LadyGang - Leanne Ford

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Super famous, super fabulous interior designer Leanne Ford is here to help us whip our homes into glamorous shape. Learn a few of her tips and tricks you can do right now to transform your space into something chic or something sleek. She can make anything work, even weird art and wall to wall carpet! Thank you to our sponsors! La Croix – Find your favorite flavor and learn more at lacroixwater.com.   OK Cupid – Download OKCupid today to connect with someone great!  Stamps.com – Start your 4 week trial with free postage and a digital scale at stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top of the page and enter code LADYGANG.   Talkspace - Use code LADY when you sign up to get $100 off your first box.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's amazing. Say that again. The Lady Gang. Things are about to change around here. Each week, we catch up with Hollywood's hottest girl posse, Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin, and Jack Vanek. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Lady Gang. I'm Becca Tobin, here with Jack Vanek and Kelty Knight. Hello. Hello. Good morning.

You guys were here early because we have an extra special guest that I threatened Alex's life. If she canceled her for any reason whatsoever, I would cry. I would quit the lady gang. I would be out. There are no other people that we would wake up at 6.30 a.m. to have a podcast. Well, you woke up at 6.30 because you live on the other side of the world. That's true.

I woke up at 7. I had to wake up in the pitch black dark this morning. Oh, my gosh. It was weird. Daylight savings, man. You're so committed. I am committed. Thank you.

All right. Well, on that note, it's time for Good Week. Yes, it is. Bad Week. Oh, no. Okay. I'm kicking it off. Okay.

My good week is that Leanne Ford is here. Wow. That was easy. But I have never seen someone who could do no wrong in their line of work. It's really crazy. If you guys don't know, do yourselves a favor now before she comes on. Just look up her Instagram. Yeah, look at her Instagram because you'll get, like, a vibe of exactly who she is.

Leanne Ford, I bet you guys have saved her design pictures and not even known that it was her. We get into that later. She's amazing. She's incredible. She's going to take over the design world even more. Like, she's coming for you, Joanna. And she is the coolest human being. She's so cool.

Chill. Amazing. My bad week is this. um so i obviously we moved you know seven months ago and i moved from a teeny tiny little closet to a really big great space i'm so grateful to have this closet but i'm becoming a hoarder because of the closet and i don't know what to do because i spent two hours in there the other day going through stuff to sell and get rid of and i can't do it it's like unless i'm forced to get rid of my clothes because there's no space for them i hoard clothing and shoes and bags really that's

okay because you've spent the last few years in that little house with no closet and you really did have to edit down yeah yeah but what you're organizing is a pretty edited down closet no no i mean i add stuff so regularly and i hold on to things that i think that rule of like if you didn't wear that season it's but i can't do that i have a really hard time parting and so i see myself being on hoarders in like 20 years well i do the thing great pr for the lady game it really would i do the thing where it's i i've had something for two years still has the tags on it and i never wear it but then i'll be planning for a trip i'm like i should take that dress maybe i'll wear it i've worn it in two years also why would i wear it on this vacation i think i

have ptsd because what i did stupidly was go through my old like poshmark when i used to sell this stuff on poshmark i went through my old account and you missed things and i saw some something in there and i was like i wish i had that now so that's my biggest fear i i don't know what to do you guys it's just i don't it is hoarder's paradise it is a problem i love a purge but then i'll do that too where i'm like you know what i bet i'll wear that this weekend yeah no no we don't no way i'll never wear it but i think what would work is something i did in fifth grade with a girl that went to a different elementary school than me and it was like a clothing trade like i think i should come shop your closet okay and you could come shop my closet nobody's

shopping my closet well i'm not wearing your crop tops now there are some things that i would want to wear okay in the summer months okay um you don't want to wear a crop top in the dead of winter i know only you have are bold enough to do so um but i think we should do that because maybe i would wear something that you and reinvigorate it for me and then you'd be like wow that was cute i think i'll wear that or we could give all our clothes to leanne ford and make her style them and then make us love them again yeah but it only can be tan clothes that's all it's true that's all it is i need to get rid of my colors i'll go um so my good week is you guys did your whole cleansing thing i don't have the willpower to do that anymore in my life however i bought this water

