ll let her tell you all about it below.
@brii.macdonald Extreme Island Makeover: FINAL REVEAL!!!💫 #bluebirdcottage ♬ original sound – Bri Macdonald
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Nice to meet you! I know you’ve had quite rapid growth, especially around your series where you renovated your cabin. Just to start things off, are you from Ontario?
Bri Macdonald: Yes, I am. I’m from Toronto and I’m very proudly Canadian. You might notice that I say like, “sorry” really differently. I don’t know what else, like “pasta” or “bagel.” Anyways, yes, I grew up in Toronto and I spent a lot of time in the countryside in Ontario because it’s beautiful there.
Tubefilter: Were you always interested in interior design, or what was your young life like and early career?
Bri Macdonald: Yes. I always was obsessed with interior design. My parents always joke that they never bought me Barbies. They would just buy me the Barbie houses, and I would just rearrange them. I’ve always been super passionate about it. My dad is a really big inspiration to me because he likes to fix everything. From a young age, I was always his helper. I learned a lot from him about renovation.
I started working for a really well-known interior designer in Canada. She introduced me to the whole design world, honestly. Taught me everything, really. I got to help her on a couple shows, too. I got to help out and see behind the scenes and learn about that. I knew very early on that I wanted to be a part of interior design, but also capturing interior design because I’ve always been fascinated about that. I decided I’m going to start a social media and I’m going to do what I do and what I get so excited to do, but I’m just going to capture it and talk about it.
Tubefilter: It’s so cool that you got to see behind the scenes on shows.
Bri Macdonald: Yes. Oh my god. When I was doing it, I just knew like, this is what I want to do. I love it so much.
Tubefilter: Yes, I was wondering if that was an inspiration for you to come on social media.
Bri Macdonald: Huge inspiration for sure. I think another really big inspiration is just how passionate I am about it and how excited I get by it. When TikTok became a thing and everyone started downloading it, especially during COVID, that’s when I saw a window of opportunity for me. I kept thinking, “I feel like I would be really good at this.” One day I posted my first TikTok and it’s been four years. Isn’t that crazy?
Tubefilter: Wild! What was the first video for you that took off?
Bri Macdonald: The first video that ever took off was, I was in my house in COVID, and I hated my bed, and I was helping my sister redo her room. I decided, “Okay, I’m going to look and buy a bed, a headboard.” I found one on Etsy, but it was like $600, and I was like, “This is ridiculous. I can build this.” My first video that ever took off was, I built a DIY headboard and I stained it. I think I built it for less than $80, and it was so nice. That was my first big video that took off.
Tubefilter: It seems like you went into this pretty committed to it. Was there a point where you were like, “This is going to work for me long-term”?
Bri Macdonald: Honestly, I feel like there definitely have been roller coasters. Because at that time I was still in school, and I was learning everything. I just had a really big feeling in my gut that I was born to do this. I just love it so much. The satisfaction that I get from creating and planning out videos and basically doing what I do, but also capturing it, makes me so excited. I taught myself how to edit, and I love editing. I think I’ve just always been really driven where it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to commit 100% to this and it’s going to be amazing.” That’s what I did.
Tubefilter: Are you currently a practicing interior designer, like taking jobs for other people?
Bri Macdonald: I currently am just doing a couple renovations. I’m definitely interested in collaborating more with people in the social media world. But yes, I am a practicing interior designer. I actually graduated interior design school last May. Almost a year ago. Last year I spent a really long time capturing everything I learned in school. Now I’m just sharing my projects and everything I do. I’m renovating a house in the countryside in Ontario right now, which I’m really excited about.
Tubefilter: That’s very cool. I don’t want to make you give me like three hours of your time, but can you give me the tl;dr on, when you go into a new project, how do you start with a renovation? What are the beginning steps for somebody in your profession?
Bri Macdonald: Oh, that’s a good question. The beginning steps is always just planning everything out. It honestly really just depends on the project. If it’s full renovation, it takes a lot of work and a lot of planning. There’s a lot of other people who need to be involved. If it’s decorating, it can just be me, and I love to plan. I love visualizing it. Rendering everything. Definitely, I need to stay very organized in order to keep track of everything, but it really just varies on the different type of the scope of the project. For example, the countryside house that I’m doing right now has almost been seven months of planning, which is crazy. If I was decorating a room or something like that, it would be like two weeks of planning, a week of planning.
Tubefilter: How did you come by your little cabin that you are renovating? Am I correct in that it’s almost tiny house-sized?
Bri Macdonald: Yes.
Tubefilter: How did that come to be your project?
Bri Macdonald: It’s so cute. The opportunity arose while I was about to graduate from school, and I said, “Oh my god, this is going to be a perfect.” It’s my favorite place in the world. It’s located like three hours north of Toronto. It’s so beautiful up there. I just knew that it was going to be so fun. Because I call it my little slice of heaven, the lake up there, the cottage. I just wanted to share it and share my excitement. It is tiny for sure. I’m really excited because I’m currently planning Bluebird Cottage season two. There’ll be more that goes into it.
Tubefilter: This is like jumping ahead in my questions, but I am really curious, do you have future plans? What are your future plans for social media in general? Do you plan to take on more projects like that, or what are you thinking?
Bri Macdonald: Oh my god. Okay. I love answering this question. Because I think about my goals and my future goals all the time. I have always loved interior design TV shows. If you watch–do you watch like Netflix interior design TV shows or anything like that?
Tubefilter: I watched a bunch as a kid with my mom.
Bri Macdonald: My goal when I started social media was to turn what I do into mini little TV shows. The biggest compliment I get is whenever my followers message me and say, “I feel like I’m watching a movie every time I watch one of your videos.” A future goal is to just keep doing what I’m doing. Eventually I dream of going into TV and venturing off into that space for sure.
