Annie Meyers-Shyer: Author and Creator of "This Oak House"

25:31Totally. Like the legendary Nancy Meyers. Yeah. She was like, I have a coffee table in my garage. I was like, great, I'll take it. I mean, I was very happy to take everything. Like set dress me, I'm done. Totally. And I grew up in a way where interiors were very considered. I've always loved design just as a whole. It's always been something that's been interesting to me. So I would say I had a relationship where I was an appreciator of interiors. I cared a lot about my last house, but I got to a point in our last home, and I think a lot of people get to this point where we knew we were going to move.

26:08So then you just kind of let it go. You just kind of let it go. And also it was like the pandemic and like, we didn't eat on our sofas, but then we ended up having to because we couldn't leave the house. And so you sort of just let things go. And I was very excited about this new project. I didn't know when I began the project that I would fall in love with it. I didn't know when I began the project that I would find a new career and life in it. But I knew like a pilot light had been switched on and it was just brewing. And then through all that happened, that pilot light really took off. I'll say.

26:46Okay. So I want to talk about your decision to document the process on Instagram for your friends, right? Yeah. It just started as like an easy place to say like, this is what's happening. And then you became, as you call it, and I love this, an accidental influencer. I did. Talk to me about starting the account, This Oak House, and how it has blossomed into what it is today with a community of over 200 ,000 followers. So I knew I was about to start something interesting in my own personal life with this house and this renovation. I thought maybe my old coworkers in New York would want to follow along and help me pick a paint color.

27:26I definitely didn't think that much about it. I started the account one day when I was in the bathtub at my old house. I was just like, hey. I posted on my personal account. I said, I might post, I might not. Follow along. Could be fun. But what I really found as I entered into this deep dive of this house was in fashion and in everything I knew, there was so much transparency. Everybody tells you everything about what they're wearing, who makes their glasses, what nail polish color they have on. But in interiors, that just did not exist. There was gatekeeping and trade accounts and all kinds of, it felt like ironclad doors.

28:05And I was DMing people and saying, I really love that mirror. Where did it come from? And nobody responded. And so all of that was happening at the same time as I was starting to deep dive into this. And I know my own nature, which is to deep dive and to learn a lot about things. And when you're doing a house, it's very expensive. And these choices you make could last much longer than you will even last in the house. And so I wanted to make good choices. And I thought, well, this could be fun for people to see, like this sort of woman go on a journey to find the best color grouch or whatever it was that I was doing at the time.

28:43And I was posting in real time, sometimes with a spelling error. It was really very, very, very real and authentic. I was never motivated by free things or the financials of it all. I was motivated to share what I loved and my experience. And I think that's what people really appreciated. And I was sharing my sources and where I'd find something and here's the number of my tree trimmer or whatever it was. I was just trying to share my experience. And that's when really things started to shift. And I thought, oh, maybe there's something else here. This is seeming to really hit with people. And there was definitely a shift for me personally.

29:26I was starting to just realize that maybe there was a business brewing inside this. So you write in your book, which we will get into in a minute, and I quote that your interest in design began in childhood and was shaped by formative experiences throughout my life and career. Home for me has always been more than just a place to live. It's a reflection of identity and creativity. Talk to me about how you forged and then also understood and shaped your design sensibilities. How were you figuring out like, this is my aesthetic. I don't like this. How does it all come together? What was your process like for that?

30:05So I think all good design should be driven by the architecture, right? I think you have to really look at what the house tells you about itself. What's the style, but also the room, right? The room layout will tell you a lot about what it needs. So from a sort of macro perspective, I worked with an amazing interior designer, Mike Mosier, who I love, who's my friend, who was an incredible partner. I had a really specific vision for the house. And the way that vision was developed was I just spent time thinking about what I wanted. And so I made elaborate Pinterest boards per room. What is the energy of the room?