bottle 64 ounce water bottle and I'm like I can make a little change in my life I'm not going to go on a full-on cleanse juice cleanse diet whatever we're proud of you but I've been drinking 64 ounces of water every single day and I'm not gonna lie I don't really feel any different don't feel that much more hydrated um but I'm very proud of myself that I've sticked to some stuck to something but wait every day for a month I haven't I have a very important question what you're already someone who pees all the time yeah very inopportune moment i know it's a problem i have a very worse yes and especially at night every time i try to go to bed i have to get up five times go to the bathroom you should stop drinking water by like seven i know but you know on my water bottle it

says 9 p.m 9 and there's still more after 9 p.m scratch that out and you need to drink it all by seven i gotta chug it all like first half of the day when you're pregnant godspeed i don't know what's going to happen you need a diaper i should use one every 15 minutes i can't it's i have a problem but i either i gotta stay hydrated i can't be like kelty not drinking water for three days looks great thanks did you have a bad week um my bad week is so we went to new york recently we were on the plane home we're all sitting in a row kelty was in front then becca then me then this older woman this was nuts this woman in back of me our flight was a late flight i think it was at 8 p.m out of new york we had been working three days straight we're all exhausted the lady

in back me decides to take a work phone call and during this work phone call right before we take off she just start decides to start screaming yeah at the person that she was talking to i mean it was even for me who loves a screamy phone call it was aggressive and you know what sometimes i feel like people like to have these phone calls on the plane just to show everybody else that they have a job that they have a job and they're being a boss Kelty texted us and said how does it feel to be sandwiched by two Kelty's and the best part this lady was also making up words on her phone call I love a made-up word in a fight she's Kelty Knight she she called somebody a huckster or a huckstler yes a huckstler a huckstler no a huckster I don't remember what it was but it was

I'm like you're really flexing right now you don't have to be talking this loud but you are I filmed it on my phone. Sorry. And I just don't think that people should be having work phone calls on planes. No. All right. Good week. As you might remember, in February, I was very angry at Chris Knight because he wasn't inviting me to the parties.

Because I just want to be included. You don't want to go. I don't want to go. I absolutely do not want to go. Story of our lives. Yeah. But I want you to want me there, and I want you to invite me. um last night he i really had a conversation with him it was probably our biggest fight which

seems stupid now that that's what we fought about but i really had this conversation with him and i tried to really get through to him like what my reasoning was and whatever so i went to a party with him last night and four days before he was he checked in with me and he said i just want to make sure it's in your calendar and you have all the details you need which i love that's nice he It would sometimes be like, are you coming tonight to the Christmas party? And I was like, tonight? Yeah. Like, I can't be ready tonight.

He did a few days before check-in, so you can mentally prepare to go. I got ready. I picked out what I was going to wear. And then he invited me to the party. I got to go. And it was so fun to be out with him as his wife. No one there knew anything about my life or what I was there for. You know what I mean?

Who I am as a human being. Like, anything about me. And I just got to hang out and be Chris's wife. and it was so fun and so i feel like we made a major step in our relationship and communication is key great bad week so i've been renovating my backyard and i'm one of those people who believes that for the right amount of money you can create anything so basically i put in a hot tub and hashtag relatable no no it's like it's like if it doesn't exist i can just can i build it you know what i mean like there's someone out there it's more like if you're creative yeah you can

make it happen right right right like just because it's not the way you yeah i need to rephrase just because it's not the way that it's always been done let's get creative and get a new way to do the box girlfriend this is very leanne ford no this is perfect so i have a hot tub that was my dreamed to put a hot tub in my house that is sunken into the deck and the options for when you sink a hot tub into a deck for the lid are dismal it's like a big claw arm that like and then you sit what i think is weird about it is that it opens up and you sit in the hot tub and then half the hot tub it's looming like mildewy like bleach smelling cover is like right near your head so you're not like leaning back and looking at the beautiful stars or whatever you're

Like, right next to this. Leaning back in the gook. I mean, I wouldn't say that my hot tub has gook in it, Jack. But it might. I wouldn't take it that far. But it's not ideal. So the other option is you take the lid off and you pull it off, like, way away. Which is, like, what my parents did in 1995.

