Ep. 449: Trials and Triumphs

0:01Liz McNair:Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz. I head up the creative team. We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode. We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us at podcast at ballardesigns.net. Now on with the show.

0:33Liz McNair:Hey, Will here. You may remember me from our yearly trends report episodes. I'm one of the in-house product designers for Ballard Designs. One of my favorite pieces that I designed that's launching this spring is the Maris desk. I was in an antique store a couple of years ago, and I saw this beautiful little detail on this desk, and it instantly was like the most unique detail that just spoke to me. I took that detail, added a contemporary finish with these graceful sweeping cabriol legs and a very seamless silhouette, bringing a touch of Parisian chic to any home office. So, go check out all of our latest arrivals at BallardDesigns.com slash new.

1:09Liz McNair:I have a feeling you're going to find some pieces you really love. All right, let's get back to the show. All right, happy new year to everyone. Happy new year! I'm so happy to be back to chat with you, ladies. Oh, it's been so long. I know, way too long. It's been ridiculously long. Yeah. It's been since I think we recorded our last trials and triumphs in August. That's insane. I think all of us have some backlog of topics to cover. Yes. Of trials in our homes. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So who wants to go first? Lynn. Okay. Okay. I'll go first. um okay so you might remember that i had my dining room painted in the spring um and it looked great except that when all of the foliage came in the color that i picked which is a very light green it was ancient marble by sherman williams beautiful color it ended up being the same color as every other room because i picked the color in the winter.

2:16And then when I had the room painted in the spring and all of the leaves came in and kind of like bounced green into my home, you couldn't tell that I painted that room at all. And it was ridiculous.

2:30Liz McNair:I think you shared some photos on the episode. I did. So you know what? I take that as a loss. It's totally okay. I learned my lesson and I had it painted again. and it is beautiful now. I went with a really rich, dark green retreat by Sherwin-Williams and it's really beautiful. It's really beautiful. It's like, it feels a little bit more period to the craftsman house too and looks really fantastic with the dark wood trim. Okay, I've only seen it via like a Zoom background. It has, it looks like it has a little bit of a tealiness to it or maybe that's just the lighting one of those things that we kind of always talk about is like choosing complex colors that have multiple undertones yes it looks a little bit blue at some time sometimes during the day it looks a little more green at other times it looks a little bit gray honestly at different times too so depending on the lighting um it kind of transforms the space um this whole the whole room actually almost every room in my house is about 13 or 14 by 13 or 14.

3:43All the rooms are square. Amazing. And it's but it doesn't the darker color doesn't make the room feel smaller. It does make it feel more intimate, but it feels it feels more elevated. And that's really what I want for my dining room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because my my dining room does double duty where it's my dining room. It's our breakfast room. It's, you know we do homework there it's my office you have that big um banquette rounded banquette

4:13Liz McNair:yeah i have our nolan banquette and what's that covered in um it is covered in a light blue sunbrella fabric yeah and yeah it just it kind of all goes together yeah really well i i do really like in again i've only seen it via a zoom background but um one thing that i think is nice about you have that dark wood trim and i find this about your your purple room that you record the podcast in yeah the dark wall color looks so good with the trim where it's like it's not a huge contrast they sort of blend together and it yeah there's there's a coziness to it that's really nice. Yeah. I really like the way that looks.

4:59And then in my living room, I still have the white walls, which is Greek Villa. Greek Villa by Sherman Williams, which is just like a really, really lovely warm white. And that against the dark trim is just really kind of just sharp and pretty. What age is your house again? Can you remind? 1930. Yeah. I know you have a home that you do like have to appreciate the age of and i love how you honor um just its legacy by you know with the dark molding and stuff so i think you working with it versus against it is so lovely and to your point kind of making it even feel better yeah um with the color so that's really cool yeah okay so but you know i've always got paint color like chips yes like as soon as i settle on one like

5:53Liz McNair:I ran straight to the paint store from one of our podcast episodes or maybe multiple times. Oh, yeah. No, I totally have. And I always I always keep like there's always a paint swatch up in one room where I'm thinking about another room. So I'm thinking about painting my kitchen, but we'll see. Oh, this. Yeah. I'm also. She's on a street now. Room by room. I like this. I know. So, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So we'll see. Because I always like to think about what the color looks like from the other room, too. So now that I have the dining room that looks into the kitchen, it has one of those, like, classic swinging doors with a three-over-three window paint in it.

