Kathi (00:01.03)
Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life.

And guys, I am the, I’m just so jazzed. I’m so jazzed because she is the author of many of my favorite books. She has changed my relationship with drywall. And I just, I need you, if you have not met her through this podcast, I need you to just be as excited as I am. You guys, it’s Myquillyn Smith . She is known as the Nestor.

We’re gonna be talking about a million things But one of the things we’re gonna be talking about today is her brand new book house rules How to decorate for every home style and budget and guys she actually means it Myquillyn Smith and welcome back to the podcast

Myquillyn (01:10.567)
I am so glad to be here. What is this about your relationship with drywall?

Kathi (01:15.098)
Okay, okay, so I never hung anything in my houses because I was scared of making nail holes.

Myquillyn (01:22.786)
Oh, in your precious drywall, okay. Yes.

Kathi (01:24.798)
in my precious drywall, because if I made a hole in that drywall, it would be there till Jesus came back. Like it didn’t occur to me that I could patch it and repaint it, because this is what the patriarchy has done to me. I thought that could only be done by a licensed man. Right, right. You have to start all over again.

Myquillyn (01:42.128)
Yes.

Myquillyn (01:48.166)
Burn the house down, rebuild it.

Kathi (01:53.242)
And to understand that not only could I patch that wall, but I could paint it, and that it would not stand out to every single human being who came into my house and they would point and mock me for doing such a terrible job. You’ve just taught me a new way to live with my house. That’s what I’m gonna say.

Myquillyn (02:19.746)
I think you should just do this whole podcast without me. You already know. Well, that, that is something. I’m impressed.

Kathi (02:22.69)
Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen. You’re stuck with me.

Kathi (02:29.486)
I, well, okay, because Kim, first of all, I wanna dig into your notebook, but let’s just talk about kind of your relationship with homes for a moment here, because how many places have you lived as an adult?

Myquillyn (02:43.93)
This, I am now, right, I am in house number 15 as a married woman who the house is my house and my job. My husband and I have been married 29 years and yeah, we’ve moved a lot.

Kathi (02:56.834)
That’s a house every other year. On average.

Myquillyn (02:59.39)
Yes, and you know, one house we lived in for 10 years, so I don’t know how the math works out, but I believe every house has potential, every house has a silver lining, and I see the world through home-colored glasses.

Kathi (03:05.094)
Wow.

Kathi (03:14.314)
Well, and also what I love about you is you see the world through. It’s not a flaw. It’s a challenge. It’s a problem to be solved. And it’s not even a problem to be solved. It’s, it’s something that you’re going to discover something amazing about yourself, but I am going to call you a liar right from the start. I knew you’d be okay with this. And by the way, you guys, she knows what she’s talking about. New York times bestseller. Like.

Myquillyn (03:36.699)
Go for it.

Kathi (03:44.166)
I her books are amazing. But she said that, that nobody is born with a decorating gene. And I, I’m just gonna call liar, pants on fire, because I just feel like everybody was born with more of a decorating thumb than I was, you know, how some people can naturally take care of plants. Like, I was not that person either. But I think they’re

Some of you have the gift and some of us do not.

Myquillyn (04:17.158)
I’ve never heard it called the decorating thumb. I will never forget that. It is exquisite. Listen, I know what you’re saying. There are some people that seem predisposed to making great decorating decisions. Let me tell you, they started with the Barbies, just like I did. We all have something that we’re drawn to, that we’re willing to figure out why this works. Why do we like it? And we probably started when we were kids. Maybe you were into math, maybe you were into cars, maybe you were into sports.

Kathi (04:27.815)
Mm-hmm.

Myquillyn (04:45.858)
and you started figuring stuff out at a young age. And so it just seemed to everyone else that you were natural, had the thumb, but I think it’s just you made mistakes young and you eased into it. I know that’s what I did. I still make mistakes in decorating all the time. I don’t even think of it that way. I’m just like, oops, that didn’t work. Learn something about myself. Learn something about my house.

Kathi (04:54.316)
Yeah.

Kathi (05:09.006)
Okay, so what is, so is it, and I think I know your answer, but let’s do it for the at-home audience. Because I know what I like when I’m on Pinterest or when I’m thumbing through one of your books, or I see somebody do the thing, but to translate it to my own home feels risky and scary and well,

Like, what is the leap there? That’s my question.

Myquillyn (05:42.134)
It’s really difficult because a lot of what we see is people making, creating beautiful rooms from scratch, from nothing, and none of us are like that. We’re all starting with some stuff that we got handed down, some stuff we can’t quite replace yet because we don’t have the budget or we’re waiting for the kids to get out of the house. A few things that we need to purchase new and we know that. Some things that we don’t love but our husband loves it. And so we have baggage.

Kathi (05:51.601)
Uh, right.

Myquillyn (06:11.53)
A room full of baggage. And that is what we don’t really see on TV is like a show about, well, they have to actually keep their sofa. So now what? But that’s what real decorating is all about. That’s where our confident decision making happens is not, you know, I don’t think it takes much skill. It does take skill to like go in an empty room. That sounds actually very intimidating. It’s a different kind of intimidating because the sky is the limit. In some ways it’s nice.

