Friday Q&A: Ultimate Interior Design Tips with Jojo Barr

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0:32Bombas make socks, slippers, tees, and underwear made with the highest quality materials. Press 1 for comfort, 2 for style, 3 for donation. You chose style. Bombas is styles for whatever you enjoy. You can run in Bombas, lounge in Bombas, dress them up, dress them down, but always give back in Bombas. Because with every item purchased, another is donated. Bombas, comfort worth calling for. Go to bombas.com slash audio and use code audio for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com and use code audio. Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas, the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman. And I'm Georgia Dayton.

1:07And this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits. With five kids between G and I, we have seen a lot.

1:15Georgia Dayton: We really have. Each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way. In short, we're the parenting podcast for you. Before we get started, hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands. And they're on Tuesdays and Fridays. And it really helps if you leave a rating and a review. You can also find us on Instagram, we're on at Made by Mummers. But for now, George, should we get into it? Hello and welcome to Friday's episode of the podcast, we have died and gone to interior's heaven. We have.

1:48We really wanted to open up the conversation to you guys today about your homes, you're I guess you're kind of like obviously Georgia and I've been through two renovations

1:58Georgia Dayton: well you've probably done well I'm about to do another one and hopefully it's a minefield even though we might be able to put ourselves together in a fairly respectable manner when it comes to our home Georgia and I really don't have much of a clue so we wanted to throw it out to an expert today he's had over two decades of experience she's set up house nine design studio and she's an all-round bloody legend it's Jojo Barr everyone! Yay! Jojo for anyone who doesn't know So give us like a little insight into what you've been up to. You've obviously got a new book out. You did Sophie Haboo and Jamie Lang's house.

2:31Georgia Dayton: You do lots of stuff. Just give a little insight. Gosh, yeah. Well, I set the studio up 10 years ago and it's sort of just never, never really intending it to become what it has with carrying a big old bag of imposter syndrome. But over the years, I guess it's just sort of grown and grown. And now we're at the point where I've got a studio of about 10. So it's still a fairly small team, but we're doing quite big things. So I've now released the book, which is kind of celebrating 10 years of House 9, really. I've got a podcast with Pollyanna Wilkinson, which is all about the ins and outs, which are hopefully going to be kicking off again soon.

3:10Gosh, it feels like it's a lot going on. I can't even, my head's slightly spinning at the moment. I was going to say, my husband watches your YouTube.

3:19Georgia Dayton: I mean you would not think he'd be the demographic but he absolutely, in fact he was watching it last night and he was like can you ask her when the next episode of Ham House is that right? Ham House is coming out Talk to me about the YouTube, what's our YouTube? We've got a YouTube channel called Behind the Design and it's about, I wanted to take people on a journey of what it really takes to be an interior designer because I can't tell you how often I hear people say I'd love to be an interior designer without really I think understanding what goes on you know in taking a project from start to finish does that happen with you jojo a little bit i'll be honest i'm like don't do it actually a girl came up to me at an event the other day and she's like i just want to quit my job you know and be an interior designer i'm like don't don't don't do that don't do that why would you do that why would you do that to yourself it's really hard work um but it's so it takes you on a journey of like a project from start to finish the show's behind the scenes and i did a week in the life once of what my life's actually like um but the The Ham House project is literally the first opportunity we've had to film a project from when we first were instructed, from the client brief all the way through to a fully dressed house, which is a real treat.

4:27It's a two-year project, so it's essentially three episodes. Two years squeezed into three episodes. Wow. Yeah, which is really exciting. How many tabs have you currently got open in your brain? Oh my God, I can't tell you. Only last year I was diagnosed as having ADD, so I'm not the hyper bit, so I managed to contain that, which is good. otherwise I'd be bouncing off the walls like a pinball machine but um therefore I'm not very good at sort of closing tabs I have hundreds open in my head all the time what what skills do you need to be able to make it as an interior designer I think this is where I think people don't realize quite how many and I say there's a lot of strings to your bow that are needed to be a designer because you have to be first of all creative obviously um you have to be very organized very organized you have to be technical because a lot of technical drawing and everything comes into this now you have to be very um front-facing so you've got to be client-facing very confident friendly able to take challenges because there are so many challenges every day like hundreds of we call ourselves firefighters because we're constantly putting out fires um and just and just yeah take take it all with a bit of a smile because you've just got to grow quite thick skin