Right. Yeah. So I found this man on YouTube, and he had designed this jimmy rig on a chain pulley to sort of, like, he turns this thing and it goes. And it's, like, a little trolley, and it opens up this hard cover. and then he puts it back and it goes down and i said that's what i want my contract looked at me like okay there's one dude who like self-made this on youtube like this isn't normal and i was like well surely there's some celebrity in the hollywood hills who doesn't want a plastic hot tub cover what did they do and so i came up with this he's like okay i'll figure it out so i

came up with this design that is essentially like a giant plywood thing that has like all this you know water tightness of it and then it's covered in the same decking so it just looks like this decking right and then you pull it off the idea is like you can just pull it off when you go and then put it back on the thing must weigh two tons so when it's all said and done and chris is like i think this is a bad idea and then you know me when i'm like no babe it's going to be fine yeah now i have to be like it's great it's the best hot tub cover of all time i can't open the hot tub by myself and so then when i put handles on it and i thought maybe the physics of it like i need a rope to like like a pulley like i need to be like the strongman competition when

it's like i'm pulling a truck by myself so i put the rope on and i still can open it ish can't really like it's too heavy so then when my dad is here this week i was like dad it's not working we need to secretly flip it over and see how we can fix this before chris comes home so he flips it over and starts cutting out all the extra wood and he's like the whole thing's waterlogged like it was probably 200 pounds when you made it and now it's like 4 000 oh my god so we are having um an operation on the hot tub cover this week chelsea is currently with my dad at home depot and he's gonna try to fix it but like you're subjecting chelsea to that i know well i was like this is not what i signed up i did not sign up to be with my employer's dad at home depot today

i know how weird are you sure should we should we she's just driving him i don't know if that's on the list of approved tasks yeah she's a personal assistant it's just that's odd subjecting personal assistance to anyone other than you is not that your dad is a lovely man she's very lucky yeah but just like when you think about it when you just say it out loud i know it's kind of gross kind of weird you know what i'll tell her i'm sorry and that's never gonna happen i think maybe you should this is the last time i'm gonna make her do that i think she's like i thought i was gonna answer emails and post it's also here's the other thing it's not like you're sending her to like pick your dad up from the airport which also wouldn't really be good

i've done that too healthy oh my god no a personal assistant is is there to like run your car service that's picking your dad up from the airport oh no i guess we're gonna have a talk i think something else i'm doing wrong shoot but like there's also like no end in sight when you take a man to home depot i know does she get to wait in the car yeah it's just because the two by fours won't fit in my car i would have just had my dad drive anyway leanne hannah's here let's move on oh my god oh god now back to the lady gang have you ever looked in a magazine or on a pinterest board and said to yourself you know what aesthetic i love white on white on white well our guest today basically invented that. You're welcome. From Pittsburgh, she made a name for herself when she took a 1907

schoolhouse in her hometown and restored it to be the coolest house ever. Her work has been featured in Arc Digest, Country Living, Domino, Elle Decor, Martha Stewart, Better Homes and Gardens, Red Book, My Domain, Refinery29, and the New York Times and like a whole bunch other, but we don't have all day. When she's not blowing our minds on her Instagram, she's also a TV star along with her brother and contractor, Steve Ford of Restored by the Fords on HDTV, which follows the siblings as they turn some of Pittsburgh's most dated buildings into magazine-worthy homes. She's also an author, a style maven, her brother is hot, and I've never seen Becca so excited

for a guest on Lady Gang in our entire history. She wasn't excited about anyone we've brought to her in the past five years except Leanne Ford. Whatever happens, do not cancel Leanne Ford. We must have her. So, welcome to the show. I'm here. Leanne Ford!