Tubefilter: Do you feel like being on social media is preparing you for that move into your career?
Bri Macdonald: Oh, yeah. I think it’s a huge portfolio that I’ve built because I definitely think it’s preparing me, being vulnerable on social media and with the world and eventually hopefully in TV, it’s hard to put yourself out there. I think I’m really grateful I’ve ventured into this space now because I’ve gotten really used to putting myself online, and getting used to being on camera and that sort of thing. It’s definitely making me just so much more reassured that it’s what I want to do.
Tubefilter: What is your current production process like? Because you have quite an active career, so you’re out and about, or you’re physically doing a lot of things at your projects. How do you fit in filming and editing? How do you work cameras into your work process?
Bri Macdonald: It’s taken a lot of trial and error of finding a really good work/life balance and balance within content creation, but also my actual work. For the first month and a half when I was renovating Bluebird Cottage, I would stay up until 3:00 in the morning, every night, editing videos. That’s just not sustainable. I now have a really good structured system where I write down all my ideas in either a notes app or a Google Doc, and I just create my videos.
A lot of people always say like, “You need to post three times a day,” “Quantity over quality.” I completely disagree with that. I think quality over quantity. I definitely don’t post as much as other creators, but I do believe that what I put out there is literally a form of art. It does take time for me to plan everything out and edit it, but in the end it’s worth it 1000%.
Tubefilter: Have you had any cool opportunities since you’ve been on social media?
Bri Macdonald: Yes. Social media has opened so many doors. I’m so grateful for that. One thing that I’m just really excited about is future opportunities. I really want to get into more charitable work. Working with charities within social media, because having a platform is such a gift and I think using it really– like the best of my abilities is just what I hope to do. Those are my goals is to venture into the more charitable space. I’m hopefully working with Habitat for Humanity.
Tubefilter: Oh, very cool. Tell me more about that.
Bri Macdonald: I’m so excited, we’re going to be donating a bunch of old things in the house I’m currently renovating, and I’m going to go and show that whole process. I got to learn everything that they do. Those are the opportunities that I’m really excited about that social media has opened the door for me.
Tubefilter: How did you end up working with Habitat for Humanity? Did they reach out to you?
Bri Macdonald: No, I reached out to them. I also really want to collaborate more with other creators in this space. That’s another big goal of mine for sure.
Tubefilter: Do you consider TikTok your main platform?
Bri Macdonald: I feel the most connected with my community on Instagram, just because I get so many DMs from everyone. I really take a lot of time curating my Stories and making them super engaging. I do post across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. My biggest following is actually on Facebook.
Tubefilter: Really? Oh, interesting. How old are you?
Bri Macdonald: I’m turning 24.
Tubefilter: Okay. You’re on the younger side. I don’t know a lot of younger creators who even bother to post on Facebook, let alone do really well with it. Why Facebook? Anything you’ve noticed about your audience there?
Bri Macdonald: Yes. I think what’s really cool about posting across so many different social media apps is, I get to reach so many different demographics. I have different demographics on each app. I definitely have a younger following on TikTok, and YouTube is all over the place. Facebook, I have a little bit of an older following. It just, I get to reach a lot more people, which is really cool. That was my goal with posting on different social media apps.
Tubefilter: Are you posting the same videos across all your platforms, or do you change anything for each platform?
Bri Macdonald: I post mostly the same videos on all of my platforms, but I think I post a little bit more different things on Instagram and TikTok.
Tubefilter: Interesting. Then I know you did a couple long-forms on your YouTube channel. I’m curious if you’re thinking–especially now with TikTok expanding the length of video you can upload–about getting into longer videos again.
Bri Macdonald: Yes. That’s a really good question. Thank you for asking that. One of my biggest messages that I get from all of my followers is like, “Please make a YouTube channel, please make a YouTube channel.” It’s definitely something that I’ve always wanted to get into. I think when I do it, I really want to do it right and dive headfirst into it. I just got my feet on the ground, like getting a really good content schedule, with my short-form videos, but something I’ve always wanted to get into is longer YouTube videos. Hopefully, that is one of my goals this year. I will definitely be looking into it and trying to carve out time for it within the next year.
Tubefilter: I wanted to go back, you mentioned getting DMs from your Instagram followers. Do you have any interesting interactions with your community that you want to talk about?
Bri Macdonald: Oh my god, I love scrolling through my DMs. I feel so grateful for the community that I have on social media. Everyone is just so amazing and nice. Some people send me pictures of their room and say I inspired them and wanted to do this. Just really, really cool. It’s also super cool meeting a lot of people in real life too. The other day I was at a nail salon, and I met someone just randomly. It’s so cool meeting people in person, but also getting messages because my job is talking on my phone the whole day. Actually getting those interactions is really cool. It means a lot to me for sure.
Tubefilter: Are you thinking about doing any meet-and-greets or going to any conventions this year?
Bri Macdonald: I would love, love to do events and that’s something I’ve been thinking about for a really long time because I get so excited whenever I meet anyone in public. That’s definitely something that I’m thinking about, and I would love to do, for sure.
Tubefilter: Perfect. Any other goals or plans you want to talk about for this year?
Bri Macdonald: Yes, I think I’m just going to be keeping up with my content and the renovations are going to be really exciting. I am doing a bunch of stuff. I have a lot of content plans for this year. I have the two renovations I’m doing and I’m hopefully going to be collaborating with other creators on social media. I’m really excited for everything this year has to offer.
Bri Macdonald is repped by Viral Nation.