5:30Georgia Dayton: I was going to say because a lot of it especially like in somebody's home must be so personal to them as well so they might have an idea that you're like oh no that is not gonna work but You've got to navigate how you tell them that. Absolutely. You're renovating your homes, right? You've renovated. It's nothing like renovating your own house because you're doing it with someone else's money. And it's their life savings. You know, it's the most expensive thing you're ever going to pay for. And therefore, any little decision has to go through them. And everything costs money and everything costs way more money than it ever used to.

5:59Georgia Dayton: Yeah. You know, it's just and we're having to manage those difficult conversations on the regular. And things can go, you know, awry with so many different suppliers and contractors. and so it's kind of trying to hold it all in and you know give the clients the best experience and the best journey which can be sounds like a really chill job when you've got so chill for chill and yeah all that comes along with it nothing can prepare you though from the utter disappointment when you decide to take your own interiors into your own hands and then you order something that you think is going to be absolutely amazing then you open the box yeah hang the fucking chandelier and then you look at it and go, it looks like a brothel now at the top of my stairs.

6:40I'm just talking like a friend, this happened to a friend, it's not in my house. Yeah, the pink feather chandelier that I currently have hanging at the top. Did you? Yeah, I sort of went for it. A friend was like, go for it. It's really fun. And when I pulled it out of the box, I was like, what have I done? Fun in like a slastic. But you were like, but I won't send it back. I'll hang it up anyway. You can't hang it up.

7:01Georgia Dayton: Yeah, because also sending anything for the house back is really difficult. and you sort of look and you think, oh, it's too much effort to send that back. That would just stay. There'll be somebody into burlesque that wants it and I'm going to send it to you. You can sell it on Facebook Marketplace. George, should we get into the questions because we've got loads? Let's do it. Let's start with, there's some really specific ones so maybe we'll do a few of those. Any ideas on how to lay out a box room for our teen daughter to maximise space? A box room? I mean, a teen daughter, it's because she's going to need storage.

7:35Georgia Dayton: Yeah. So the first thing I think, always think functionally. So you can make it look nice. You can think color, but that's kind of got to come later, how she's going to use the room first. So if she needs storage, you're going to need, like, hooks all over the wall. You're going to need storage. You're going to need maximum place for her clothes. Like, you know, makeup. Is she into that age where she's going to want to sit and do makeup, have a little makeup station? She is, right? She's a teenager. Yeah, a teenager. So a boxed room, yeah, it's small. it's got to work hard it's got to work really hard so and it's also got to be a room that if you if you make a room too busy so the the busier you make it the more like you know wallpaper and busy patterns and the smaller you're going to make it feel so if you want it to feel big and spacious you're going to have to keep it quite light okay yeah thoughts on mirrors on the wardrobe doors I just don't like them I don't either I can't stand them I like them on the back of the door I open the wardrobe and have them inside yeah yeah but not on the front no They try and tell you that that's a way of kind of creating extra space in a room, don't they?

8:35Mirrors are a fantastic way of creating space because they're going to reflect light and they're going to make a room, they're going to kid the eye into making it feel bigger. But not on wardrobe doors.

8:45Georgia Dayton: And in a box room for a teenager's bed, would you do something higher up so that you're making use of the space underneath? I don't know. They don't want to be in a bunk bed. Yeah, like how hard could you do that? No. It's difficult, isn't it? You've got to think, you've got to future-proof this room because if she's already a teenager, I mean, how quick does time fly when you've got kids? Yeah, exactly. I only realised last night, I was like, how the heck do I have an nearly nine-year-old? Yeah. When did that happen? So before you know it, she's going to be like 16 years old and might have a boyfriend coming around or something.