6:37It's pretty great. So, yeah. So we'll see if I actually paint the kitchen or actually do something bigger with the kitchen this year. But if I do just a small thing in the kitchen, I will paint it. And there I'm thinking Malted Milk by Sherwin-Williams. Oh. Which is kind of, it doesn't feel so different than the color that you have in your basement, Caroline.

7:06Liz McNair:Oh, okay. The Farron Ball. Setting plaster. Setting plaster. Okay, so pinkish. It's like a shade of brown. It's kind of a... a moosey like plastered pink like right yeah it feels like a little bit a little bit flatter a little bit dirtier but not dirty is gonna sound terrible okay do it but like it's like a it's sort of like a more nude like it's a it's kind of a nudie flesh color i guess it is well like it's not salmon but it's sort of in the vein of like salmon pink brown i don't know Like chocolate mousse, but lighter. You know how like Pantone's chocolate mousse? But in a very light pink. Yeah, because like I feel like mocha mousse.

7:52Mocha mousse. Mocha mousse, but like two shades, but like two or three shades lighter. Lighter. Lighter. Yeah, so this might be a little bit more light pink than setting plaster.

8:03Liz McNair:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Setting plaster, I think in my Zoom background, looks very pink. Okay, but in reality. Well, the paint chip looks a little bit more. salmon, like a little more yellow in it. Okay. Interesting. Do you have overhead lights down there? Yeah, and I think there's not a lot of natural light. I just wonder. I knew it wasn't a lot of natural light. I didn't know if the lighting we see is overhead. I do have an overhead picture. The norm is overhead lighting in a dark basement. No, I wasn't. Well, we've also used malted milk in a few of our photo shoots. Okay. That's what I was like.

8:42Liz McNair:It sounds familiar. It sounds familiar. Yeah, because we keep using it in our photo shoots. And honestly, it just looks, it makes every room that we've done it in, like it's primarily been bedrooms that we've used it in, just feels so warm and inviting. Yeah, so I'm going to see what that looks like in the kitchen. See what happens. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I bet you will look really pretty in that color. because don't you feel like the starting plaster like my sulking room pink again is just like so i feel pretty in the room like it gives you a rosy glow yeah so i'm wondering if that will give off that kind of like pink tone that will make you the room feel warm and cozy yeah we'll see yeah that's exciting yeah i love that you're taking us room by room and like dipping each one it's fun i mean i kind of had to figure out the house first before i before i started really getting into color.

9:35Liz McNair:Yeah. But yeah. Well, I think what you did is, you know, you kind of like start with a white and then kind of adjust from there. Right. It's a good way to go, especially because you, when you've moved into a house, to your point, like you don't necessarily know what it's going to look like in the spring versus the winter versus the summer, and it can change so much. And you need to live with it a little bit. So I think it's a good lesson. Yeah. So that's That's been a fun kind of growth period between each room. Cool. All right. Those are all trials? Those are triumphs. Those are triumphs. I'll take those for the W.

10:16Yeah.

10:16Liz McNair:Yeah. Oh, boy. I mean, you know, just like, do I have any trials? Lady. Trials or trials. Yeah. You know, I feel like kicking this year off, like there's just like a whole bunch of like little things around the house. Like the step garbage can in the kitchen doesn't want to open anymore. And the new washing machine has come on level and rattling the whole house. Or, you know, the back porch step, like, you know, has a big chunk that might come off. So I'm like, oh, do I need a new back porch this year? Right. Like the one chunk comes off and you're like, but is it time for the whole? But it's, yeah.

