Wayne chats with Kate Watson-Smyth from 'Mad About the House'

This week I chat with award winning journalist, podcaster and UK's No. 1 interiors blogger Kate Watson-Smyth from 'Mad about The House'.
We talk about how she created the most successful blog and her new book '101 interior Design Answers'
Guest: www.madaboutthehouse.com


Sponsor: To take advantage of the generous 15% discount from my sponsor Thorndown, please visit http://bit.ly/TVCarpenter. Discount code: TVCarpenter

Contact me: www.theTVcarpenter.com

Music: "What's the Angle" by Shane Ivers

Transcript

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spk_1:   0:03
on today's show, I chowing Kate Watson smile. She is an award winning journalist podcaster on she's writer off the U. K's number one interior design. Glogg mad about Just show up every

spk_0:   0:16
day at the same time every day, to the point that, you know, I would still do get e mails, you know, if opposed his late store. If I don't post, you know, I get emails from people because that's become part of their days. They know there will be a blow post at seven o'clock every morning on day. So eight years on, I still post four times a week.

spk_1:   0:39
Hello and welcome to the TV. Come into podcast with me. Wayne Perry This week has bean a busy week. I know it's hard to get busy in this lock down, but me and my family decided to knock down the wall between our lounge on dwhite. Waas are old nursery slash office is just a stud wall. So we checked the house wasn't gonna fall down, but we did it and we actually got all involves if you check out my TV carpenter Um, my instagram, I've is called demolition on. I saved it. There as a highlights and you can watch the whole day. We did it all in a day. What was really lovely? Um, I decided rather my daughter doing her maths homework day as goal. We just put some goggles on her some ear defenders and gave her a hammer. And I also gave my wife a hammer as well, and they both just smashed this wall apart and got rid of so much anger on my door was like screaming, going This is the best day ever as she's hammering through a wall. So if you watch my stories, you can see that. But actually, what was really lovely is we've opened up now, So the whole one area of our houses all open plan s. We've got a huge lounge now on a kitchen s Oh, it's just made such a difference on my hat. My wife is beaming because now she's got this big open plan living room that she's kind of always wanted. But what comes with that is into design. So I've bean trying to choose colors. So we painted the old office which we've not into in this Farum ball sulking room pink, which was beautiful, and it was suggested to us by my good friend Nicky Bamford bows. Or when they went wild, you might recognize from Interior Design Master's. She's a really good friend of mine, and it looks beautiful. But the lounge is like sticky blue, which is, Ah, being painted that for a few years. So we're trying to now decide which way to go. I think we're going to keep the pink, but it's interesting these these names and colors of you know, we've been looking online and looking at different things. Look, my wife looking at teals and all these different colors on it. It's interesting how names of paints draw you in mawr and a certain things. So it has got a name. I seem t like it more rather just a rale color on. It's just I found naming of paint really interesting on. Because of that, I wanted to share this little mini interview that I did with my sponsor, Thorn Down on, I talked to Caroline about why and how they choose names for their paints. So have a little listen to this one minute interview on with Caroline, and she explains how thorn down come up with the names for their appealable blast paint on DFO for their classic home range paint color palette. Thorn down peaceable glass paint has some really interesting names. I want to know. Where did they come from? So with the opaque, solid coatings with those colors, they come from the wood paint range. So with the wood paint range, I've named everything's of after I First of nature or or places of around Somerset. So you have the Chantry cream, which is after the Chantry Chapels in Wells Cathedral, on delicate stone and adult in stone, their local quarries and then and so they've got taken into the people. Glass paints opaque range, but then with the translucence, because it was going to be so such a fun, quite a kiddie arts and crafts range that I wanted them to have released of just playful names. Hence gobbling green and OGA role range Dragon Red, White witch on bond, black. And yes, it was just fun, really. My door, Absolutely. Those paint colors draw you in. What were they gobbling green or chancery cream? You can visit thorn down dot co dot UK on def. You type in the code TV carpenter. You will get 15% discount on any of their online purchases, so explore their color palettes and see if anything takes your fancy. What was really lovely before I knock down this wall in my lounge kitchen area was I had the interview with my next guest, and it was with K. Watts and smile on Bond. It came off the back of me reading her book. She has a new book out called 101. Interior Design Answers Onda. I thought I would know most of these and to be fair, I knew a fair few because it's the industry that I'm in. But I read this book and I inhaled it in a day whilst in the Garden with a gin and tonic. And it was really nice because there's some really gems in there. And one of the main things that she talks about in the book is six questions, and you need to ask yourself these six questions before you do any interior design before you, you know, pick up a paint or decide what, where lightings they're gonna go and it talks about, especially as we're knocking down this wall on. Do you know the things where we go? Why shouldn't we do it well when turning our flat from a three bedroom two a two bedroom? But to be fair, it was a really small room that was big enough for a cot. Andi, you kind of go well, actually, benefiting is now having a big hub of a lounge kitchen rather than having a dark a lounge and kitchen. But then, having this tiny room, that was my office, which I never used, which just became a dumping ground. If we add that I alone lounge, the difference that it makes to our life right now at this moment in time is amazing and far outweighs any you know, any future worry. And she touches on that in these books. It was very apt that I read this book just before knocking down this wall, and we discuss these things, questions that you need to ask, and also she explores and explains her career and how she came about creating the the biggest interior design Blawg mad about the house. So I hope you enjoy the main event. My conversation with the very lovely Kate Watson's mind wasn't smile. Thank you for coming on the TV Carpenter podcast.