9:12Well, they will not be going in the bedroom. They can't fit in a box room. Right now. Sorry, it won't fit. A pull-out bed for a double. It's got to be clever. You've got to be clever at that point. And also thinking, we're doing Islas at the moment and she's 13 and there are just little things that are complete non-negotiables for her. Like you said about the makeup, she really wants one of those vanity mirrors. you know she wants like a little chill out area where there's you know a nice chair and it kind of it to be fair when i when we did the design with her i was literally like this is a fucking great bedroom it's like a studio flat studio flat you've also got to let her get involved yes i say this all the time don't design your kid's bedroom you can have a you can get involved to a certain point of course yeah but it's it's her space it's like it's their room kids need to get involved This is where they're creating their imagination and memories.

10:00And they're sitting in their room. It's their room. They need to design it how they see fit.

10:04Georgia Dayton: My son would want a red bedroom if we let him. Gosh. So. Yeah. A red bedroom? No, I asked. I said, well, what do you want to do? Like, just in front of us in the studio is a fully red room. Does he support Arsenal or something? Liverpool. Oh, Liverpool. There you go. It's always to do with the football team. He would want a red room, but I couldn't allow that. Hints of red? Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how it can happen. Okay, let's talk rugs. Rugs, go on. Let's talk rugs. I always struggle with this because firstly, how the hell do you know how big a rug is? Like I've ordered a rug thinking it was going to be massive and it was like the size of a bath mat.

10:40Yeah. I got completely done on that one. Yeah. Scroll down. They usually come in different sizes. Yes, I know. But then you've got to get the tape measure out.

10:46Georgia Dayton: You have to tape it out on the floor. You do. We've been watching. We've been watching, JJ. Good, affordable places to get great rugs. Oh my gosh. Okay. I mean, oh, this is going to be a tough one because I want to. Go on, tell me. We can edit this. Do high and low. Just do high and low. Only because I don't want to go to High Street. Do you know one of the best places on the High Street to get really good rugs? Affordable rugs. Yeah. They're talking beautiful that look timeless. H &M. No, Ochre. Yes. Do you know Ochre? Yeah. Beautiful rugs. Yeah. Gorgeous. Yeah, I would say they're a real go-to.

11:22Heels do some really lovely rugs. Anthropology. beautiful rugs, also great for kids' bedrooms they do some really nice rugs Nordic knots, do you like them? love Nordic knots and then online even like Laradute do some really big well priced rugs Laradute best flooring for bathrooms if you hate tiles, mid-Reno over here thanks Jo you hate tiles? why would you hate tiles in a bathroom? I don't know obviously there's the you can get wood floor but it depends what's in your it depends what's in your bedroom or off your bathroom it's quite important to consider the transition from one area to another yeah so I can't just say oh put like a wood floor laminar or an LVT you know or a or something down because I don't know what you've got outside if you're going from your bedroom which is carpeted yeah and then you're going into a bathroom that's maybe got wood floor that might be a bit odd if you're going from a wood floor like a bedroom or a hallway that's got wood floor you could take the wood floor in the bathroom okay that's totally fine um but otherwise it'd probably be something like a laminate or an lvt what do you think about um polished concrete i think it's all like it was a real i do like it has a place yeah it has a place it's got obviously quite a warehousey feel to it yeah um you've got to be very considerate about the finish and the and the texture because sometimes if you go too light too clean any even a hair or dog hair on it you're going to see it it can also crack if it's not laid properly with sort of underfloor heating and things so it's just got to be something it's not as and it's porous yeah so it's got to be really well treated why do you like it so um i wanted to basically bring Ibiza to my bedroom and bathroom and kitchen and basically all over the house the whole house um and we got somebody in to do it wasn't a polished concrete but it was basically that sort of spa bathroom finish yeah it wasn't a tile and they just went all over the walls and you know and it looks very very cool yeah but hair a scuff of a shoe everything and like you said it's porous so you can with that stuff it's basically like a it's called like topcret it's like a very thin micro cement yeah it's about two millimeters thick right and you can actually paste it over even tiles or would like something a hard surface and it could like you say can get all the way up walls it's fantastic in bathrooms because it's like you know moisture resistant things but you can get it with a bit more of an effect going through it so a bit more of a pattern or a brush stroke or slightly darker color but otherwise just consider if you're using light tiles or light flooring like anything it's going to show up every little mark especially mums consider before getting like a really light i don't know porcelain