Kathi (06:13.003)
Right.

Kathi (06:20.471)
Right.

Kathi (06:32.482)
Mm-hmm.

Myquillyn (06:39.45)
to have some limitations to say, here’s the sofa, we’re gonna work with it. Or here’s a bay window and it’s gonna stay. Or here is the brick fireplace and we’re renting and we can’t paint it. How can we make this room look the best with what we have? I’m your girl for that. There are universal decorating truths that help you no matter what your style, no matter what your budget, that will just help you make more confident decisions. Understanding, one rule is like respect your boss. Not all rooms have a boss.

Kathi (06:54.957)
Yes.

Myquillyn (07:09.274)
But when you do, it’s maybe you’re in a kitchen and you have dark wood cabinets. Maybe you’re like I was in my last house. We had these orange pine, they were beautiful, but they were like these 25 year old leathery patina, really dark orange bossy floors. So you have a choice when you have a boss. You can work with your boss or you can change your boss, but what you can’t do is ignore your boss.

Kathi (07:16.951)
Mm-hmm.

Myquillyn (07:38.742)
and we all have hospitals to work with. And so that meant I could change my floors or I could keep my floors, but I didn’t get to ignore my floors and pretend like they were light oak, like everyone is using now, because my stuff would look bad with it if I did that.

Kathi (07:39.528)
Mmm.

Kathi (07:51.795)
Wait.

Kathi (07:55.13)
Yeah, it’s okay. So I love that you feel like, and I guess I just always figured everybody else is starting from scratch. And it’s just not true. Because I’m like, but they don’t have the x, y, z that I have, they don’t have this constraint, or they don’t have the budget limitations that I do. And, or you know what, I want maybe I’ve got the budget, but I don’t want to spend all my money on

You know, I want to live. I want to eat. I want to go on vacation someday. And so I want to make different choices. And by the way, you guys, also, Michael is the boss of putting contact paper on her fireplace. And so if you have not seen that it. Yeah. A revolution. OK. I want it. It really is like who does that, right? Who does that? You do that. And so.

But it’s made such a, it’s, I think it gave a lot of us a freedom that we didn’t have to do things right. And it’s really interesting to try to push back on some of that stuff. I did something recently, it was really funny. My mom said, you can’t do that. And I put up a towel rack in our living room and she’s like, why would you, that looks, that’s gonna look stupid, you can’t do that.

And I said, but it’s to hang quilts that you made. She goes, oh, that might look good. And so she’s like on board with that. But you know what? It’s one of my favorite things in the house. And it’s just, it’s a little bit weird. It’s a little bit different, but we don’t have to do everything so it’s gonna last a hundred years. It can be right now.

Myquillyn (09:37.838)
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, that’s what home is for. Shouldn’t it suit how your family needs to use your home and celebrating the favorite things in your life? I think that makes perfect sense. I love that idea.

Kathi (09:52.522)
Yeah, I had to get over the concept of, I’m gonna do that in my someday home, my someday home, my someday home. And yeah, like the biggest, boldest thing I’ve ever done, we had, I saw Monet’s kitchen. I don’t know if you, it’s a blue and white tiled kitchen. It’s absolute, it looks like a jewel. And I did it. I did like custom tiles and yeah, go look up Monet’s kitchen.

Myquillyn (10:17.714)
What? Is this on your Instagram? I’m like looking at going to look for your Instagram right now. Is it on?

Kathi (10:22.338)
Oh, I don’t even know if it’s on there. I don’t even know if it’s on. Okay, I’ll send you a picture. I’ll put it on the show notes for this as well. But I wanna, yes, but you gave me the bravery to go do something and not wait until it’s the last house I ever have, because this, you know, this is a 10 year house. This isn’t a hundred year house for us. And you gave me the bravery to do that. Okay, I wanna talk about some of your rules, which is funny because I think of you as the least rule person.

Myquillyn (10:50.894)
Same, I hate it. Yeah, what in the world? And then it’s terrifying to write a book with the word rules in it, because all the people like us are like, not for me. But the first rule is learn the rules and break them beautifully. So we all, we love to be a rule breaker, but I want us to break the rules because we know our room’s gonna look better. Not because we don’t know better and we’re stupid.

Kathi (10:50.954)
when it comes to decorating.

Kathi (11:05.516)
Yes.

Kathi (11:13.186)
I love that so much. Okay. I’m just picking out some of my favorites and the ones that I think my clutter My cluttery comrades are going to really identify with okay rule number seven. You can’t ruin something that you already Okay, why do we make sacred cows out of ugly things?

Myquillyn (11:28.833)
Amen.

Myquillyn (11:33.698)
out of the thing we hate the most and we like can’t even sell it a yard sale. Yes, yeah those are the things to put in. You say I hate my house and I don’t know where to begin. Okay, I want you to find something in your house that you hate that you can’t ruin. For some people that might be a nightstand in their garage. It might be like me a canvas that my son had in his room that I was getting ready to take to the

Kathi (11:37.679)
Right? What is that about? So how do you live this out?

