00:01The experience that I designed for our guests starts with this winding drive through the tall
00:11pines. This kind of world of wonderment and creativity that seems like it shouldn't exist.
00:17It's literally a cereal box that stands 30 feet tall in the middle of deep East Texas.
00:25I'm Trey Dillon. Welcome to the cereal box in Tyler, Texas. Growing up in the 90s disconnected from the
00:35internet. I grew up on imagination and there was this connection between Saturday morning cartoons
00:43and cereal and I think this project is an attempt to capture that feeling and I think there's actually
00:50a unique tie between when people think about traveling, whether that's a staycation or a
00:57vacation, linking that to that feeling as a kid of the weekend. Bed and breakfast, the entire
01:04industry has been obsessed with the bed portion of the product and has been underestimating
01:10the breakfast element of that experience. I want to flip the script and go all in on breakfast.
01:18We have what I think importantly is a pretty expansive collection of cereal. I'm going to make you
01:24guys a bowl and show you how the pros do it. Starting with our bowls. My favorite are these
01:31bowls I found off of Etsy. This one says wake up sleepyhead. That's me today. I got a sweet spot
01:38for a simple red handle spoon. I'm a cereal first kind of guy because, obviously, we encourage
01:46our guests to take with them whatever boxes they opened.
01:56You got any audio on this? Oh yeah. There's a question I get a lot which is what my personal
02:01favorite is and I hope you can see by the product placement. I grew up with a favorite which is
02:08Pops and so it sits on the top shelf. Some guests will use a stepladder for our tall cereals.
02:18And so when I come in and a guest has gone up and gotten Pops off the top shelf, there's
02:25like a
02:26special respect that I have for that individual because they know it's what's best. I found myself
02:33being an Airbnb host for a number of years and enjoying it and then I see this casting call by
02:39Airbnb for OMG listings and immediately felt like it was designed for me. I went to the grocery store,
02:48bought some boxes of cereal and took scissors to it. Stage two was creating renders and stage three was
02:59submitting a video of why you're the person to execute the idea you submitted. Surprisingly,
03:06I was selected as one of the winners of this OMG fund.
03:12Here on the first floor of the cereal box, the eye-catching detail is this 22-foot tile mosaic
03:22depicting milk pouring down. Like much of this project, I'd never laid a backsplash tile before.
03:30The memories are a two-story scaffolding with a ladder on top and my sister throwing, you know,
03:39grout sponges up to me. And so every part of this interior design has a story like that.
03:47Feeling like the space is beaming with cereal details feels like what this place deserves.
03:54This is what we call the rolling shelves, which is the subtle invitation to participate and interact
04:00with the space. They don't all make it to the bottom, but...
04:11So this is the coffee kitchen corner of the cereal box. We have this artwork, which is kind of a
04:19fun
04:19piece for me. This staircase is at 38 degrees. And so I took this picture frame
04:25and took a circular saw through at 38 degrees. And so now the picture frame perfectly kind of encases
04:33and complements the staircase.
04:36This staircase is one of the projects that I volunteered myself and my dad and my friends to help me.
04:45And the ordeal consisted of renting a U-Haul and meeting a semi truck down the road to move the
04:55staircase
04:56from the semi to the U-Haul just so we could get it down this winding drive to the cereal
05:02box.
05:05So now we are on the second story of the floor because we're in a two-story cereal box.
05:12One of the best features. Waking up to the sun, there's picture windows in both directions.
05:18A fan favorite is our drop-down projector over the void above the cereal bar.
05:24With ceilings that are 22 plus feet, this loft ends up feeling extremely high, but with the glass
05:32and being able to see through, it connects the space. You can submit your orders through at the cereal bar
05:39from upstairs if you're getting a special breakfast in bed treatment.
05:45Moving into the bathroom, our countertop has carved in this kind of milk expression.
05:52And then the star of the show is what I like to call the wave shower. This one truly is
05:57one of the
05:57best shower experiences. Change the color, set the temp, rock out to your favorite band, and it's become
06:04a staple of the full experience. Throughout the building process, week to week, the stress and
06:12emotion was shifting from feeling like I was wearing my creative cap and coming up with the right ideas
06:20and trying to make the right decisions to managing ideas that I myself maybe only held as a feeling of
06:29what I think it should be and needing to learn to articulate that in a language that I wasn't
06:34familiar with and building. But that process of building was really exciting.
06:41The mural holds a special importance to me because it's the personality of this project.
06:48There were three muralist teams, primarily Shelby Nicole out of Houston,
06:55that traveled up and spent the greater part of five days out here painting, which was an adventure
07:03as life is. It threw some curveballs at us. One of the things that happened is we got swarmed with
07:10ladybugs
07:12during that process. So our artists were here painting with their hoodies scrunched over their faces
07:19and trying to like sweep the ladybugs out of the way as they completed the mural, which was stressful,
07:26but also, you know, I kind of counted as maybe good luck with the project.
07:33We have our eight foot cereal bowl hammock. We prototyped thousands of these cereal pieces that have our cereal
07:42logo on one side. This is a hammock for lounging, for napping, for stargazing, and is actually incredibly
07:50comfortable. I've fallen asleep here a couple of times. Getting out is not as easy, but if my parents
07:59can do it, I think you can. The milk carton was really important and trying to find a place in
08:06this
08:06design and layout for that to fit. And where we landed on was this tipped over milk carton sauna,
08:12which was a uniquely special part of this project because it's something that I framed and painted
08:19and built the sauna on the inside myself. And then the intentionality of the positioning is you have a
08:28really protected perspective and view looking out into the woods. So whether it's sunrise, sunset, you're likely
08:35to see some wildlife. And since we're in Texas, our sauna hats are cowboy hats. So while you're here,
08:42you can play the part and look like you're from Texas.
08:48The back of the cereal box is one of my personal favorites. We use it as credits for our project.
08:55So you'll find the builder, the architect, the muralist. There's a long list of names that deserve to be up
09:02there. But it's a fun nod to all the people that it took to bring this project to life. And
09:10the maze is
09:10actually a little more difficult than I think you would expect. The open box concept of the design has
09:20colored floodlights on the rooftop to kind of allude to light beaming out of the box. And the centerpiece
09:28of our patio is a fire pit with the understanding that that's where a lot of the conversations and
09:35things that we cherish about shared experiences happen. It's intentionally also centered on the
09:41building down our three picture windows. When I walk this design, I now I get emotional when I talk about
09:51this. I see the staircase that I built with with my dad and with Sam and with Brandon. I see
09:58the shelves
09:58I hung with my mom. And I know that they find joy in that too and supporting me chasing a
10:05dream or
10:05wanting to bring something to reality into life. And yeah, it makes this extra special.
10:14I think taking on something that I knew was bigger than myself or my capability, but being willing to
10:23do it anyways, I think that risk is an important part of life and something that I'm proud of. I'm
10:31proud
10:31to take that risk. But it also makes me really grateful for the community, friends, family that I called on
10:39over
10:39and over and over. And so that creates my relationship with this project. I'm really proud of what we built
10:49with what we had. And it's a representation of my interests and my craftsmanship. And it's a blessing
10:59to feel like you kind of reached the end of yourself creatively, mentally, physically,
11:07and invested it into something that you now get to share.