11:04Because you're like, am I just fixing this step or are we like? Right. Right. Yeah. So I'm going to cozy this year up to my architect friend and we're going to see what we can get done.

11:18Liz McNair:Okay, it's just coming back to me that I think in our last Trials and Triumphs, you did a little basement makeover with the contractor who you didn't want. Did not work out. Yeah, that was, yeah. But at least that, so yeah, but that space is a good, like, little upgrade and yeah. Yeah, and that has actually been really awesome. That's been really nice, especially because I carved out a painting studio for myself in the basement. Oh, nice. So just having that one entry room that I did have fixed up, you know, even I wasn't happy with the whole process of that. Taking that step and having that room fixed up makes it much nicer to enter into my basement.

12:05So then it makes me want to go into the painting studio a little bit more. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's, you know, that's another win. I'm going to try to stay positive. And we will figure out that back porch when we need to figure out that back porch.

12:22Liz McNair:Well, okay. Your basement. Well, are you? Yes. Okay. Oh, no. If so, then I'll dovetail your basement because my basement is one of my triumphs. So I, and I was trying to even think of if we've talked about it, but we have like a huge basement, but there's never been any sort of storage in it. And, you know, when you move in, like, you kind of move in, you have all these boxes, you're like, oh, put it in the basement, we'll deal with it later. Well, it was five years later, and it was finally just, honestly, every time I went down there, it was such a mess that it felt like a physical weight on us.

13:01Liz McNair:Yeah. You know, like, because it had gotten so bad and such a disaster, just stuff everywhere. It wasn't like, but there was no rhyme or reason. If you did want to go find anything, it just... Yeah, good luck. It felt just like a constant weight on us. And I think it felt so bad that it felt like this huge project to tackle, right? And I think sometimes I just one day, and I want to say in the spring or maybe early summer, just blew up and was like, we have to do this today. okay, we'll call your dad. He's coming over. He's taking the girls and we're going to clean out this basement. And I don't know what was, what had gotten to me, but I was just like, we're doing it right now.

13:45Liz McNair:Now. Anyway, so we basically just cleaned out as much as we could. We just like dump stuff. I went to Home Depot and got one of those like bagster bags. Oh, nice. Oh, you like. And we just, we had, because we had like old cabinetry in there that the previous owners had left. there was a ton of stuff down there that we just had never gotten around to getting rid of old doors that weren't being used yeah anyway so we cleaned everything out and that was wonderful so i i don't know if i spoke about that on the podcast but that was we did that but so we got rid of a bunch of things but we had a bunch of tupperware and we didn't have any shelving and so finally sometime this um this fall will sort of had the same thing he's like i'm just so sick of this i'm we're getting we're going to home depot right now we're getting five of those huge like husky right no bins six foot yeah yellow yeah um he just put them all together in like one afternoon put all the tubs on there and the thing that and so it's been amazing just because there's actual floor space down there.

14:58Liz McNair:But the thing that sort of annoyed me about the whole thing is that this literally took us two afternoons. And how long did you live with it? Five years. Yeah. And I'm like, I could have done this years ago, but I think it felt so messy. It seemed like a huge undertaking. Felt so, yeah. But we did it in two afternoons. And I was like, God, like with two of us working together, we just knocked it out. I wish we'd done it ages ago. Anyway, but that now at least, you know going down to like get all of our Christmas decorations out and put them away like it was just so much there's a piece to it almost yes yeah it felt like this thing that I had weighing on me is gone so that was a big win even though it didn't um sorry I'm looking at my notes even though it it really was not it wasn't even a huge financial investment it just did you know there's a Ballard Designs store near you.

15:51Liz McNair:If you haven't already, now is a great time to go check out our store in person. We've just done a total makeover of all of our showrooms in preparation for spring, and we'd love for you to come see all of our new items in person. You can pick up swatches, test out all of our seating, and talk to one of our free interior design consultants about your latest decorating project. If you're curious where there's a Ballard Designs store near you, just head to our website and look in the top right corner for all of our store locations. And when you come see us in person, be sure to tell them that the podcast sent you.