14:03Georgia Dayton: or light limestone floor in your kitchen yeah yeah actually what materials would you avoid in a family home you know if someone's doing a renovation like what would be your like things like that it would be like a like white porcelains i don't like i don't i'm not a fan of porcelain anywhere i like the texture and i like the things that are honed um people are quite afraid of marble so i love marble but you need to know that marble is obviously it's highly porous can scratch easily kind of weathers beautifully but if you've got very little ones in a kitchen consider if you're up for that yeah um wood floor you've just got to make sure that it's quality wood floor so i'll say it again like again and again and again don't buy crap cheap floor because you will see in a two years time you'll have patches where you know you come down the stairs and you spin on that particular spot and it will wear and it will just it will wear out and then you haven't got enough wear layer so you want to have the floor that's got a few wear layers which means it can be sanded back and then yes does that make sense yeah it does thoughts on antico again I understand it's it's great because it has it serves a purpose where you can't have wood floor and especially like beach houses for example fantastic but it is quite tappy yeah tap tap tap and also you can't join it at thresholds which means you have to use an ugly threshold strip yeah and they're not designed to look like the floor so you get this quite contrasting threshold strip which doesn't look great yeah but I understand why you know they're pretty good now as in LVT all these sort of you know these vinyl floorings are good the house we bought has and teaco tiles that look like wood which we will take up but the problem is there's underfloor heating underneath it has it been glued down and so now we're like oh my god that whole thing because in our living room and stuff we pulled up the carpet and there was like original flooring like yes lovely like sand it all down great oh no yeah now we just keep looking at it like oh no what are we gonna do and also if you if you drop a champagne bottle on the floor and it cracks does it just bounce no it cracks big old crack in it what cracks like the floor there's a big chunk out of it oh really yeah is it quite tappy do you find it's quite it's tappy yeah like the dog like a little yeah but you have to take your heels off if you've got proper wooden floors down and I don't want anything anyone to well no people wouldn't be stealing my heels in my house but I just they hate the idea of being like right heels off because it makes marks doesn't it yeah but people should be taking their shoes off when they're in a house anyway do you know what I mean not me I like to Do you like to walk around your house with your shoes on?

16:30Some, some. Do you? On the ground floor. You need to get some like shoe slippers. I do have those.

16:35Georgia Dayton: Do you know the basket by the door with loads of slippers? I do have that. I do have that. I love that you walk around your house with your heels on. I came screeching out of my mother's vagina in these heels. Okay, guys. That's just what. Whoosh. Oh, God. Heels first. We'll be right back after this short break.

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18:29welcome back to this episode of made by mamas now where were we someone here has put where to find affordable artwork oh where to find affordable artwork oh it's such you know i get asked this all the time i genuinely can't remember the names because i don't really look i don't really look at these genuinely don't worry that's okay i can step in here can i step in can i step in here Yeah, yeah. Go on, you tell me. Big shout out to Liam West here, West Contemporary Art, because he is an art curator. Have you heard of Liam West? No. He's an art curator, but he looks after loads of different amazing artists and he'll come around to your house.

19:05He'll give you a free consultation so he can come and take all the photos, give you an idea. He builds you a deck and he essentially inserts the art and what it would look like if it was hung in your home. So it's almost like a render, like a visual render that you can then watch and see as if you're walking through your home and see what the art looks like. Ranging from like prints to actual incredible pieces of art. We've got it all over our house. And it was like, I didn't realise how much art would change the feel of my home. And I wasn't really that into art. We've got a range of price points.