30:42What do I want it to feel like? I added freely. I looked at these big, long hundreds of images of boards and there were themes that started to emerge. Well, I really like this or I really like a yellow sofa, I guess, or whatever it was that started to emerge. So market. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I have always had a very strong instinct about things, always. And I know if I like something, I know if I don't like something. And I just brought that to this project. And I would look at fabrics and immediately something would jump out to me. Oh, I love that. Oh, I really love that. Or I don't love that.

31:17Or that feels dark. Whatever it was, things would start to speak to me. And then Mike would teach me, okay, well, that print that you love has a lot of blue and yellow in it. So let's find some blue and yellow fabrics to pull for the rest of the room. And he and I would come up with a scheme and then I would sit on it and think about it. Then I'd go show it to my mom and she would give an opinion. And so we worked together to figure out how something that I loved, how can we make that into a space or into a room? And for me, my process is very much like once I know I love it, I'm done. I never think about it again.

31:49But to get to that point sometimes takes a while. I like to see all the options. Do you have any other yellows? Do you have a lighter yellow? I want to see it all. And then I will feel really good about moving forward. So I listened to my inner instinct. I went with my gut on most things. And I also waited until we had all the elements of the room before we would sign off. I did not do it in piecemeal. It was not like that. It was like we had the sofa, we had the rug, we had the lamps, we had every piece. And then we would sign off and move forward. We were able to do it that way because we didn't live here.

32:25So we could look at the room holistically. And I also think you just go back to your experiences and things that you learned and they're all sort of living inside of you. And so you pull on those things. We made a couple mistakes here and there, but I had a good checks and balances, right? It was me. It was Mike. It was my mom. I workshopped things until we felt really good about it. And then we just held our breath. So talk to me about the renovation, like the layout piece of it, because to your point, you didn't add square footage, but you completely reimagined how things work together. How was that piece for you?

32:59So because this was a family home and I had spent so much time here, I knew what worked and what didn't work. So from a very simple, basic place, there are three bedrooms in the second floor of this house. You were only able to access two of them from the staircase, meaning the third one, you had to go through another bedroom. So a logistic standpoint, if one kid wanted to see the other kid, they'd have to come through my bedroom. That was never going to work. So immediately we were like, how do we access that room? And our architect said, we need a hallway. We just have to build a hallway that gets all the rooms connected.

33:33We sort of took what the problem was and had to come up with the solution. When we created that upstairs hallway that connected all the rooms, what we no longer needed was the back staircase of the house because now we could access everything from the main staircase. So when you remove that staircase, then we had all this new space and what are we going to do with that? And we really just looked at the house from a perspective of here are the rooms we want to have, which are the obvious and then some not so obvious. And how do we want the flow to feel? And we just simplified things. And I didn't realize that by doing what we were going to do, we had to take the entire house down to the studs.

34:11I mean, the entire thing. But one thing leads to the next. And I knew another thing that I wanted in addition to the kids' rooms and our room all being accessible to one another was I cook a lot and I wanted my family to be nearby. So we really wanted to create a larger kitchen and family room. And by removing that staircase, we were able to do that. And so I think the best thing to do is know what you want to happen and then don't offer the solution. Hire people smarter than you whose job it is to figure it out. And so let somebody else who knows this better than you figure it out. Interesting.

34:46What were some of the surprising easy points about this project? And what were some of the complexities? The complexities came from the things that you don't foresee in a remodel, right? Where you're working and adding millwork to a room, but the room's not level. And so now your Wayne Scott's going to be off. And how do you fix that? It's the things that you don't know until you get into a project that you don't have when you do a new build. So finding out that the floor is not level or finding out that, oh, under this room is concrete and we can't get an HVAC system in there or whatever it is, those sort of things that you don't know until you're in.