16:22Liz McNair:All right, let's get back to the show.

16:27Liz McNair:But anyway, for some reason, it took us a long time, you know, taken care of. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a big one. And then I, but here was a trial. I'm trying to go in chronological order. So I think in September, you know, the leaves were starting to die. And I think I spoke a long time ago on the podcast, I believe this was 2022, about our house getting struck by lightning. Yes. And what actually happened is the lightning struck a tree that was about six feet from our dining room. The lightning bounced off the tree, we think, I mean, and essentially blew a hole in our wall and fried a bunch of stuff.

17:05Liz McNair:Anyway, we got all that fixed. Well, Will, of course, being someone who works with trees a lot, that was all worried about the tree, was worried we'd have to take it down. It was this beautiful oak tree, like huge, really nice. Anyway, at the time, we had an arborist come out. We had two arborists come out and give us, you know, multiple opinions. They told us just to chop a limb off and fertilize it. We spent all this money doing that. While this fall, it was not looking so great, we had another arborist come out. He's like, you need to take the whole thing out. And as I'm sure you both know.

17:42Liz McNair:I think you did this recently. Yeah, we've had a tree taken out. Taking out a tree, it's just not how you want to spend money. And you're like, this is a lot of money. It is a lot of money. And you're like, this is really, this makes really no impact on my day-to-day life. And it's a really big check to write. So that was really unfortunate. I mean, obviously, I'm glad a tree's not going to fall in our house, but that was kind of a bummer. that is a bummer but you know onward and upward yep um okay so uh also i have to do an update because i believe the last time we recorded trials and triumphs i was speaking about my stockings project how i was needle pointing my stockings well in october i got my stockings back from the stocking finisher and they look beautiful it was our first christmas with our new stockings it was fabulous.

18:36Liz McNair:And if you would like to see the stockings, you can go look at my TikTok, but they turned out great. I've been loving following your whole foray into getting the stockings done on TikTok. I was like, oh, okay. Well, I had to talk about it somewhere. They look so good. Okay. And how did they perform this Christmas? They performed great. My family did report that they were slightly smaller than previous than our old stockings partially because the old stockings were knitted and so they really stretch yeah there's a lot more give yeah these didn't have much good give but we did fit or or i shall see santa santa fit everything that they needed to fit he needed to fit into the stocking fit into the stocking great it was really shoved in there but it was in there so it was fine um But yeah, I will say they looked really pretty in the room.

19:28Liz McNair:I didn't necessarily want to design stockings that would only go in one room, but I felt like the color palette worked really nice in there. Yeah, because each stocking is also a different color. Yeah, each stocking is a different color. Yeah. You also have a, you know what I mean? It wasn't like you picked one palette. Yeah, it's true. You have a mix. Right. So in future living rooms, there's options. Correct. Yeah. Anyway, so that was a big win. And then I have lots of needlepoint projects, some home related for the future. So I'll talk about that on a future episode. But anyway, stockings were a win.

20:07Liz McNair:So, yeah. OK, I'm just going through my whole list. So, OK, I also spoke, I believe, previously about Birdie's Bed. We talked about this. I had a, I took, I picked out a fabric. It's one of our, it's a fabric of ours. I believe it's called Kier Capri. It's sort of a graphic-y, batik-y cat. I don't know what y 'all would call it. Like it's, it's a graphic print, but it's sort of. It has some organic qualities to the geometric pattern. Yeah. Exactly. Thank you. And it's sort of in a greeny blue color. Anyway, so I took that to the upholsterer to get made into a bed. I did this in July. He told me that it would be 12 to 14 weeks max.