Woo! Woo! What an intro. Yes. um we're here at 8 a.m for the listeners i know we need to make it happen and i said i could screenshot this it's like do not cancel leanne ford oh my gosh make it work and we'll come at 5 a.m it doesn't matter thank you for making it oh i'm happy to be here do you want to just open by saying like what why do you have such a crush on this woman okay well first of all

we're making eye contact it started when there was this bedroom that everybody was posting on instagram all these designers like inspo inspo inspo and it's this all white bedroom with white brick white duvet like very very very minimalist and a gold i think it's like a gold oh my gosh mirror yeah and you know which one it is my my bedroom yes and so for years i was oh no oh it's not i'm there all white on white no she's like the other bedroom okay it's in um huntington okay So I would see this bedroom and every designer that would post it, I'd be like, it's the person. So then I would be like, cause I wanted to find the person responsible, not people appreciating

it. So all these designers were posting, posting, posting, but I couldn't find the source. Well, one day I'm sitting on my, on my couch and I love HGTV, but I'm very picky about what I watch on it. And so I was like, finally, I was watching rock the block. Yeah. Cause I was like, let's check this out. And I realized that you're the woman responsible for this bedroom that I've been seeing for years and years and years and years.

Did they show it? They didn't show it. But then I went on the deepest dive ever. The deepest Leanne Ford dive of my life. And I was like, this is the woman. And then along with that bedroom, there's like 200 other pictures of bedrooms and living rooms and just places that you just want to live in. Yeah. You have an eye that is unparalleled to anybody else that's doing this.

It's insane. Oh, thank you. But, like, how do you do this? I'm so glad I'm here. Good. Yeah, I guess the question is, is that, you know, if there's no Pinterest board to inspire you, how do you just come up with, like, be the first of anything? You know what? I don't worry about being the first.

I think it's, I think if you do that, kind of, you're chasing trends, you're already behind, you know? So you kind of just have to mind your own business. And I would say, I always like the white on white thing because it's timeless. So, I mean, that, that... room you're talking about is eight years ago almost you know and my school house is still cool and it was over 10 years ago and it's like uh just super simple but it's all about warmth and texture and other stuff so you can't it's not boring right everyone thinks white on white's boring when they hear it and then they see it they're like never mind it's so true and i like

that it's a thing now like you're saying you know if people stole it i say good like the more people that have pretty homes the better well i have to say i'm looking for a new house right now and so i have my pinterest boards that i'm looking for and i'm picking this style and it's been few and far between of what i'm exactly looking for and until i found you now i feel seen because you everything you do i'm like this is what good luck looking for recreating it no you could do it so what do i have to do to convince you i have to join the lady gang that's fine it's worth it for me you can take my place but like all the girls out there who are tagging and like keeping and screenshotting all of your designs

like how do you attempt to recreate what you do because you can't be a million places with a normal budget yeah yeah um okay so i like that question which is honestly why i love doing product stuff so right yeah i just last week a line came out um i did leanne ford for crate and barrel which is which is so exciting guys get over there if you can't afford anything just get a candle get a candle the vases are really affordable and they're so chic thank you i loved it doing that was such a joy oh my gosh it was so fun and then seeing it being able to sit in these chairs that kind of came out of my brain and it's nothing like um crazy it's just evolutions of materials Like I use really classic materials, wood, simple wood, unstained, did black, kind of like a little wabi-sabi Japanese black wood and then caning and simple stuff, but in cool shapes.

Right. Like a little bit Italian, a little bit Mediterranean, a little bit disco, you know, like that is really a meshing if you kind of look at it and dig into it. But anyway, that's why I love doing that, because now you can go get it, go get it. Like I have a friend in San Francisco who I did her house years ago and she's like they had another baby and they need to do new stuff. I just sent her links. I'm like, just get this, you know? Yeah. And that was pretty fun to be able to go on one website, get a bunch of stuff.