Kathi (12:01.291)
Mm-hmm.

Myquillyn (12:02.858)
it might be the brick on your fireplace that you hate. And you can decide that, you know what? I already dislike it. What is the worst that can happen? I hate it again. So that gives us the freedom to take a risk. And we should, you know, I want us to grow in our risk taking. Don’t start by ordering a custom sofa or like Parisian rugs or something. No, no, no. Start with like something you can just go take to the dump.

Kathi (12:11.864)
Mm-hmm.

Myquillyn (12:30.794)
if it doesn’t turn out or that you can just paint over. So starting with something you hate is a great place to start.

Kathi (12:37.482)
Well, and I remember from your first book, you painted brick. And I mean, you hated the brick, you painted it, you loved the brick, but other people were telling you, you can’t do that.

Myquillyn (12:47.461)
Yes.

Listen, one of the painters wouldn’t even give me a quote. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an old money neighborhood, but all the houses are painting brick. I did not invent painting brick, but suddenly I was like, she’s Satan, because I wanted to paint my brick. And of course it looked amazing.

Kathi (12:57.294)
Bye.

Kathi (13:07.706)
Yes, absolutely. Okay, rule number five. Resourcefulness is the ultimate resource. Okay, so I just have to tell you in my clutter-free academy we talk about our resources all the time. Space, time, energy, and money. But we have this outlier and it’s creativity and resourcefulness that can supercharge your other four resources and but

Myquillyn (13:33.478)
That’s good.

Kathi (13:35.478)
you know, because we all have a limitation. You know, when I was younger, I had more time, but no money. And now I have less time. Well, you know what? I would say it’s less energy right now, because yeah, let’s just be honest. But also I’ve got more money, so we can balance this out. But that creativity and that resourcefulness can supercharge any of our limitations. So.

What do you mean by resourcefulness is our best resource?

Myquillyn (14:09.326)
I totally agree with everything you just said. I think that many of us are doing what you mentioned earlier. We’re waiting for our next house. We are waiting for perfect circumstances. And to me, the most resourceful thing you can do is to say, you know what, I’m done waiting and I’m going to move forward in spite of my imperfect circumstances. And I’m gonna be resourceful. I’m gonna look at what I have and

Maybe all you have is you own your house and you have freedom and can make all the decisions in the world and then like you said pair that with some creativity. You know there’s all I teach like 11 different resources I teach in my community. I can’t think of them off the top it’s the five o’clock but you said them than I ever could you know them better than I know any of them. We just

I think we underestimate it because it feels like, well, unless I have whatever it is that we don’t have the most, we feel like that’s the one most.

Kathi (15:10.95)
Right. Or you look at somebody who, you know, they’ve got all, they’ve done a hundred houses, they’re on the HDTV, and they have a way of doing things, and you can’t do it, or you don’t wanna do it that same way. And so we just say, okay, that’s not for me. But if we could get creative, we can do research. Research is a resource.

You know, community is a resource. There are so many places that we can get inspiration and ideas and just make it, I think also bravery is a resource that we, to try something and be willing to fail at it. I think that, you know, in my first marriage, I lived with a perfectionist who couldn’t tolerate any chaos. And

It really limited what I felt like I could do or I could get away with. And when you take those constraints off and you say, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s a really freeing statement to let you be able to do more of what you want to do.

Myquillyn (16:17.562)
That’s so beautiful. I love that.

Kathi (16:20.586)
Well, I’m learning it all from the master, really. I mean, I have to tell you how many times I have read your first book and I lent it to somebody who was not a reliable person and I bought your book again. So, because it just has made such a difference in my life. And guys, she’s gonna continue to make a difference. We’re gonna have her back next week. But guys, this is the week that House Rules comes out, how to decorate for every home, style and budget. I’m gonna have links.

in the show notes. We’re also gonna be talking about it in the Clutter Free community. So if you’re not already a part of that, you’re definitely going to want to be. And, Michael and I’m so glad you’re gonna be back with us for the next episode. You know, if people wanna find out more about your community, how do they do that?

Myquillyn (17:12.166)
Just go to themester.com. You can take my quiz and figure out what decorating era you’re in. You can follow me on Instagram. The books are in your library. They’re at your library books. I’m around. I’m all over the place talking about home.

Kathi (17:26.798)
Can I just say, I love that you said they’re at the library. Yes, you know what? Go and check it out. And if you’re as jazzed about her as I am, then you can go buy it because, you know, there are also late fees if you don’t return things to some libraries. And it may just… Yes, I, guys, request it because those librarians, they are our best friends and they listen.

Myquillyn (17:44.526)
at your library, I would love that.

Kathi (17:55.046)
Okay friends, you’ve been listening to Clutterfree Academy, I’m Cathy Lip. Now, go create the clutter free life you’ve always wanted to live.