20:51Liz McNair:The reason I had this specific bed made is because I really wanted to have a trundle in her room. She can only fit a twin in there. But I wanted a trundle because Blair's room, our oldest, which has a queen, becomes our guest room when we have family in town, my parents specifically. So I wanted to have a trundle for Blair to sleep on when we're using her room as a guest room. Right. Me thinking, oh, July, we'll have plenty of time to get it for like Thanksgiving and Christmas when we have guests. It was not ready at Thanksgiving or at Christmas. So that was a big bust and I was pretty annoyed.

21:28Liz McNair:But, you know, it's supposed to be ready this week. So they're upholstering this bed. I mean, he was building it from scratch, basically. Yeah. yeah okay yeah but i mean building the whole frame building yes trundle mechanism yes and then upholstering the whole thing correct okay yeah um so that was kind of annoying because i was really hoping it for it to be ready for the holidays but it wasn't um and i suppose it's good that it wasn't because our toilet overflowed in the adjacent bathroom uh the day after christmas and got all in Birdie's room, all over the carpet. Oh, no. It ran down into the basement.

22:09Liz McNair:So we were really glad that we actually had organized the basement because... Oh, no. Oh, that's terrible. Oh, my gosh. It was... Y 'all, it was... I actually asked the plumber about the thing with your in-laws because I was like, is this what happened? He said pretty much no. Someone shoved a bunch of wet wipes in the potty, flushed it, and it stopped... stopped up our main sewer line. So it wasn't, but it was shooting water, but it was overflowing. Was it out by the road? No, no, it was overflow. That toilet line, essentially. It was the main sewer line, but then it got so backed up that the water started coming out from underneath the toilet.

22:50Oh, that's so terrible.

22:51Liz McNair:And thank God we had gone out and then it started happening. So you came home to this? Yes. Luckily, Will had been at the playground with the girls and for certain reasons, they had to come home for an emergency. And so luckily, like we had planned to be out for four or five hours. Luckily, he came back after 45 minutes and could turn the water off. Thank God, because who knows how long it could have been running. Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine like four or five hours of that. Yeah. Yeah. anyway so i suppose it's a good thing that this bed was not made and recently installed because then it would have been oh my god you know covered in potty water but anyway so that was fun um we did not have to get a new toilet which is great but you know plumbers like that is not an expensive yeah like anytime you're gonna have a plumber out your house you're gonna spend 500 bucks minimum like that's just the starting rate we have some like small tweak things we need a plumber but it's like to your point we're just like waiting until we have yeah like we're just living with the tweaks yeah because we're like oh my god plumber come out yeah yeah so anyway that is my my whole laundry list of all of my trials and triumphs from the last that was really good That's a whole lot.

24:17That's a whole lot. So much is going down the list. Oh, my God. Yeah, you totally reminded me that, yeah, I had a tree taken out in this whole time, too. I know. We're reminding you. It's been four months, essentially. Yeah. Like, it's been some time. Yeah. A tree taken out, a fence rebuilt part of it. Okay. Yeah.

24:38Liz McNair:How's your neighbor's house going, by the way? There was a lot of activity over there for a minute. Oh, so the neighbor who's now an Airbnb? Yes. Yeah. So he built a small house in the back. Just to remind everybody, he built a small two-bedroom ADU, additional dwelling unit, in the back. And then he moved out of the main house in the front. So both the front and the back are two separate Airbnbs. Oh, wow. So it's been like that for about a year now. Yes. Honestly, it's no big deal. Okay. So I checked out his listings. Obviously. Obviously. And I have never seen more stipulations and rules and guidelines.

25:31And if you park incorrectly, that will be$200. And if you do something else, that will be$200. How much activity is over there? So there's a constant rotation. there's nobody there this week but it's also the first week in january that we're recording this yeah but there's been a constant turnover of guests there and thankfully i'm like where's the wood to knock on um we have not had any we have not had any issues with um any of the renters there so but again like he's got so many stipulations yeah so so it's good for you it's good it's good for us yeah although the other week somebody did park their car in the front lawn when there's clearly like a driveway and it's a front lawn like it is not you don't park on grass