But a normal client for you. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure at this point you're having to turn a lot of people down. Yeah. Like the Jennifer Lopez's of the world are calling you and being like, hey, Leanne. She didn't call me. She called another woman. No way.

How dare she? She missed out. I don't know if her taste is elevated enough. I honestly don't know if it is. I don't know. But anyway, no, we love Jennifer, but she made an error, one error this year in her year. But I'm sure people are calling you and you're having to pick and choose. But does someone just come to you, like a real person that's like, I want you to do my house.

I have $5 million go. Is that how it works? Yeah, more like they're like, I have $5,000 go. Yeah, but I want to redo my entire house. That's my question, is like, how does that, because now you're a big-time designer. She's too humble, you guys. She's like having a very hard time. I have a different question.

So, you know when you do. No, let her tell me the budget I need to hire her. No, but I have a question. That's my sneaky way of, I've got 20 grand. Can I get you? I'm going to answer that. Okay, so the truth is, whatever you think your budget is, whatever you think your timeline is, just double it. You know what I mean?

And, like, people, including me, we have no comprehension of what it's going to take. I mean, I'm doing my fifth personal project. And I'm always like, I can do it for blah, blah, blah, you know. And at the end of the day, I always, it's exactly double. So just, like, start with that and know that. And I would say, one, paint's really easy. Switching light fixtures is really easy. Like, simple, fun things that make it feel like if you put a pretty bowl there, all of a sudden you feel better.

You know what I mean? It's true. Little easy things, and then save it and do construction right. Right. Yeah. You know? But, like, paint's powerful. Like, you paint a room.

Things feel good. Do you have a paint line yet? I don't have. I work with... Portola. No. Oh, I love Portola, too. I work with PPT.

Okay, psycho. You know her paint colors? Jesus. Portola's a local. They do lime wash and clay wash. They're out of L.A. My husband just clay washed our powder room, and he was going to end his life. It was the hardest thing he's ever done.

And he, like, can do anything. I'd like to apologize to all husbands out there, actually. Don't let your wife make you wine washer clay anything. Husbands pretty much hate me at this point. Yeah, they do. Actually, one of my questions on here was your favorite white paint. Yes. PPG.

Okay, PPG, which is a Pittsburgh company. They do timeless pure white. That's the color? And you can get it off the shelf now. Like, it's in the can. You don't have to mix it. You've made it so popular that it's just available. It's just, like, out of the can white.

Amazing. i just feel like it's like i want something that i don't have to go mix i don't have to think about right i want to buy too many cans and return the ones that i don't use you know what i mean so you don't have to mix it's perfect oh good it really is i have an unrelated question kind of what kelty was saying so if you're when you're doing your tv show and somebody came to you and was like i have a hundred thousand dollars is that just going into the construction itself and whatever they're buying it just depends it's the the worst thing about being an interior designers the budgets and the how we charge it's like so messy there's i've talked to a million i

always ask designers like how do you charge and nobody no one knows right it's just complicated because it ends up spending you spend so much time i mean it's like right you're on speed dial you know what i mean you're like you guys are at the store you're like what do you think about this oh god toilet paper i'm like get it that's great you're like you know what i mean don't care yeah don't care leave me alone for god's sake like i'm not your therapist exactly oh it's 50 percent therapy now i noticed on your website that at the sort of the bottom there's this section you're in your on your contact page now i'm a psycho i noticed on the third slide um it says do you have a really unique yeah space yeah is that i like that casting for the show or would

you do something just because you're like this will photograph so beautifully yeah i like interesting so it's okay so there either needs to like the house needs to be wowser and already exciting for me like inspiring for me or um it's a friend right okay that's it but even that it's like hard with the friend thing because then no you want to say friends you know you don't want to work with your friends yeah so it's i would say it's hard i'm i do we're doing the show we're casting for season three right now which we're about to in la no pittsburgh damn it are you really buying a house yeah what neighborhood um don't tell people no i'm looking like on the east side i live on the west side but you can't get anything