35:21That was the hardest part. I am always a problem solver. I don't like to sit in the mess. I want to get to the solution very quickly. So that was the stuff that was hard. And when you're doing a remodel, there's a lot of that. The stuff that came easy, I don't know if anything came easy, but I found a lot of joy in the design process, the seeing our ideas come to life, you know, when we'd work on our cabinetry and then it would arrive or the day that the lighting went in, like all the things that you work so hard in. And there are these sort of like pipe dreams and things that you think about, but then they arrive and they come and they're the right size and they look great.

36:00And like, that is the joy. That is so fun to see sort of all the hard work come to fruition or all the paint color choices. And then the whole room gets painted. You're like, it's even better than I thought. And then in some cases, this is terrible. We need to repaint. You know, it goes both ways. So I also want to talk about your gorgeous book that I am so lucky to have. I'm so happy you have it. I thought it would be good because I know you. And I thought it would be good because I have been following the story from the beginning. I didn't realize it would be this good. Oh, that's so nice, Hillary.

36:34Thank you. It's inspiring and there's so much utility in it. It's unbelievable. It's coming out on September 15th. Talk to me about the idea and the process of taking a renovation and an Instagram account and turning it into the most incredible book. Thank you. So a lot of people had been asking me like, what are you going to do next? What are you going to do when the house is done? And I didn't have that answer. And anytime someone asked me, it basically freaked me out. And I got an email from a publisher, from an editor and said, are you free for Zoom? And as soon as the email landed in my inbox, I thought to myself, oh, this is the next thing.

37:14This is it. Got on a Zoom. I liked her right away. She was like, I think there's a book in here. I hung up the Zoom and I thought to myself, this is how I'm going to put the punctuation mark on this chapter. I just felt like this is the right next thing. And she said, come back to me with a book proposal. And she gave me some examples of book proposals and it felt really daunting, really daunting. And I sat with it and I sat with it. And then an idea hit me of how to format the book. And the second that that hit me on how to format it, the whole thing flew out of me. It was a legitimate light bulb moment in my life.

37:50And the format of the book, which you know, is part one is called house and part two is called home. And what I really, really wanted was I wanted my book to feel like the extension of my Instagram, which I think is part utility and helpful and tips and tricks and all those little sort of nitty gritty things that I learned, the what to expect when you're expecting renovation guide. And then the second part, I wanted to be like a traditional beautiful coffee table book with all the photos that you would see in a traditional editorial spread. But then I had this real desire that I wanted to make sure it was a book for anybody, not just someone doing a renovation.

38:27And so I was very insistent on this part that there will be things that anybody could use. There's a book that I love that I dog ear and I go back to and I look at it and I reference a thing in it. And I wanted my book to be that, that thing that people reference. So there are things in part two, at the end of every chapter, there's a takeaway for anybody. It's my family's hot fudge recipe. It's a tablescape. It's how to style a bookshelf. So it's totally independent of renovation. It's just something that I think could be useful for anyone who has a home or loves home. And furthermore, I wanted the voice of the book to feel very much me.

39:04And so when they first liked you, want someone to help you write it? I said, I think let me try. I wanted it to be voicey and to feel like me. And anyone who's been following me, I think for a long time will read through it and think, this is her, this is it. And it hopefully feels like the fuller, more expanded version of everything that has lived on my Instagram. And then I've taken all these people along on this journey and they haven't seen my house. And so now they get to see every nook and cranny, which by the way, when I signed on to do the book, we didn't live here. And so the idea that I was going to literally photograph every inch of it and I didn't know what it was going to look like, there was a big pressure I felt.

39:40I wanted to deliver. and I worked with an incredible team on my book and my photographer and the stylist. I think that we delivered something I hope my followers will feel really happy about. A digital experience is different from a print experience and I often want both. Like I want the luxury of seeing the big, beautiful image on a page. Talk to me about the shoot. What was it like shooting the house? Because I also was like getting glimpses of that from social. The shoot of the house was hard. It was eight straight days, basically. I think we took a day off between day five and day six. I moved my family out of the house.