spk_0:   7:15
Thank you for having me. Ah,

spk_1:   7:16
I am so excited about this one. I've known you for a few years and know in your work, but the first thing I want to talk about really is I know in in any industry, in any business like consistency is the key to success on. You've been an interior designer. Journalists into it is designed journalists 20 years into a stylist for over 10. Firstly, what made you 20 years ago decide? Journal journalistically tohave interior designers. Your topic. What made you decide

spk_0:   7:45
that? Well, I think it was probably one of those happy accidents. I mean, I trained as a news reporter many years ago on, So when I first worked on a local paper in Birmingham, I was reporting news. I was It was pre Internet. That old s o. I was ringing up the fire engine fire department on the police, on the hospitals and sort of seeing what happened and whether there was any news. There was reporting court stories. That was all quite sort of gritty stuff. Andi, I never really loved it. I am not a natural news hound on. I've always really enjoyed the process of writing, and I really wanted to write features on. I then moved to London with my then boyfriend now husband, and I was doing shifts on the National Papers on I ended up working on the Independent again on the news desk. Andi. I would keep sort of going up to the features desk and going more Let me write some features and they'd be like, No, go a grubby little news back. We don't want the likes of you around here on dso I'm in. I had to get pregnant. So know what sort of happened was I got pregnant on? It's very difficult to be a news reporter when you have a baby, because you can't say, you know, would you mind awfully letting that bomb or foot four? Because I've got to get back to the nanny at six Eso What happens is back then, as a female news reporter, it was quite difficult because you'd be kept in the office or you to have to keep yourself in the office, rewriting the newswires rather than going out looking for stories because of child care issues. so features at that time lent itself much better to women. So I went freelance on because I oversee knew lots of people at the Independent. I then got a call in that way. You sometimes do you know, it's not always what you know. It's who you know from someone on the property desk on, she said. Oh, you know, we really need something written in a hurry about the pick of the property market this week. You available as well. Maybe could be spit like now, isn't it? Consults. Totally empty diary. Maybe I'm free. So So I bit her hand off and started doing that. And that was back in the days when the property section of the Independent was a kind of 48 page weekly pull out. I mean, imagine so. They had so many pages to fill. So I sort of slotted in there and started writing about the property market. You know, the nicest houses on the market that week that I kind of worked my way inside and got regular features talking to experts on, you know, interior design on. I just I loved it. I felt like I had found my my home and never get bored of looking other people's houses on. So I carried on doing that for for ages. Andi. Then obviously, you know, newspapers started to decline. This was back in the early two thousands myself. First, some was born in 2001 so newspaper sales started declining. They didn't have to deal with the Internet, which was producing all this free content. And so my freelance career started going down and down and down on, You know, that's when I set the block up. But, I mean, I've always been interested in, you know, I've always rearranged my bedroom and, you know, used to make shelves when I was about six. Used to bookshelves out of cardboard. Facilitate. But I was really cross when they didn't work. So on I did. I did carpentry at school when I was in primary school. I've made it three legged milking stool, which is still in my house somewhere.

