Gail Disner has a knack for making everything she touches turn to gold. She’s like a Disney princess — with power tools.
A Mississippi transplant, she moved to Birmingham with her husband, Groves High School graduate Mike Disner — now chief operating officer for the Detroit Lions — and their two young children. When they bought their 1936 Colonial in Quarton Lake, she unpacked her power tools and went to work with small renovation projects. For fun, she started posting them online — showing people what she was up to while injecting a good dose of humor and lightheartedness.
What started as a hobby dispensing delicious details about her stunning home has become a full-time enterprise — at press time, she’s got 238K followers on Instagram alone, she’s got collaborations with companies like Williams-Sonoma and HGTV and she’s in discussions with an interior-design company eager to create a housewares collection with her.
Although she does seem to have a bit of magic to her, Disner, known as the Southern Gail (@thesoutherngail) has earned her skills and success the old-fashioned way: arming herself with three degrees (including two master’s), educating herself to the point of expert in home design (and still constantly learning) and a lifetime of experience well beyond her years have landed her in her dream home and working her dream job of home content creator.
Are you a true Southern girl?
I grew up in a very small town in Mississippi, with 45 people in my high school graduating class. Actually, I was the only one from my class that went to a four-year college.
What did you study?
I have three degrees: one in microbiology with minors in chemistry and economics from the University of Southern Mississippi. And I have a master’s in business from Ole Miss.
It’s been a long road — it’s what I thought I was supposed to do, because I was good at math and science. I decided I wanted to be involved in health care without being a clinician, so I got another master’s from Ole Miss, in health-care administration, with the goal of being a hospital administrator.
I became a manager at NYU Medical Center in New York City — which is where I met my husband.
And then your path changed?
My husband was in the NFL League office in New York when I met him. We got married and moved to Arizona for six years while he was with the Cardinals, had two children, then we moved to Michigan in 2019. I knew that his job required a commitment to traveling in our future — but I didn’t really know exactly what I was getting into. I learned very quickly after having kids! You can’t really do a ’normal’ corporate job, 9 to 5. You have to be flexible.
I’ve lived many lives. I sold real estate in Arizona and Michigan for short stints. I had a wedding- and event-planning company in Arizona that I later sold. I had to try things where I could choose my own hours.
Where do you live now?
We bought our house in Birmingham in 2019. It was everything we were looking for — a Colonial, it was a good size, had a spacious basement and big yard, which in Birmingham is so rare. I wanted a tree-lined street with sidewalks, also hard to find. We also didn’t want a house that needed a lot of work — ha.
And you found your dream house?
We fell in love. I wanted to be able to put my own touch on it, where I didn’t have to pay for somebody else’s upgrades to a bathroom or kitchen that I didn’t like. So it was exactly what we needed. The house was built in 1936 — we had no idea what we were getting into.
Did you have a background in design?
Every house I’ve ever lived in, as early as I can remember, I wanted my room decorated the way I wanted it done. Growing up, it was just, we’re going to Walmart, pick out a comforter. But I always wanted my space customized. In college I made headboards for my dorm room bed. Every New York City apartment I lived in, I painted the walls even though I knew I was going to have to repaint them when I left. I always wanted my space to feel decorated, homey and designed.
When we bought an old house, I thought, Ok, here’s my chance. I get to really design this how I want. I wanted to take my time to figure out what I wanted and figure out my style. I had used drills all through college. When we bought this house, I started buying the real power tools — miter saws, tile saws.
But I didn’t realize it was going to take over my life. I had planned to maybe sell real estate here, and I even got my license. I thought we would slowly update it, and as I did, I started sharing projects online as a creative outlet. I was seeing other DIYers and designers do it, and thought it could be really cool if I posted a project. Maybe someone would send me something for free. Very low level.
What exactly do you do?