19:38Like we've got a beautiful print of Bob Marley, which wasn't that expensive. And then we've got some Connor brothers and we've got Chloe Natalia in the round in our kitchen. I think that's the thing. I think they're asking about affordable art. It depends also what's affordable to you. might be different affordability to somebody else so obviously there's like the poster websites it's all about the framing how are you going to frame it that's hugely important because you can literally

19:59Georgia Dayton: take a tea towel i was going to say i've done that yeah you can take a postcard i mean honestly you take a bit of wallpaper and and frame it and it's the frame that actually might be the thing that's the most expensive you know we've got we've got artwork that we've framed before for clients and we've done art walls where the framing is probably adds up to be more expensive than the art itself we work with a brilliant company called kramer and bell again similar in that you can buy that affordable bit of artwork from they're still artists it's still artist works it's not a poster but it can range anywhere from 150 or up to thousands it depends if you want that one-off piece and they work with you again like art consultants are great for that they really are yeah they are isn't there's um a subscription isn't what's it called is it called like interrupted art or something you pay a monthly subscription and you can basically like they deliver new art to your house so you can try it first and see what it's like I'm sure oh we can put it in the show notes but I'm sure it's called interrupted art or something like that I'm going to just step in and say with artwork it's it's hugely um personal yeah very subjective and actually I think some people focus too much on the art in the room my favorite thing to do with clients because I think clients sort of can obsess a bit about where's this bit of art get work going to go and I said don't even look at it we're going to design the house exactly as we would anyway and then we find a place for the artwork afterwards.

21:17So if it's not working, it's just got to go in a different room. If it's a really strong piece, it might just need a hallway on its own or it might just need reframing. So if you love it, keep it. But the amount of people that hold on to art that they're like, I don't even like it, why have I got it? You know, you might have had it when you were like uni days. Athena posters. Athena posters. Shitty like frames. The guy sitting on the top of the crane. Do you remember that? Oh yeah, I do remember that. Oh yeah. Or that man holding the baby. Did you have the one, the guy in the black and white in his garage with the motorbike?

21:46Yes! I came across him on Instagram the other day. Is he still fit? Like he's like a bit of a washed up old model now, but I mean he's still quite fit. Is he still fit? Do you remember when Athena closed down? It was like closing down, Sarah. It was like, I'm going to go and then get all the posters. All the posters.

22:03Georgia Dayton: Yeah, I'm too young for it. Oh my God. I know, it's annoying, isn't it? Oh, I mean, yeah. I need just. So I have posters all over my wall. Kids don't really do that anymore, do they? No. Because you can't really get pasted. No, I did used to have posters. I used to rip them out of a magazine and stick them all over the world. Who was your, like, poster crush? I had, like, Tate, that, and Blue. God, I'm so old. I had, like, Bon Jovi and Keanu Reeves. Oh, yeah, me too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and also Prince William and... Prince William? No, it was a bit rogue, but you remember when he was really fit? That's so right.

22:30He was, like, 15. He was 14, 15. And then I loved Tony Mortimer from E17. Oh, yeah. I had E17 posters in my one. Then I think I might have had, like, Oasis. Green Day. Yeah, Green Day. Green Day, yeah.

22:41Georgia Dayton: Actually, is there a way in a teenager or a kid's room, is there a way to display that sort of thing in a nice way? Like one of Axel's friends had a whole wall of football cards and his mum just let him stick football cards on. And actually, in a way, it looked quite good. Sometimes more is more. Right. Yeah. You've almost kind of got to go for it. And it's also that thing of, I always say like, go, go odd numbers. Don't put two of something up. either go like five seven just kind of and start with one and then work out yeah that's interesting let them go they don't notice these things that in a this is why i said kids bedrooms you just got to let you can work on the you know the base foundations the colors the paneling whatever it is but then just let them go wild with what they want to put in there yeah we're all gonna fight it though we hate it don't we isla's choosing her prints and we're getting them for you know for online and um i was like what about these ones she was like how about these ones where kate moss is smoking and I'm like how very French of you.

23:40She wants Kate Moss on her wall though still. Kate Moss smoking yeah I loved it. I like that. I like it let's do it. I'm renovating my own house at the moment so wow I'm about to do my own girls' bedrooms yeah and it's it's I can feel the challenge. How old are your girls? They're six and eight. Wow. Yeah I know what are they they're not little but they're not big yet.

24:00Georgia Dayton: Yeah we were saying that pre - well eight is not quite pre-teen is it I'd say like 10 preteen. Preteen 10. It's time to get the sass though. The sass is coming in now. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's really nice. The look. Yeah, the look. Oh, you're so cringe. Oh, God. Stop. Coat and shoe storage ideas to stop them all getting dumped at the bottom of the stairs. I mean, baskets are fantastic for that. Just rigid baskets. Don't get like a floppy basket that you're going to be, you know, you need to be able to like dig around in the bottom and also you can just chuck the shoes out occasionally and empty out the, you know, the dirt and dust.