spk_1:   11:18
Get out! Just coming. You just reminded me when I was a kid. My bedroom is in the loft. My parents very rarely came up. It's one of those things, teenage boy. You just leave it up

spk_0:   11:27
so you don't want todo my

spk_1:   11:31
mom coming in and one day I going ballistic because I had literally taken the wardrobe apart, lit and took the side of the wardrobe off, created a desk and put a shelf up use. And I'd come up all the wood from the flat pack furniture wardrobe, and she went ballistic. I just hope he reminded me of that. You just

spk_0:   11:47
That's amazing. That's so much more talented than my cardboard facilitate bookshelves.

spk_1:   11:52
I might have been drilling up of electric plug sockets, but that's another story way afterwards. So, um, so when did you start doing the block? Then at what point did cause your block is huge. Like what? When did you start doing the block?

spk_0:   12:05
I launched that in 2012 on. I launched it very much as as an online CV. I thought it would get me more work. I had no notion that it could possibly be anything else. So, um, I start. I did quite a certain amount of research beforehand, as he could imagine, I'm a journalist and discovered that a lot of blog's fail. I mean, back then, this was relatively early and into blogging. There was a sort of wave of interior blockers in 2000 and nine, you know, will tailor bright, bizarre kickbacks to fabric of my life. Design Shepherd on. I came in on the second wave on De, So we knew a little bit more about it, and there was a lot of sort of pieces had been written online and unknown. Blog's about how many, many blocks fail in the 1st 3 to 6 months because for the 1st 3 months you're up loading copy all the time. You're really excited. You know, you've got your little corner of the Internet and you're really into it on then, between sort of three and six months, you realize that actually, nobody apart from your mom and maybe the postman is reading it on. So you become disillusioned and so suddenly, for you know where you are. A week has gone by, you haven't posted and nobody seemed to notice. So then it's too, and then it's three and a Gradually it dies a death so on. I was very aware of that. Andi was determined that that wouldn't happen to me, so I came up with an idea which was 365 objects of design not desire but design. And I thought, if I count those out every day, I will have to post every single day because it's one a day for a year. So then I think things were different then. So it was a sort of little postcard of shopping, which feels a bit wrong to encourage people to shop all the time. But, you know, eight years ago, it would be, you know, here's a really great chair would be really good with this table. I've just discovered this new designer, and this is their lamp, you know? So it was that sort of little object every day. Um, and I I did that for, I think, the 1st 3 years I posted every day on. Then I started mixing up the objects of design with going back to property market and writing about other things I think is consistent. Seen? I basically filled the internet. Yeah. You know, I've taken over the internet, or if you go on, all you'll find is me and my posts, you know, filled it. But there was that sort of idea that yes, it was consistency. You know, you just just show up every day at the same time every day to the point that, you know, I would still do get e mails, you know, if opposed is late or if I don't post you know, I get emails from people because that's become part of their days. They know there will be a blow post at seven o'clock every morning on day. So eight years on, I still post four times a week with a sponsored post. If I have one on a Wednesday, and that way people know what they're getting, what time it's coming.

spk_1:   14:57
So how is it doing? You've set yourself the task of doing four posts a week. Does that become a bind or is as have you got used to that? Now

spk_0:   15:06
if I've got used to it? Andi, I do really like the routine, and I have to say, for the most part, I never have a problem with it. And I think that, you know, perhaps comes back to journalism training. When I first went freelance and I was writing for The Independent quite a lot, and they used to have a Saturday feature called the 50 Best And it was anything you like, from the 50 best artisanal sausages to the 50 best lampshades. The 50 best spring book really says, you know, it was was anything and everything on do you know? So not only would you have to find these 50 things, you would have to find something to say about each one of them. And they weren't all allowed to start with the word this. You know, this is a great book. This is a great rug. So you had to really think about it, Andi. There would be between 75 100 words on each object that you found. So you know, who knew at the time? That's turned out to be incredible training for writing a block Because you give me any object, you give me any subject. I can probably give you 75 to 100 words within about two minutes. They might be very good ones, but you know, I know how to do that on, so I've I've found that I can come up with the subject and I might think I haven't got that much to say about it, but you know it. Will it will come out in the end. So I think that's that's down to being a journalist and a trained writer.

