Ep. 483: Annie Meyers-Shyer & This Oak House

26:20And I think lighting is a great place to spend money. That's the truth. Yeah. I love how detailed you are about the outlets and the J boxes because, first off, way easier to put the right thing in the first time. And nothing is going to ruin, you know, the view of a room like a poorly placed outlet. And And, you know, many of us don't have the luxury of picking where the outlets are, but you did. And so it's a great tip for people. And by the way, if you don't have that luxury, there are many things you can do to minimize an outlet. You know, you can get these flat outlet covers that go. There's a lot of things you could do.

26:57You could also get an outlet cover that's closer to the color of your wall. So if you have a dark room, you don't have a big white outlet. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do to minimize it. And also you can be thoughtful in the process and still have an outlet that's unsightly. You know, you can try your best. Okay. But the tip that I really took away from that section too, is to walk through with your phone and video where all of what's going on behind the walls before the walls are up. Yes. Genius. Yes. You know, I don't know that my kids are ever going to have TVs in their room, right?

27:32Like do kids even watch TV? Isn't it all on a computer? But we set the rooms up. So if we ever want to do that one day, they're there. And I don't need an electrician opening up all my walls. We know exactly where it is. Also, things go wrong. It's nice to know what's behind your walls. Yeah. Okay. I also love that you found things behind the walls as you were renovating. I did. What are some of the treasures that you found behind the walls and some of the treasures you put in? Yes, we did. So we found a couple of things. We found like very 70s wallpaper in one of the bathrooms, which was really fun to see.

28:12I found a pocket door behind a wall that was just sitting there. And one of the wonderful things we found was I wanted to add a window in my kitchen in the certain location and where we had drawn out that we'd put the window as we took the wall down, There had been a window there originally. So that felt really good. Like I'm doing right by this house. My instinct was right to re-add it there. And then when the walls were open, we went through the house and we wrote some notes and we put them in the walls. We also, and I'm not a very woo-woo person, but we went and we bought some crystals, some sort of like happy healing vibe crystals.

28:53And we put those in the walls. My kids wrote notes to the future children who will one day live here. You know, my son, they had like a piece of plywood up where his future mirror would be. And he drew a picture of himself. And it's behind the mirror. And it was really fun. They really, I think, really enjoyed that day when we came over here before we closed up the walls. And I think it's giving us the good juju we were after. I love that. I love creating those connections with the home and creating those connections for your kids too. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. And it's really nice. I was at an estate sale, I don't know, maybe a year ago.

29:31And this woman tapped me on the shoulder and she said, do you live? And then said my address. And I said, I do. She said, I raised four kids in that house. And I said, oh my God, it's so nice to meet you. And it was really, it was, she was like, I thought that was you. And she knew my mother-in-law and houses have history. They have energy, you know, lots of things have happened. And I love the idea that we're raising our family in a house that has raised other families. We've been talking internally about something that you included in your house that I think is kind of a controversial opinion, which is the formal living room or, you know, the adults only living room, whatever you want to call it.

30:10But walk us through that house. I love a living room. I just call it. I just wanted a living room without a TV. Here's the thing. My kids, this is, I don't live in an enormous house, right? And my kids are everywhere all the time, all at once, right? I get a lot of joy by walking through a room that looks exactly as I left it. And I don't get that a lot as a mom. Like, I just don't, you know? A room will be perfectly clean and I'll come by and there's a big dent on my bed because my dog was on it. Like, there's just things that you just, I don't know. I get a lot of joy from something just looking just as I want it to look.

30:50And our living room is not a kid's space. It's just not. And by the way, the materials aren't precious. It's not about that. It's just they have other rooms that are where they can be. And I don't know if I wrote this in the book or if I took it out. I think I may have taken it out. But in the original version of that chapter on the living room, I say that I wish I had had like an invisible fence that like when my kids went towards it, they like got shocked and had to walk back. Like, I'm pretty sure my editor made me take it out. But I say that because it brings me joy to walk through that room and have it look the way I want it to look.

31:24It's a space for me. Even my bedroom, my kids get under the covers and watch TV. Like, I don't have anything that can just be the way I want it to be. So it's an adult space. Are my kids welcome in there? Of course. Can they jump on the furniture? They cannot. No. I think it's great. I mean, I, you know, everything is so connected now as well. I think it's nice to have a room that's purely meant for visiting, like conversing. And it's not meant for television and it's not meant for playing with toys. It is not. And, you know, I think we all sort of have that, or many people had that, like very traumatizing, like formal living room with the vacuum marks and you're not allowed to go in and everything.