My business is a content creator. Ninety-nine percent of what I do is just my house. I don’t take clients. I don’t design for anyone else. I just share my house online. Slowly people started asking, ‘Hey, where did you get that wallpaper?’ ‘Where did you get that rug?’ I was thinking, wow this is a lot of work. If I’m doing all this work and I keep getting more followers and I keep getting more questions about sources, this is starting to feel like a job. I need to figure out if I’m going to monetize this or if this is going to be a hobby.
That shift happened in 2022. I was just posting things for fun, very much a hobby. And in 2022, I went to my first DIYers conference in Atlanta, and the Southern Gail became a business.
It’s grown astronomically since then. In 2023, I went from 30K followers to more than 100K; by January 2024, I had 200K followers. It was a big year in follower count.
I have a lot of followers on TikTok and Facebook, but Instagram is definitely my main platform. And I see a lot of growth opportunities. This is just the beginning.
Now I have a management team, I work with brands — big ones like Williams-Sonoma and smaller local ones — and I have affiliate links. A company wants to do a product line with me — that would be really special. I’m always open-minded. I don’t want to get into manufacturing. I don’t need to learn anything else! But to have my own line with a reputable company where I could come in with the design elements — ‘Ooh, what if we made this print lattice? What if we add a scallop on this? What if we offer embroidery? What if we do a double cord instead of single?’ That could be really fun.
I’m so thankful that I can call this a career. I never in a million years expected that me sharing my house online was going to be a career for me. I’m amazed and so appreciative that my followers want to watch my little side of the Internet. It’s just mind blowing to me.
What happens when you finish your home?
I tell everyone that my house will never be done. I’m right now embarking on a huge renovation with a kitchen addition and a covered patio, bumping both directions and into the yard, and then sideways with the garage to create a scullery. It’s a massive undertaking. I still have an original 1936 pink bathroom I need to take care of. I have an attic to work on, a basement. I’m working on my closet right now. I’m sure the kids’ rooms will need to be redone and their bathroom. I mean, I will never finish this house.
As social media platforms shift, I’ll shift with them. But my plan is to continue to be a home content creator and to inspire other women to make their house a home, whether that means hiring it out or picking up power tools or just hanging the dang wallpaper already — if it’s shopping at Goodwill or estate sales, or sewing curtains themselves. Just make it yours.
It’s a process. I thought my dining room was done. Apparently, it’s not. But I try to go room by room and be very intentional. I spend a lot of time weighing all of the options, ordering lots of fabrics. I like to spend time, finish that room, then move on to the next one.
A lot of DIYers do the One Room Challenge, where they challenge you to finish a room in eight weeks. My mudroom was part of my One Room Challenge — we gutted it, put in a new subfloor and a heated floor. I laid the tile, I built the cabinetry, I painted everything, I did a lot of the ceiling. It was a hustle. But I got it done. And it kickstarted me into finishing one room room at a time.
Do your degrees lend themselves to what you’re doing now?
As a science major, you have to learn how to be very meticulous with details. Nothing is intuitive. You can slowly learn that 2+2=4, but you can’t slowly learn how a cellular structure is made up of oxygen and hydrogen. So I think that studying science means that you’re always seeking answers, you’re driven to learn. That is the definition of using power tools and doing all these projects.
People ask how I know how to do all these projects myself. I had to learn. I had to watch 10 different YouTube videos of different builders doing it, analyze them and ask questions.People don’t always understand that you just have to take time to teach yourself how to do some of these things.
Obviously, the business degree helped with looking at the big picture, analyzing aspects and figuring out my squat analysis. What are my weaknesses? What are my opportunities? What are my threats? Every year, you’re setting goals and doing your PNL and you’re trying to figure out what areas of business you need to spend more time on and where you may be done.
While using my master’s in healthcare I specifically dealt in operations, and that’s what managing home renovations is. Everything I’ve done has truly helped me get to what I am doing now.
Is your design aesthetic influenced by your Southern roots?
My roots have influenced me 100 percent. I lived in Arizona where they love Frank Lloyd Wright and midcentury modern, like we do here, too. I appreciate good design no matter what the style, but it’s not what I would personally choose.