spk_1:   16:33
Okay, now we're currently in lock down. How are you coping doing all of this work while having a lot of families still in the house?

spk_0:   16:40
Well, I'm lucky in that. I've got now teenage boys, so that's 16 and 19 Andi s. So I don't really see them till lunchtime on that. So that's, you know, I don't have to home school, Thank God, because that that was not my forte. Baking with kids, all that kind of stuff. It's not my I'm not good at it. So I'm trying to work in the morning on then in the afternoon. Well, I probably still don't see them. Let's be honest there, teenage boys. But there's Yeah, there's more kind of cooking and cleaning and sort of house stuff going on. I have to say my productivity levels have slowed, and when I look back on it and I think you know what, Six weeks ago I was, you know, writing a birth comes going to meetings. I was writing the global the time I was doing collaborations with brands you know, And I think how did I tool that? Cause now, you know, I get up and I sort of staggered through a block post, and then I need a little light out that I'm

spk_1:   17:38
with you on that. It's like that saying, isn't you? If you want something done, ask a busy person. Totally. And I was the same, you know, I would work a whole day building carpentry. Then I would do my part, my podcast or whatever. On I'm thankful that I started the daily D I Y. Which like yourself. I set myself the task of releasing a video every day Monday to Friday. And it's the thing that gets me had a head is the reason I got up to do something. So it is crazy. I don't know how we're all gonna go back to work If there is every only work when we all start again. I'm not I'm not. I'm positive. Very positive. But interestingly, you know, you've written some amazing books and I wanted to get you on today to talk about your new book like Mad about the House. 101 interior design answers. So what? I've read quite a few of late into design books, and there's lots of different angles that interior designers and people who work in this world can't come in to help people, you know, because it is daunting. I'm gonna say Me and my wife are now renovating were knocking down a wall this week, which is a stud wall in our house, and we're thinking of new colors. On between us is a minefield. What was so lovely about re reading yours and the start of your book? You have this thing called the Six Questions, and it's now makes sense. And I was like, Oh, God, why didn't Why did we know? Think of this before and I'm not go that in your trumpet because you're might my guess, my podcast. But explain to my listener what six questions is and we'll go through it and then we'll pick out some bits as well along the way. But then talk about the six questions from

spk_0:   19:05
So the six questions are actually came back to journalism again from my journalism training. Andi, I trained a college in Darlington up in the Northeast. We were always told, you know, when you're writing a news story. You know you need to. It's like an inverted triangle because you need to get all the information in the top of the story. And then you can have the kind of twit Lee decorative bit stick down at the water. So what, you need to know when you read a news story and you should get away. This from the first sentence. Is who? What, When, where, Why and how. So those are the six questions. And if you read a sort of traditional news report, you will see who was doing what, where they were doing it, why they were doing it, how they were doing it on when they were doing it, which, in the case of a Daily news report, is probably yesterday. But, you know, that sort of sets up that sets up. Excuse me? That sets up any news story for you on. You know, that's been deeply ingrained into May on, although blawg writing and feature writing is very, very different. I realized through the process of sort of consulting on interior design and helping people with their houses that those six questions are, you know, incredibly valid. Because you know you might You know who Who is using this room? Well, yes. Oh, it's my son. And it's my daughter. And it's my husband or my partner, whatever. But actually, you need to be more detailed about that. Who, you know the needs over toddler in a space are very different from the needs of a teenager. The requirements for a kitchen for a couple with You know, a couple with a couple of kids are very different from a couple of pensioners. So it seemed to me that asking those questions off any space he wanted to decorate would completely help you get that right. So you know who really Who is in that space on? What are they doing in there? You know, if you come to your sitting room, Are you watching a film in there? Are you having a conversation? Is it got to be a playroom for small Children, you know, so and that would lead you then. If that's the case, you need tohave storage for all the plastic tat. So you know the who and the what. And then the wen very clearly plays into questions off color because, you know if it's a bedroom, do you want a dark and cozy bedroom for when you're in there at night? Or do you want something light and bright for when you're in there in the morning? And, you know, I think that answer varies depending on whether people are sort of night. Owls are morning larks, but it also plays into questions of lighting, you know, Do you want task lighting? Do you want spotlights? Do you need more ambient light? So just kind of work through those questions. Andrea lies that every single one was valid. So you know why? Why you're doing it. Make a list of what's wrong with it. That's why you're doing it. Where is not just where, where in the house. But you know where you gonna shop for the stuff to do it because it's good to, you know, make a list of your shops that you want to buy, form or aspire to buy from on how how you gonna pay for it? So those questions for me summed up pretty much everything you needed to know about interior design in those six questions.