32:14But it's like you said, it's nice to have a room as a mom just for you. So I love that. I think that's a great point. I think so. And by the way, we eat in our dining room. We have a snug. We play games in there. I mean, we use our house. We do. I just think there are some spaces that don't, everything doesn't need to be kid-friendly. Yeah. It's nice to have a beautiful retreat that is, yeah. I think so. By the way, they're welcome in there. They're just, it's not where they hang. It's not like they don't go in there. It's just not their space. It's not meant for them. It's meant for us. There was, I think, in the section where the little interview with your boys, one of them said, well, I haven't really been in the snug, but.

32:57But maybe I'll like it. I thought it was really funny. By all means, yeah. The Snug is right off of the living room. We watch TV in there and my younger son and I will play chess in there. We definitely hang in there, but we have a TV room in between their bedrooms. It's like an upstairs kids hangout TV room. So they don't need to go into the Snug. They have spaces. Yeah. Yeah. Talk a little bit about how you reframed the entire upstairs to work for your family. Yeah. Well, that was really the beginning of, it was like a chain reaction, truly. So there are three bedrooms on the second story of our house, but from the third bedroom, the only way to basically get to it was through another bedroom.

33:47And I didn't want my older son enough to go through my room to see his brother. That was not going to work for anyone. So we had to create a hallway to connect all three bedrooms. And when we made that hallway, what we realized is that that back bedroom was very close to the main staircase. So we didn't need the back staircase anymore. That back staircase was functional when that room was only accessible by that staircase. So we then took out that staircase and then we created this hallway. And so it was a chain And we actually, because now we had all this new space downstairs that we could capture.

34:20And my old house had a kitchen family room. And that's really, I cook a lot. So my kids would be watching a game. I'd be in the kitchen. And so we really wanted to create that space in this house. And by removing that staircase, we were able to do that. And I really kept most of the upstairs other than that new hallway, which connected everything, is basically what it was. my bedroom and my older son's bedroom have these very dramatic vaulted ceilings, which were really cool. And then my younger son's room, which was the room closer to us, had like a really low eight-foot tray ceiling. And it sort of was what it was.

34:57There was nothing we could do about it. And I talk about this in the book. But one day during construction, my contractor called me and he said, guess what? Like that, there is a vaulted ceiling under here and we can very easily make this happen. So we took out the tray ceiling and there it was, this dramatic, tall vaulted ceiling. I unfortunately was dead out of money at that point. And so I said, what are we going to do? How are we going to treat the ceiling? And I had, you know, all of the millwork in this house is custom. Every baseboard is custom. We took moldings that were here and that were original and we took them off the wall.

35:30We had knives made and so we could, you know, have the exact same moldings put back on. And so then basically what happened was he was like, I'm going to get you a ceiling from Home Depot. I was like, great. And that's what's in my son's bedroom. It's a Home Depot ceiling. And you would never know. It's a tongue and groove and you would never know. I mean, I have custom millwork and Home Depot and it all looks great. Talk about some of those like high, low decisions. Cause I think you, you mentioned that there was also some tile that like some specialty tile that you had handmade and then? Yeah, I mean, when it came to the architectural details, I wouldn't say there was a tremendous amount of high-low, if I'm going to be speaking honestly.

36:14You know, I felt that I owed this house a certain level of finishes. And so we didn't cut a ton of corners when it came to the finishes. We definitely picked a beautiful handmade tile for the kids' subway tile in their bathrooms. And then I used a sort of less expensive, but also beautiful tile from Aunt Sacks, which is also a subway tile in some of the ancillary bathrooms. The truth is, in the places where I did cut corners, I bought a bathtub that wasn't super expensive and it doesn't retain heat. Like, I think you feel it. You think you really feel it when you do cut corners like that. So when it came to the finishes and the architectural details, I knew this was going to be our forever house.

37:02I didn't want to cut corners. I wanted to try to really make the best possible decision that we could afford at the time. That's really great, though, to be able to have that foresight. I feel like a lot of people make decisions based on, well, I'm going to be here for a few years. But when you know you're going to be there, invest in yourself. I, we, exactly, exactly. I'm, and I'm happy with it. My husband called me a couple of weeks ago and he was in his office and we have a, his office is connected to our little pool house. And he said, why is there a waterworks faucet in the pool house? And I said, you know, I don't know what to tell you.