40:18I moved them into my mom's. I mean, I just did because our rooms were set. We were ready. I couldn't then have them jumping on the sofa. And so having the house really set and ready for my photographer and stylist was great. I worked with Roger Davies and Anita Sarcetti. And I met with a lot of photographers and a lot of stylists. As soon as I met with both of them, I knew I had the dream team. What they both were able to do for my house was make it the best version of itself rather than make it something it's not. There's a lot of interior photography these days that are very moody and very brown and very kind of the sepia feeling around everything.

40:58And as beautiful as that is, that's not what my house is. And I needed to work with someone who's going to see what it was and just make it its best version. And Anita, our stylist, who's such a pro and she has been around for such a long time, She didn't want to remove the things that made it uniquely mine. She kept those and she was able to add this little bit of magic to every image. And Roger's an amazing photographer. So it was exhausting. It was exciting. It also put an enormous pressure on me to get art up on the wall and get everything ready for them because we were shooting. And sometimes a house takes a while to come together and I didn't have that luxury.

41:38We had to get the shot. And so it was a bit of a pressure cooker for me for a little while. How long did the writing process take? Writing process was about eight months. I wrote the first part in real time. So I wrote all of that while we were still in construction. And then I couldn't write part two till we lived here because it was about the home itself and how we're using the spaces. So that was nice. I kind of delivered part one and then I delivered part two. But it took about eight months. I really enjoyed the writing process. I love being alone. It's my happy place. And so I would go in a completely silent room and write.

42:12And I was like, this is good. I also grew up around writers. So I had a bit of a sense of how serious they took that process and what that looked like. And I really tried to give myself that. I worked like it was a job. I went in the morning and I sat and I wrote and I had lunch and I'd come back and I'd have goals for myself. I want to try to get to this by the end of this. And for me, coming up with the format of the book allowed me to write easily. If I didn't have the format, I'm not sure I could have done any of it. So as you spoke to, like you have these amazing additional pieces of information as well.

42:46It's so jammed with tips and tricks too. And I mean that in the best possible way. How did you decide what extra details to include and what didn't make it? So I wanted to include all of the things I wish I had known during my renovation. So that's all in part one, sort of all the things I learned. I worked with a paint consultant, the tips he taught me, or the things I learned from my millwork or all the tips and tricks. I knew that I wanted to put that in part one. And then when I thought about part two, I just wanted to make sure that there were things for anybody who's loved following me or loves home or wants to figure out how to make their house feel more like their home, how to make it feel more like them.

43:25And so I really thought about in each room, what is something that's a takeaway for anybody? What would I want to know from somebody else. And that's how I approach a lot of things that I do. I remember when I was working on my gift guide last year, I didn't want to see one more collage with like, you know, stocking stuffers under 30. And so somebody said to me, what would you like in a gift guide? I said, I want to know what Lauren Santo Domingo's giving. Like, that's what I want. And so they said, do that. And I DM'd her. I said, hi, Lauren, what are you giving this year? And then I ended up DMing, you know, people that I admired and figured out what they were giving for the holidays.

43:59So I often put myself in the end user's seat. What do they want? What will they want from this? And then I try to work backwards into that. And that's how I tried to come up with all the extra stuff. And then I knew that sort of the ethos of me was that I give all my sources. So that had to be in there. And one of the things that I was so excited about was that we had a scheme and we had fabrics and they lived in a pouch and that pouch became a full room of my house. And how can I show that to the reader. So we did these wonderful flat lays with all the fabrics, very much an editorial thing that I learned when I was at the magazine with the camera above and how are we going to lay it out?

44:40And then you see that flat lay and you flip the page and you see it in a room. And so I think it gives people an understanding of how a floral fabric becomes a pillow. You know, it's not the whole thing. And how does that all work together? And so building on my experiences, they were all like little building blocks that added into this bigger story. Well, I'm so impressed. Like the execution is just amazing. Now that the renovation is finished, now that the book is almost out, I will be the annoying person who says, what are you working on now? Because I know we have some things to discuss, but I'm curious about as an accidental influencer turned very purposeful author and subject matter expert.