24:31That's quite good. I mean, baskets would always be my sort of go-to. Favourite place to get baskets from? Probably. There's a few birds. I mean, on the high street, even like HomeSense do some brilliant baskets. HomeSense is great. Again, Laradute's a really good place to get them. Yeah. Online. Yeah. But just make sure it's solid. Make sure the edges are, you know. Yeah, so they're not,

24:52Georgia Dayton: yeah, they don't move. They're not floppy. And you can also get with a lid on. Also good for toys. Yeah. You know, wide, low baskets are good. Kids are able to get into. But when someone's coming around, you can shove everything in there. Yeah. Put the lid on it. Is your house going to be the chicest house in the world? No, honestly, it's so not like that. I mean, I'm renovating and I have to keep telling myself, stop. You're doing it for yourself. Just do what's timeless. Do what you preach to keep it timeless. Do you live in London? No, I live out in Marlow. Oh, okay. It's outside Marlow, a little village outside, yeah, in Buckinghamshire.

25:21Nice. Yeah, we lived about six years ago. Are we going to get videos of the reno? Yes, they'll be full, full bits. Okay, great.

25:28Georgia Dayton: So you did talk about timeless. Someone here has put, where is it? It's like colours. Oh, yeah, items and colours that won't date. Items and colours that won't date. I mean, it's going to be more... We use a lot at House 9, you'll notice a lot of our colours are like knocked off. So it's not like a bright colour. It tends to be slightly, you know, the sort of brightness has been taken out. Quite earthy, neutral colours. They're always going to stay. Because they make you feel good. Yeah. But if you want that room that you're not in a lot, then you can throw in some bright colours, like your dining room or your downstairs loo.

26:07I always say those are the rooms you can have fun or a guest bedroom. But in general, the rooms that are going to stay timeless are the ones that are going to feel quite sort of almost like biophilic in colour. You know, sort of quite earthy. Biophilic? Biophilic, so you're kind of bringing the outside in. Ah, so you're bringing like nature in.

26:21Georgia Dayton: No, I hadn't. Biophilic, yeah. And quite earthy colours. They'll always be, you know, people might say it's boring. It's not boring. It's livable. It's what we're, you know, at the end of the day, we're animals. Yeah. You know, we forget. We're, you know. We're primal. We're mushrooms. Yeah, we're mushrooms. We're mushrooms. We're basically a mushroom. So you've got to remember that. We've got mushrooms with clothes on. When you're renovating your house, remember you're a mushroom. You're a mushroom. Is it a bit so... Be at one with the forest. I love, yeah, exactly. Be a tree. I love, I feel, I was so torn between, because I love everything that you do.

26:55I think the way that you, you know, design and style homes is just beautiful. I sort of went the opposite way and created like a bit of a disco Ibiza feel, which was just a bit more in your face because I didn't want to do just another Surrey house. Yeah. But then sometimes I think, have we missed a trick? Because will it always, will it feel, is it of the moment or will it be forever? I don't know. It's really hard to know, isn't it? So I think you've really got to feel it. Like it gives me such joy walking into my home now. That's all that matters. Yeah, exactly. That's all that matters. You've got to do it for you.

27:25And of course, like, I mean, even as a designer, I have my, obviously my house style, but I look at other designers and I love what they do and it's so different to me so different to my style yeah but I still look at anything I love that but you've got to sort of stay in your own lane because you can get so excited and I think this is why especially when you're renovating a house and people get so excited by pretty shiny things and you end up kind of going off on tangents I feel like a little bit of that and a little bit of that and a little bit of that and then it ends up looking like a you know a bit of a mess yeah crash no definitely I think that's our learning

27:55Georgia Dayton: from last time going into this time, hopefully, if we get planning permission, please, everyone, just fingers crossed. Hello to all the planning permission people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi. Whatever you need. Amazing. We've got loads of freebies in the studio. Call us. Like, the whole flow is what I feel like we need help with. Flow is essential. Yeah, because I think before we did that, like, let the kids have their rooms, then we had, like, something else, and I was like, oh, this all doesn't go together at all. Yeah, if you're fully renovating, Functionality and flow are the first things you need to be thinking about before you even pick up a fabric sample.