37:38It's just, you're just going to have to, you know, I had more budget to work with then. You know, you make choices at the moment that you think are the best possible choice you can make. And, you know, I remember when we were doing my dining room, the budget came in really high. And I said to Mike, I need to find somewhere in here that's going to, we're coming in over budget. What can we do? And he found me a gorgeous, gorgeous chairs, which I'm sitting in that are, they're from Belgium, but they're a wicker chair and they were much more affordable. So it helped bring the budget down. I mean, we just tried to value engineer where it made sense for the project.

38:13And if I hadn't picked such, you know, an expensive light fixture, I could have had better chairs? I don't know. I love our chairs. I'm very happy with them. You just have to kind of, it's always a rejagering of the numbers. You obviously worked with such a wonderful team and you had an interior designer that you worked with. And I was curious if you could share with our audience things you learned about working with an interior designer, tips you might have for working with someone for the first time, that kind of thing. So my biggest tip would be, be honest about yourself when you're meeting with your interior designer.

38:47I think you have to know what kind of client you're going to be and share that transparently. I knew that I wanted to be in the mud. I was in the weeds with him. I knew I wanted to be, and I was very forthright about that. You know, we would have a meeting and we needed a light blue fabric for something. And I'd say, I'll go to the PDC, which is the Pacific Design Center, and you go to your office and let's meet next week and see what we both come up with. And he was open to that. I was very wanted to be a part of it and a team member. If you know you want to be the kind of person who gets presented a scheme and you say yes and press go and you move in and somebody's, you know, bought your towels and your pots and pans for you, say that that's the kind of person you are, you know?

39:29I remember there was an interior designer that I had met with who I loved. And in their proposal, they said they'll do two rounds of edits. And I thought, well, that's not going to work for me. I know myself. I know I'm going to have questions. I know I'm going to love this thing and not love that thing. And so be very honest with what kind of client you're going to be and see if that's going to be a match for the designer. Mike, whose work has been on the cover of El Decor and in Architectural Digest and all these amazing places, when we first got together, that was not the case. So I don't know that he would want to work with somebody like me now that he's so much more established.

40:09But when we first started working together, he was so open. He was so open to best idea wins, you know. And such a big part of what has happened to me is the sharing of this information. and I'm very careful. I never share anything that he sourced, anything that's proprietary to him. This is his business. If I source something or I found something, I'll share it. But I'm very mindful of that. I'm mindful that it's his business. I never have, you know, pretended I'm an interior designer. I just simply don't know those things that he knows. And I loved him. And the other thing I would say, and this goes for your designer, your architect, your contractor, do not underestimate working with somebody nice.

40:54You are going to talk to them all the time. If you are dealing with an attitude or someone who's, it is going to really wear on you. The people I worked with were so nice. When I saw Mike calling me, I was always happy. Like, oh my God, what's fine? What's new? What's happening? Like it was always a good thing. You know, you want to feel that you're working with kind people in addition to them being very talented. I think don't underestimate that and be very honest with what kind of client you are going to be. That's really important. Annie, I'm pretty sure Mike's going to want to work with you again, if the opportunity ever arose.

41:30Well, Mike and I are very, very close. He definitely would. And I would work with him again in a heartbeat. He's just like, he's like a delightful person on top of all of the talent. I want to talk a little bit about your mom. Because your mother's movie sets and homes have been coveted and examined and gushed over for the last 20 years. And you've sort of picked up the mantle of her style in a way. At the very least, I think people who love those houses look to you as sort of an authority figure on this internet obsession. Is that something that you ever thought about? Does that feel like pressure?

42:12Is it fun? Is it taxing? Like, what is that like? Well, they shouldn't because those have nothing to do with me, you know? So those are entirely her and her team of set dressers and set decorators and production designers and a huge amount of people. Their work goes into those sets. She's at the helm of it without a doubt, but I am unfortunately not in any way connected to those things. What I think has happened is I'm sure some of the people who love her aesthetic have landed on my page. And that's delightful. And I'm so happy to have them. I think her personal style, I think like her home and the home I grew up in are really representative of her and her style.

43:04And I think those are some of the most beautiful spaces. But I think what it really is, is she creates worlds that have beautiful stories and beautiful characters that are complex and interesting. And they have great dialogue and the stories are engaging and they live in these beautiful houses. And so it's the combo of all of that. And I think people like to sort of just pick out that it's the homes, but I don't think it's the homes. I think if the movies were crappy, nobody would care about the homes. I think it's the whole thing. It's the details that go into it. And I think when someone says they want the something's got to give kitchen or the father of the bride house, I think it's way more about the feeling the movie evokes than the actual finishes in the house.