spk_1:   22:25
It was amazing because literally, like I said, as As I was reading your book, me and my wife had decided to knock down a wall. So next our kitchen allowed. We have this tiny little office were actually used to be the nursery, and it was perfect for my daughter for a cop in there. And it was teeny. Tiny was perfect. She's now moved up to their loft room on this room. Become an office. I never use it as an office just cause it's a bit small, this bit dark, the sun contrast. Lastly, the status, the dumping ground. Now it has laundry in it, and my wife is. That wouldn't be lovely to knock that wall down. And the builder in me goes, Well, no gotta say, You know, you don't want to limit the house property from three bedrooms down to two, but actually, we spoke to the stage of the ages ago when we value the property and they went, I would never build. This is a three bedroom because people would be upset that that's too small. That's what it's a good two bedroom with a great little signed room or something. You know what? Let's not this water. So this week we're gonna knock it down. But then that opens up. You know, we've got two different colors. Rooms going on. We gotta re decorate everything. So it kind of got us excited. But I love the story that you were talking about. For example, your mom, you know, her bathroom. She didn't want a bath. She always wanted showers because she was getting older. And then she decided. But someone builder told it Well, you can't sell the property if you don't have bath in it. Cooked to 10. 15 years later, she's still got this bath that she's being in one. So I think you said your kids have been unit more than she. Yes, and she's got this tiny little NAFTA shower in the corner. And I just thought it made sense, were told to do so many things. But actually, if you go through your six questions, it answers them in Mexico that you get the house that you really want.

spk_0:   24:04
And I think, you know, I mean, when my mother did that, so you know, whatever it was 10 15 years ago, probably the I think there was still a sense that, you know, you needed toe have bath and people wouldn't buy your house. I mean, I do think, you know, times are changing and people are a bit more open. I said to her when when she said this, You know, A You're not planning on selling this house, you know, this is your This is your forever house. So you have to make it said that it works for you on Obviously, the plumbing for the bath will still be there in the walls. So if somebody wants to buy your house and it's a deal breaker for them, that there's no there's no bath, you know they can put it back. And I think we've got better of the last few years at decorating Our house is now for for the people who are in them to live in them. You know, there was a period when it was all about, you know, that sort of Sarah Beanies property ladder was now it was buying houses and decorating them in neutral tones so you could flip them and make money. You know, we've we've come out the other side of that on now. We're decorating our houses to live in on. We have to think about what works for the people who are in that building at that time. Um, and you know, we'll worry about selling it if from when we need to sell it. So. And as you point out, taking down a stud wall is no a permanent thing. You know, you could put that stubble back if the estate agent came along and said, That's going to be a real problem

spk_1:   25:25
Absolute way we've designed as well as we might actually even leave the fact that there's two doors going in there. You know, we might put something in front of it on the other side, so you don't see when you in the room. But when somebody comes to buy the house, they know that they can recreate it just by throwing up a stud wall. It's no big deal. But then moving on in the book that they were the first like six parts of the book. Marcie, there's 100 100 and one into design answers on. When we were before we started this interview, you were going Ah, that you know, you know, teaching an old dog new tricks patch. I learned a few things in this Did you did I knew all of this. One thing that I'm really interested in is I've heard it said a few times. I don't understand it so and you mentioned it in this book and it made clear sense. So I'm sure my listener would want to know What's the red threat?