In the South, you see these old, beautiful Georgian Colonial mansions, and in your mind, that’s the pinnacle. There are Colonials everywhere, of course, but not like in the South.
It takes time to find your style. Maturity and experience help, after you buy that first house you experiment. Instead of the house or a big box store telling you what your style is, you can actually think about what you want.
What does ‘Smaximalist’ mean and how do you achieve it?
I was having a hard time describing my style. I would say, well, it’s Southern, but it’s not old and stuffy like Grandma’s house, and it’s not Grandmillennial and I don’t do pastels. It’s Southern Traditional Maximalist. So I coined my own word. I call it ‘Smaximalist.’ I think it’s a good interpretation of my design style.
We have a very traditional home. It’s not necessarily Southern. It’s got a lot of warm wood tones that help ground the space and very fresh elements to update it. I don’t want to feel like it’s stuck in the past. I want to have modern-day amenities and feel fresh and clean and new.
I consider blues and greens to be neutrals, and that’s what our home is, with wood and brass mixed in, which also works to warm it. I have a vitrine from the 1700s — it’s a huge antique piece of brown furniture. A lot of women might not want a bunch of brown furniture in their house, but I have so much brown furniture, and my house is so bright and airy. I have brown floors. There’s brown everywhere. It gets a bad rap; everybody would go to the big box department stores and buy all brown furniture, and it was a lot. But my son’s bed was my grandmother’s from her house. I have a huge brown secretary at the top of my stairs. It’s how you mix it in.
Picking wallpaper, updating your molding and the shapes of furniture, all of the sightlines, how you arrange things in the room — it all works together. I have these Chesterfield sofas that are a very traditional silhouette, but they’re covered in white Perennial fabric. You can pour a whole cup of coffee on it and it will be fine. I have this big, white modern marble coffee table but I mix in a lot of traditional elements. They marry together to make it feel really fresh.
My favorite thing in my house is probably the wallpaper and the molding. I think those make the biggest impact. I’ve also spent a lot of energy on lighting, because it can ruin a space if it’s wrong. My main statement lighting throughout the house is a collection through Visual Comfort. It’s gilded and people always think it’s the original light fixture. Nope, it’s brand new. I try to select things in a way that you don’t really know. The molding in the dining room was very farmhouse and low-hanging. I didn’t like it, but I kept the corner built-in with the arched glass doors, added molding 2/3 up the wall and did a raised panel with a picture ledge. It’s stunning and it makes the whole room. But it’s not original. I’ve tried to update while still staying true to the house. We didn’t want an open floor plan. We didn’t want to tear walls out. We wanted it to function in the way that it was meant to function — and it functions very well in that way.
My husband got full design control of his office. I wanted to paint the dark paneling white, he said ‘no way’ and I thought it was going to look terrible. But he refused. And I’m so glad! It’s got Ralph Lauren vibes — it’s what the room was meant to be. I put in wool carpeting, there are Ralph Lauren print-inspired custom drapes, a leather chair, a framed American flag above the fireplace. It’s so Americana.
What do you love about what you’re doing?
I feel like I am meant for this job. I feel like everything that I have done has led me to where I am today: my life experience, living in New York City, getting my MBA, having a wedding- and event-planning company and selling real estate. I feel like I have a unique perspective from doing all of those different things. This is the perfect job for me. This is the career that I could have never even dreamed of.
Ultimately, I hope that I’m able to help people, even in a very small way, like sourcing a rug or wallpaper so you don’t have to hire an interior designer. My plan is to continue to be a home content creator and to inspire other women to make their house a home,whether that means hiring it out or picking up power tools or just hanging the dang wallpaper already — if it’s shopping at Goodwill or estate sales, or sewing curtains themselves. I talk a lot about what to look for and how to work the high-low and the new-old together. It doesn’t matter where you get it: Just make it yours.