45:24What are you excited about as you look forward? So I am excited to go on tour, which is going to be really fun. I'm going all around the country, which I'm very excited about. I'm excited to meet people and talk about the book. I'm excited for the book to be out. I also am really excited about my brand collaborations that I have coming up. And so I've worked really hard to think about what are the things that are missing in my life that I wish were out there and more accessible. So I have a collection with Target that I suppose by the time someone's listening to this will be out, which is unbelievable.

46:00I am not a vision board girl, but it was a vision board moment for me, Target, and having my collection in Target. And they just sent me what the end cap is going to look like. I mean, you know, Hilary, you've had your things in Target. It feels surreal. But more than anything, the pieces that we designed feel exactly as I wanted them to feel, which is such a big accomplishment. And we shot them in my house, which was something I was really insistent upon because I think that in order to really understand how to live with a product, you have to see it in someone's home. You have to understand how something can work.

46:36and it was an amazing process. I loved working with Target. I'm so proud of the collection. As we're recording this, it's not out yet. And I almost feel, and this is great, like I don't want to post online because I feel like I'm going to spill the secret. Like I am bubbling to tell people. I am ready to post. I think we're posting a teaser at the end of the week, but I am so excited. I am like that meme of Elsa who like is jittering, you know, I can't wait for people to You know, like that's how I feel. I'm very excited for it to get out there. And then looking further, I have other brand collaborations coming and working with brands that really make sense for me and are authentic.

47:14You know, I always tell my kids like, move towards the people that make you feel warm and stay away from the people that make you feel cold. And that's exactly how I'm operating. I'm moving towards the brands and the relationships that feel warm and feel good. And I'm so excited. Working on this collection has sparked a creativity inside of me that I did not think was still there. Really? Yeah. And then getting the samples and looking at them and saying, this color is not right. Let's make it like this. This needs to be taller. It's just like, I'm an editor all over again. I feel excited about it.

47:48I think the biggest thing is I'm proud. I feel very proud of what we designed and I am so excited to see it in people's homes. Can you talk a little bit about what the collection includes? So we have hurricanes, which I am obsessed with. And I knew from our first meeting, I was like, we have to have glass hurricanes, please, please, please. Because I think they're so easy to decorate with. And I think they look good on a coffee table. They look good outside. They look good on your entryway. They look good anywhere. We have some pieces that are made from natural materials, which I love. We have a gorgeous tray, a beautiful sculptural vase.

48:21Then we have two ceramic pieces, which are vases, which are just beautiful. We have the coziest, most scrumptious blanket that is like absolutely delicious. My sister was here yesterday and I had an extra one. She was like, I'm taking it. And I was like, you can't. I only have two of them. She left with it. It's gone. It's in her house. And then we have a pillow in a very specific shape that I have in my house that we couldn't find when we were doing our house. It's a 12 by 20. And it is sort of the perfect layering piece with your standard 20 by 20s or your 22 by 22s. And so we custom made them and now they're readily available.

48:58And I've done them in a beautiful yellow because I love yellow and blue and brown. And then we did a really cool print pillow, which was inspired by some fabrics that I have around my house. And it's exciting. And the pieces are very usable, very easy, can layer into what you already have. And my whole philosophy behind it is just like beautiful things for everyday living. That is my guiding principle. We can have beautiful things at any price point. And that's how I live my life, by the way. That's one of the things that's magical is that you're like, this is vintage and this is custom and this is from Target.

49:33This is literally a basket from Target and you've always been like that. And that's how I dress also. I think good design has nothing to do with a price point. If I love the thing, I love the thing. You're like, this is Chanel and this is Gap. A hundred percent. Or like, I think about the Land's End sheets that you discovered and then I have used, They're now on every single bed in my family's home. I've even given them to my parents. And I would never in a trillion years have guessed that these lands and sheets would be the be-all end-all, but they're perfect. They are. And that's the great thing, right?