spk_0:   26:16
Oh, the red threat is how you bring a Siris of rooms together. You know, this is a question I'm asked a long time. How do I make my house look cohesive and, like, you know, like it all belongs to the same person on Not just like, it's a Siris of sort of disparate rooms under the same roof on DSO the red thread, I think the Scandinavian phrase which I'm not going to attempt to pronounce. But that is how you link everything. Many of us do this instinctively without sort of giving it a label, but it feels stuck us to have to marry together furniture of different periods or, you know, different prints and colors. Then using the red thread helps you do that. So, in my house, for example, I have you can see on my instagram I have a sort of burgundy spotty staircase, which obviously runs up throughout the center of the whole house on. I have lots of different shades off pink. I've got a pale pink bedroom. I've then got a pale pink sofa in my sitting room. I've got a burgundy fireplace in my office, so I have that palette of colors, which is repeated again and again throughout the house. And there are variations because there's green and there's chocolate brown on there's gold. So there were other colors that that spin off it, but they're all kind of connected together. Um, you know, another of my red threads, perhaps, is velvet without really realizing, you know, I have a velvet headboard. I've got a velvet chair in my office. I've got a velvet so far in my sitting room, so that's another material that goes throughout my house. And then, you know, that might be would, so you might have the same color wooden furniture throughout. So I've got a wooden clock in my bedroom, and I've got a wooden coffee table downstairs so you can just kind of trace the links throughout your house on. That's what makes it feel that it all belongs to the same person and makes it feel another thing I always say is you know, you've got to look like you meant it. So if you absolutely love neon orange, then you know by all means have a neon orange cushion on your sofa. But, you know, you maybe need a neon orange candlestick in the kitchen so that it looks like you are creating that threat and linking the spaces together, and it doesn't look random.

spk_1:   28:38
Amazing, because in your book, you talk. You know, I think you said, even if you got a really ultra modern house. But you know you like wooden tones, you can put a wooden candlestick holder on the mantelpiece or something that you say that that little nod throughout just links everything together.

spk_0:   28:53
Well, this is it. And if you if you live in an open plan space So, for example, if you've got a marble ah, marble style worked up in your kitchen, But it's quite open plan and you can see other rooms. Then maybe, you know, a marble candlestick or a coffee table with a marble top will link that space through it because you always must consider the views you have off other rooms through other rooms on BYU's through doorways, so find ways of linking them that way through. And it's not just colors, you say its color, its materials, it's textures. So, you know, just repeat those a little bit throughout the house on you'll find it. Will will come together much more cohesively.

spk_1:   29:34
You're on your podcast. Your known is like this stat queen. So what I found really interesting on a lovely in your book. There's quite a few geeky out moments in. So you had the whole There's a whole page on measurements. So what? What this did you enjoy eking out on most cause Each one was a full on topic. So you know you got you going. I

spk_0:   30:02
think what What drove May in that book is I really, really wanted it to be useful and again, the journalism training, you know, one of why why is that like that on How is it like that? So I think, you know, providing those measurements and answering those questions, which for some people will feel really obvious on for other people they don't know. So I just thought this is really useful toe. Have a page so that you know, if you've never done a kitchen before, you need to know that the standard work top depth is 60 centimeters. You need to know that these are the three basic sides of mattresses so that if you're wondering if you've got room for a bedside table, you need to allow this much space for the bed. And so I I I love. I do love a statin, a number I loved. Can't add them up. But I love to know them.

spk_1:   30:52
Me, I absolutely loved it. Just as I was reading, I thought, She's loving this. She's he she's lost in this world of light bulbs. But I do know I learned a lot of really when I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, because I'm still old measurements, you know, you get that Hold on, that's bright, and I like having to be bright. So I totally got you with all of that. You know, you said Eurostat's queen, and that, for me, comes from your great indoors podcast with Sophie Robinson. So how did the podcast come about? How did you and Sophie end up doing the podcast, The great Indoors

spk_0:   31:28
It was It was again, one of those things. You know, before I did the block, I spent two years going faster block muster, a blogger and, you know, sort of didn't get it together. And I'd had this vague notion that people were doing podcasts. I mean, you know, felt like everybody was doing. Although I think compared with how many people are doing them now, hardly anybody was two years ago. But I should have had this idea knocking around that. I wanted to do one, but I didn't know quite how it would be and what I would do. And then I actually met our producer, Kate Taylor. First she invited me onto another podcast she was producing with five grafs cop. Andi. So I went on there and I met Kay, and I just got on with her really Well, on I said to, you know, one of these days I'm going to do a podcast and you're going to produce it for May s. So I kept in touch with her on then. I'd known Sophie, you know, for a few years. And it was another one of those moments were just like, you know, we were. We'd met a some event and we were just like we should do a port cost. That's the solution. And I was like, Brilliant! Because I've already met the producer. So just let's go. So it was one of those happy things where it all came together, and I I think I hope it works really well because we're so different.