43:57It's all of it. And that goes to the kind of writer and director and storyteller she is. So if anyone's landed on me because of her, I'm so happy, but I have no part in that other than growing up around it. And we all are better because of the things that our parents have taught us and shown us and by osmosis and the environments we grew up in, they rub off on us. So I'm sure I have some of that juju that she gave me, but it all comes from her and her big brain. Yeah. Well, you know, watching those movies, you, like I was watching The Parent Trap with my daughter and you look at that California house and the London house and you're like, I could love every single detail could move in today.

44:45Like, so I think it's that timelessness and that edited, you know, and attention to traditional, but, you know, really streamlined and paired, not paired back, but like, it's unfussy. Totally unfussy. I also think, you know, that goes a lot to the wardrobe also. You know, I think she picks things where it's not going to feel dated. You're not going to watch that movie and be like, oh, well, that feels so, you know, 1996. You don't feel that way, right? And so it's these choices, these movies, the hope is they last forever. And so they don't feel dated. So those homes make these, they're classic choices that hopefully you can go back to.

45:27But I think the other part of it is that the houses tell you a lot about the people that live inside of them. And I think that is a win when it comes to your house. I think if I went to either of your homes and you were not there, I could leave and know something about you, right? And that's what's really, I think, a wonderful thing with the home. It tells your story, who you are, and those stories or those people and their homes, you know, it really helps tell the story. That English house with that orange entryway, right? She had cool style. She was a dress designer, but she was, you know, British.

46:01And the house is such a townhouse. And so it just tells you everything you need to know about her from that house, that beautiful closet and her bedroom, which was so feminine because Hallie in the movie didn't have grow up with a mom. So she had this, you know, I remember that duvet was so like lush, right? It's all those little elements because it actually goes back to the story. Yeah. I think the story is the through line. Do you have a favorite house from one of her movies? If you had to move into one. Yeah, I do. It's the new one. Oh. Yeah, it's the new one. Okay. Yeah, it's the best one I've seen, and I've seen them all.

46:39So, yeah. Okay. What's in store for this oak house next? My book comes out in the fall, which I am very excited about. and I have some wonderful product collaborations coming with really great partners. And I'm really excited about that. I have one that comes out at the same time as my book. And then I have something coming out in 27 and then in 28. And so I have a little bit of like a roadmap of what's coming for me and started to think about another book. I hope my editor is not listening because I'm not ready to talk about it yet, but it's percolating in my brain. And I'm just, this has been an unexpected journey.

47:20I did not imagine to be here on this podcast. I just imagined to be listening to it in my car. You know, it's an unexpected journey, but I'm very happy to be here and I'm excited for the future. Well, the book is an incredible resource and such a source of inspiration. I recommend anybody who's about to embark on the journey to pick up a copy when it comes out this fall thank you thank you it's beautiful and like like you said it's such a great resource for anyone with a with a project on the horizon and not but certainly yeah a great um a great tool so generous with all of your resources and everything throughout the book and well there's been a lot of gatekeeping in interiors traditionally.

48:09A lot of people don't talk about sources and resources. So I made a commitment to share. And so I just tried to keep that up. Well, thank you for sharing the hot fudge recipe. We are making it tonight. Good. You're going to love it. It's great. We have a hot fudge tradition on New Year's Eve. And I need, I mean, I needed a new recipe. It's such a good one. Perfect.

48:33Hi, Ballard Ladies. It's Kristen from outside Philadelphia. You helped me with a dilemma once before, and I'm back. This time, I need help with my office. Office is doing a lot of work. This one space is also our mudroom for one child, two adults, two dogs. I'm hoping to carve out a small reading nook somewhere in there. The vibe I'm after is Nancy Meyers meets Ralph Lauren. Warm, layered, timeless. A few things are staying. The paint color, the bookcase, the large mirror, everything else is open. My biggest issue is the desk. Right now, I have an Ikea desk with a standing converter on top and a walking pad underneath.