50:07You can find something that's an amazing thing at any price point. And so that was really what I kept reminding myself and the ethos behind what this collection could be. I cannot wait for it to get out and for people to have it. Okay, so final three questions. We asked the same ones of everyone who comes on the pod. The first one is about mistakes because everyone makes them over the course of their career, but we don't always talk about it. And I think it's really important to be upfront because I think everyone needs examples of resiliency and to understand that like a setback does not mean forever.

50:42So I'm hoping that you can tell me about a mistake that you've made at any point in your career and what you've learned from it. I think the biggest mistakes I've made was staying longer than I should have after I knew it was time to go. I ended up not giving my best self to a few of my jobs because I had checked out mentally. I should have left earlier. But it was hard and it's hard to make those big decisions. So ultimately, I'm not mad at myself about it. But I think when you know something is over, whether it's a relationship or a job, your body knows, your gut knows. I wish I had listened to that a little bit sooner.

51:21I felt that I ended up sometimes leaving a job not with my best foot forward, and that didn't feel great. So I would say that's the mistake that I made, staying too long. A lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are in their first lives, and they know they want to transition into something else. Maybe they want to go from one side of an industry to another, as you have done, or maybe they want to change industries altogether, but they're nervous. What advice would you give someone who's thinking about making a leap, but just hasn't done it quite yet. So I was listening to Ina Garten on the interview on the Daily Podcast over the weekend.

51:55And she said that she wrote her first cookbook in her 50s. And I literally like put the brakes on my car. I thought to myself, this woman wrote her first cookbook in her 50s and she's Ina Garten? Like, I couldn't believe it. I really will say like anything is possible. Anything is possible. Had I not just on a whim decided to start an Instagram account, this book would not exist. The collection target wouldn't exist. I wouldn't be on this podcast. I think what I would say, honestly, honestly, honestly, is bet on yourself. Just bet on yourself. I don't think I knew this was coming in any way, but I bet on myself and I just followed what felt good.

52:34I stayed close to what felt warm. I only went towards the thing that felt good. And by the way, during this process, a lot of opportunities came my way and they could have been really meaningful, but if it didn't feel right, I just let it go. And so I'd say bet on yourself. Literally anything is possible. Okay. My last question is my favorite question, which is, if you could get into a time machine and go back in time and give younger Annie some advice at any point in your career, what would you say? I would say, I mean, I was going to say break up with that guy that broke your heart. That's what I was going to say.

53:09I think the advice I would say is like, it's all going to be just fine. Because there were a few points where I just wasn't sure when I was working and not sure if I wanted to be an editor and I was leaving Chanel and not sure what was next. There was a lot of times where I felt like I was in a position that other people really wanted to be in, but it wasn't feeling good to me. And having sort of the inner knowing that it's all going to be okay, I wish I would be able to tell myself that. Sometimes people say things like, you left Chanel? I'd be like, I did. I'm happy I did. So it's all going to be okay.

53:42Well, Annie, I can very much agree. It's all going to be okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Hillary, thank you so much for having me. I am such a fan of your podcast. You're so excellent at this. And I've listened to you for so long. And you're always just smart and interesting. And I'm having a second life. And so I'm very grateful to be on your podcast. I really mean it.

54:11That was the author and creator of This Oak House, Annie Myers Shire. For more inspiring interviews with women like Annie, head on over to secondlifepod.com, where we have so many more for you to peruse. If you like today's show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. and don't forget to rate and review us. We love seeing you spread the word on social and now you can tag us in your posts. We are at Second Life Pod on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show. So send in your requests to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on Instagram.

54:53I'm at Hilary Kerr. The show is at Second Life Pod. Our DMs are always open. I'm Hilary Kerr and you've been listening to Second Life This episode was produced by Hilary Kerr, Summer Hammeris, and Natalie Thurman Our production assistant is Grace Ingram Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles, California And our music is by Jonathan Leahy