spk_1:   32:40
Oh, yeah, you are so different but on do you offer different sides to everything? And that's the thing about into a design. It's all subjective. There's nothing to say that's right and wrong, and you have some really lovely segments in there. But I I asked some of your you've got the great Indoors podcast Facebook group, and I asked them questions on because we were supposed to doing this interview at the ideal home way. Everything that's being going on, postponed or cancelled, whatever. So I just put some questions that I had a lovely question. Former lady called Jill Hansen, who said, Has working with Sophie encourage you to use more color in your own home cause Sophie is the color queen?

spk_0:   33:17
Oh, I'm going to say no, but maybe. I think it's not that I what I've learned through working for I've learned a huge amount about color from working with Sophie. And I've learned that only I mean, I do love color. I'm good, you know? Why would I say I didn't have color? I love color, but I love to use it in a different way from her. So Sophie likes very bright high contrast colors because she finds that energizing that gets her going Whereas I find lots of high contrast colors makes me feel anxious. Onda bit stress e So I have lots of very rich color saturated shades in my house. You know, my sitting room is chocolate brown. They're very much more tonal. So, you know, I might have as many colors a Sophie, but mine would range from a burgundy to, you know, 17 different shades of pink through to the very pay list mushroom on. Nothing is that high contrast. Whereas she likes it brighter and punch here and boulder on. Do you know she has taught me very much that you you gotta look at how our color makes you feel on. I suppose I've tuned in through recording in her house where, you know, sometimes it's a bit stressful for me, with all the bright yellow way were recording actually at her holiday, let before Christmas in Brighton, and she just redecorated it on. There are pictures off on her grid. She's got this incredible teal wallpaper with huge bright flowers on it on. She's got leopard print rug in there and she's got a purple so far on lots of throws. Onda I arrived on, apparently, so she and Kate said to me afterwards that I'd sat down, basically ranted for about 10 minutes on. Do you know, I couldn't think why. I mean, I hadn't been in a bad mood. Nothing particularly it happened on. We kind of tracked it back afterwards, and I think it was It was the deck or was making me really stressed because it's a small space, you know, I can look at a photograph of it on. I can completely appreciate there skill with which she has put it together. But it's too much for May. I can't be in it. Where is Sophie finds that makes her happy and energized that I just in a fury

spk_1:   35:43
its answer to The question is, you appreciate it, but you know, you. But the success of the podcast has has been insane. And how how do you balance? Like? Because I notice you do the podcast and then you'll do a block post about the podcast. Are they feeding each other? Do you? Have you noticed that your your readership has changed? Are they moving to block Post? I'm just I'm interested is like you said you started your career going from journalism to part cat to a blawg on. Then things are moving a little bit more to podcast. But do you find the audiences of the same or do you still have very different?

spk_0:   36:20
I think my audiences tend to be very different. I mean, we do a block post to accompany the podcast. It's kind of show notes, but, you know, a lot of people said when we started to compost, we do a podcast about interiors with no pictures. You know, how you going to do it when it's all audio? And, you know, I like to think we've proved that we can do that. But the blood post is just to give people sort of, you know, illustrations of what we've talked about, unkind of, you know, extra value if you like, See, you can absolutely listen to the podcast and get that, you know, chitchat and banter on interaction between us two on. Then you can't sue who don't listen to podcasts. But, you know, I think the stuff we're covering within the podcast is I would I would hope, worth knowing. So you know, it's worth having a blood post on it as well. Um, and I think there's an audience overlap between all that. But I know that many of my blog's readers don't actually do Instagram. I think probably more Instagram people read broad posts, but it doesn't necessarily tracked back the other way. So it's about it's about world domination that is a It's about reaching different people in the ways they like to be reached on. For some, that's listening. You know, I think a lot of people listen to podcasts when they're walking their dog, you know, or when they're doing sort of housework. I I'm not a great listener because I write all the time, so I can't have people talking at me when I'm writing, So for me, I probably prefer to read. So it's It's just about different things. And yes, of course, the content will overlap. And there might be an idea. I've had it for a block post, which we can expand on, or, you know, Sophie's got opinions on. So that works for the podcast. But equally things we've talked about will feed into, you know, stuff I've learned later to write about. So I think they're all you know. They're all interconnected.