49:05functional but not beautiful i'd love a standing nest that actually looks good but i haven't found one that fits the aesthetic i also need an area rug that can handle two dogs wet feet daily wear without looking institutional seating is tricky too i need a real office chair but i'm i'd also love something you could girl up in not sure if that's even possible in one piece and finally curtains i already have ballard's french return drapery rod and bronze though the rest of the first floor. So I'd love to see what we can do to feel consistent. Longtime listener, loyal Ballard customer. Thank you, Kristen.

49:39And she is, this is not a huge room. So she, yeah. I don't think Kristen's going to love my answer. I think this room needs to do less. I think it needs to do less. I don't think you can have a mudroom and a cozy chair and a desk and a walking pad. I don't think she has enough space to do all of that. So if I were Kristen, I would pick one thing, and I would really try to make it work well. It's the space I don't think, in my opinion, I'd love to know what you guys think. I don't think it can be all of those things. I don't think you can have an aesthetically pleasing office with kids' backpacks.

50:21I just think there's too much going on. I definitely think she also needs to decide if she wants a standing desk or not because I think if we got to pick kind of like the walking pad or the chair. So my advice is let's do less. I would like to offer her a free consultation with me where we do less together. She can email me through my website and I will help her source it. But I don't know what we should do because I don't know what we want the function of the room to be. My guess is the office. I think a standing desk is great for your health, but I think then we don't need a chair, which is also good.

50:58So maybe we do like a cozy chair in a corner that can be your curl up chair with a floor lamp. And then I think we kind of take out, I think the bookshelf maybe needs to go if we can, you know, create some more space. And I think she has a matchstick on one window. So I don't think I would do matchsticks and curtains. I think I would pick one drapery fabric or another. I love the idea of doing the Ballard French return rod. Maybe we do that on all the windows. Or if she's really wanting that on the, I think it's a sliding door, maybe we do the matchsticks with that and we do a combo. But I think we need to do less.

51:37I think the reason she's not feeling satisfied is because she's asking too much of that room. Yeah, yeah. That's my thought. But I definitely agree. There's no space for a reading chair in here. No. I could maybe see like a desk and storage, backdoor storage. But yeah, I think you're right. Maybe we need to build it in. We can do a build in. I think maybe that would help. But I think it needs to do less. I don't think it can check all the boxes that she wants it to check, unfortunately. Yeah. I wonder if there's a space somewhere else in her house that she can put the cozy reading nook. Yeah. Yeah.

52:24And just do a better job with the fewer things that she's asking of it. Because I also think if it has to be the mudroom, let's build it in and conceal it behind some doors. We aren't looking at backpacks and cleats and things like that. Let's get that behind doors so it almost looks like a wall of cabinetry inside the office. I think, you know, we have to figure out how to not make it. I think if it needs to function as two spaces, let's at least make it look like one space. Yeah. I will say I do tend to love, now she does have double monitors and I feel like that's challenging. But putting a desk perpendicular to the wall instead of parallel to the wall.

53:09And so I could maybe see if she puts the desk under the window, but. At an L shape. Yes. That instead of like that, you know. Yeah. That way she's not looking at the mudroom behind her. Mm-hmm. Right. In the back of her Zooms and she's just looking at a wall. She could put some art or something on there. but then the then you do have the the challenge of the monitor situation but right yeah that's very generous annie of you to offer to yes help talk her through it i will help her for sure and if she wants a more aesthetic looking standing desk we actually just came out with one last week oh great that's the only thing i worry about it's a big desk um so she definitely would measure and make sure that it it yeah that's true yeah um but there are some some good standing desks that are adjustable i have a walking pad and i admit that it is not super exciting but maybe she could tuck the walking pad away in the cloth she does have a little closet when she's not in use but yeah it is challenging i'm yeah yeah okay well um kristen email Annie.

54:30She said she'll help you out. Then report back and tell us what happens. For sure. We'll let you know how it goes. And thank you for listening and sending in your question. All right. Well, Annie, thank you so much. Tell everyone where they can find you, follow you, and obviously pick up your book. My book is out September 15th, anywhere books are sold, and I am at thisoakhouse on Instagram. Thank you so much. Such a delight. Thanks for having me. The book is a real, a real wonderful read and obviously beautiful for a coffee table as well. It's nice to have both in a design. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it.

55:10Nice to meet you both. And that's our show. You can find all of the show notes on our blog, howtodecorate.com slash podcast. To send in a decorating dilemma, Email your questions to podcast at BallardDesigns.net so we can help you with your space. And of course, be sure to follow us on social media at Ballard Designs. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a review. We'd love to hear your feedback. Until next time, happy decorating.