28:28Georgia Dayton: Yeah. You need to get that right. And you also need a rave loo. You need a rave loo. Thanks. If there's one place you can have fun, it's in a downstairs loo. Thank you very much. Correct. I live by that, you know. Go wild in a downstairs loo. Exactly. What about running a business with two under five so no progress gets done? Where to start? Yeah, you can focus on that one. It's just brutal. you're in the we you're right in the thick of life there yeah renovating a house you've got to remember that what do they say divorce renovating a house marriage yeah they're all up there it's like the most I love that I put divorce first but um it's it's one of the most stressful things you will ever do and you're doing it with two kids that are totally it's the most thankless job ever isn't it being a mom of two under five um so you've just got to you just got to try and smile through it and just know that it actually I read this I watched this really really sweet interview recently and it was a it was a mum who was interviewing her mother and then her grandmother so her mother and her mother and she said what was the best time of your entire life what when you look back at your life what was the best part and her mum said it was when you were you and the others were really little what lovely mother running around like right in the thick of it you know working full-time trying to make ends meet you know school runs and all that really mad and then the grandmother agreed she said it's exactly the same it's when I was at my absolute busiest and then when I you know people always say when the kids move out when you're not doing those things yeah you know it's actually when you kind of got to try and remember that and try and enjoy it if you can yeah no I know I know it's all very easy to say when you're in it but you've just got to sort of try and and also there's wine there's wine yes that's good yeah lots of wine margarita's got two on a friday night just to sort of pick you up do you have to be quite structured when you're running a business on that scale well no she's doing a renovation isn't she she's running a business with two under five and doing a reno and it's half done well if you're if you're running your own business you've got to remember your business is your third child so that that child might have come before your other two so you care about it almost as much right yeah it's true and it probably gives you more satisfaction action as well than your two children it doesn't answer you back it doesn't well it doesn't just want everything mommy mommy mommy you're like the daddy's over there look um there's another daddy yet um so i just yeah it's it's really there's no you just got to stay positive and know it's going to get easier you know they're gonna it's gonna get easier and it'll be so worth it i think interiors is so different to anything else though on the planet because i I feel like I'm kind of like, you know, dressing and I kind of get music.

31:14But interiors is like, by a cushion, it's like, you know, it's really hard. 1970s back alley thrown up on it. What the hell was I thinking? Jesus, woman. It's like I don't have eyes. Yeah. So I'm learning. Now I've done one. Yeah. Take it bit by bit. And one of my favorite bits of advice, if you're really stressing out about a room, take everything out. So like take up the small bits first, leave them outside the front door. come back in and then go do I like it a bit better now and if you don't take up the thing you're not sure about and keep taking it all out until the room's empty and then start again start to kind of move back in because you can't just keep bringing things in if you keep bringing things in it's not going to work yeah so true okay Jojo your book's out book's out no place like home go get it go get it please Running Fairy

32:04Georgia Dayton: is it number one in the number one bestseller And it's still up there, which is amazing. So it's a lovely coffee table. But it's like 10 years of imagery and our projects and a little bit of advice guide. It's a little guide just to help you navigate making your house, your home, as opposed to coffee somewhere else. But it really looks beautiful in your coffee table. And it looks great in your coffee table, even if you don't want to open it. Oh, I know what I'm getting you for Christmas. I've already got it. Oh, well, I'd like one for my Christmas present. Jojo Bar, everyone. Thank you.

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33:511965 london the world's largest uncut diamond has been stolen from the natural history museum Shortly after, a young London window cleaner is arrested. They said, you're nicked, you're in a lot of trouble. But was he set up? Wanted I have fled to fall of two cops. His family say he is guilty, but of a totally different crime. You don't want to end up going to prison, do you, kid? I'm Josie Long, and this is Rough Diamond. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.