spk_1:   38:12
It is so true. So you like. Normally I inhale podcasts and inhale audiobooks. When I'm driving or when I'm working doing my carpenter, I can come and listen to them and dip into them. But now we're stuck at home. I'm finding. I can't. I can't. I haven't listened to many, you know, be costing on breeding. I'm watching a film with the family or something. It depends what that person does in their life and how

spk_0:   38:32
it does. You know, Sophie. I know she She drives her son to school every day, so she has a school run. So she has that kind of period when she's in the car and listening Might Well, you know, my kids, they're older, they get themselves to school, so I don't drive anywhere. And in fact, as she five minutes before we started recording this, my husband just went out to test the car in the batteries completely black. So you know that's not going anywhere for a while. But you know it. So I don't have a sort of regular driving slot or a dog walking slot. When

spk_1:   39:04
I listen, it's bean on absolute joy. I always ask my My final question is, for interior designers to describe Just want to know what your what? Your dream interiors would bay on what you're drinking when you're in this room.

spk_0:   39:20
Oh, my God. You liked her. You like to end on a high. Don't give. I've never have. I never thought about it. The problem is, it changes a lot the time. I mean, if you were to ask me where. No question my dream room is in Italy. Um, sort of any old, You know what could go for a crumbling palazzo on there on the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice? You know, that would be quite nice, but equally I'd take a farmhouse in Tuscany. Um, so Inter I think my dream room would probably be a sitting room because I think it's interesting. People talk about the kitchen being the heart of the home because that's where you prepare meals and food is love. And, you know, we the family gather in there. But I would take that that actually the sitting room is the room in the house that that sums up the feeling of home because that's where we go to when we want to relax when we want to feel safe when we want to chat or meet the family. So my ideal room would be a sitting room. Um, I would like it to be huge so I could have different zones. You know, I would have a kind of so for area with a TV. But I'd like a fireplace that you could sit around the fire and drink. What am I drinking? Red wine ran the fire in the evening, but also maybe a couple of chairs by a window and some bookshelves for reading in the morning. So there I'm drinking coffee, got different drinks, depending on the area. So I've got this kind of mammoth sitting room with a very high ceiling. I'm going. Maybe it's Georgia with the original features lots of nice plasterwork on some antique furnitures and Persian rugs, probably going with pale walls. At this stage. That's the mood for today. How does that sound?

spk_1:   41:12
That sounds amazing, and it links all. I love what you did then as well, because it links back to the book. There's a nice little thing we talked about lighting and you saying, You know, certain parts of the day you want it to be nice and lovely and so free and lovely And then the little table in the corner where you can have your coffee so you need like and nice light there. If you're going to renew, you might not need, like sits in the window and on bats. That's the whole point of the book as well. Just fed into all of those little knowing the six questions. Like we said at the beginning, you know,

spk_0:   41:41
And they didn't even Rio

spk_1:   41:43
Kate wasn't being as of pleasures. If anybody want to contact you, what's the best social media's to contact you?

spk_0:   41:49
Well, either the block or instagram and I get a lot of messages on Instagram and I try and respond to them. But don't always manage it. So you know, emailing through the block has a contact form, and that's probably the surest way.

spk_1:   42:02
Okay, and that's mad about the house. Is your been stuck yet? The house don't come. Kate wasn't smile. It's been an absolute pleasure. And thank you for talking to me on the TV cap into podcast.

spk_0:   42:13
Thank you for having a

spk_1:   42:18
brilliant lady and an amazing career that she's had and is continuing to have. She's always at the forefront of anything into design, whether it be starting a block for the first time or starting one of the first ever British interior design podcasts on If you get Chance Teoh, check out her book a Matter about the House 101 Interior Design answers. It's well worth a read. Thank you for listening to the podcast Onda. Once again, I have to thank my sponsors. Thorn down. Don't forget, you can get 15% discount by going to thorne down dot co dot UK and typing in the code TV Carpenter. I hope I have managed to tear you up wherever you are. Don't forget State home. Stay safe on. Thank you for listening to the TV Carpenter podcast