bigger than a shack so wait where are you in the west side marina um but yeah but i've been looking at houses and in la it's really hard because it's either you have to fix up the entire house or you buy something that's already been completely remodeled so no my house was like your house was half half like it was built it's an old it's a spanish style but built in the 90s so like everything was that awful wood yeah but like bring it yeah that's a fun challenge we did keep some like the beams in the ceiling like we're trying to decide to stain them but like that's fun because the space and the bones of the house are amazing but we did like little we did we did the whole kitchen and because it was really 90s fantastic well there's i actually

because I love old homes and that's like I'm such a glutton for punishment like if everything's horrible behind the walls I love it you know like and we always have to do the plumbing and the electrical and all the not fun stuff but um it's pretty much like I get it back to the roots of the original home and I find like all of that the cool yeah that I love imperfect like if the floors are messy and ratty I'm like they're perfect we're keeping them but everything else is crisp and new yeah yeah and combining but i always take out the middle yeah right so it's like if the house is from the oh you know 1910 and then they fixed it in 84 yeah take that out the 84 yeah go back to 1910 right yeah and i like that and that's really fun and but it's also like it's about who lives

there right so i'm not precious with these kind of restorations i would say they're they're bringing these homes back to life but not in the original historical way yeah you're not like respecting what the home no it's like you live there you own it yeah how do we make it great for you and then like keep as much soul as we can yeah i love that now how do you work with family and do it so effortlessly yes and is your brother married he is not married is he single your brother is like my well when i was single my dream man okay why he's cute because he's tall you can tell he's also got like a really kind yeah he is he and he could help us with our renovation you can tell he's a secret sweetheart he's like kind of like a goofball well he has

three women like he has his two sisters and his mom right yeah that episode where you did his oh my god by the way that's like one of my favorite renovations i've ever seen oh that was like well the before after like the before was how he lived in a squat house which is insane crazy it's insane Like, he has access to you, and that's how he was living is so incredible. He's, like, down by the river. He's, like, in a van by the river, pretty much. How do you not kill each other? We, you know, we are brother-sister, so we get to leave, like, at the end of the day.

It's not like you're married. You're not married. Yeah, we always think, we're like, thank goodness we're not doing this with a spouse. Because, like, you get to just kind of walk away, like, see ya. Well, and you guys are both so chill. We're pretty chill. Yeah. And then we just keep it, it's separate businesses.

We, like, mind our own business. Right. i just finished a three-year renovation on my house like just like two weeks ago and it was it's hard on your marriage oh yeah it's dark sometimes you're happy you're like oh my god we got new floors like oh so beautiful and then sometimes you're like he's like you spent what on what fixture and i was like oh my god the fixture was this and then we needed the electrician to come put beams in the ceiling because it was so heavy don't worry about it we can't afford groceries this week right i have a question my husband buys a lot of art that i am not a fan of

like he's kind of like that's his his like passion hobby situation is like it's his outlet and some of it's great and some of it is just like not right for our home you know it's just not the right vibe how do you how is there a way to make art work and if it doesn't match the house put it all in the same room okay oh okay so it actually looks better when it's all together if it's you don't like it yeah okay do you know what i mean and you need to respect him like it's his creative outlet you know what i mean we don't all have the same taste it's hard you need to put it somewhere okay and you let him don't don't harass him about it you make it like the funky art room yeah exactly you like paint a room it's actually great advice because you had like a weird he has that like new

yorkie vibe like yeah it's contemporary yeah it's like very dreamy cool you know i have like a very limited vision like i don't know i know my limits and i don't it doesn't look like it's on your website she doesn't know it's kind of true um but maybe it's cool i i mean it is cool but any of this cool i'd be like feature it everywhere like i'm such a sheep in that way like i don't know it is a vibe though it's a vibe it's a vibe that's not this vibe yeah okay show me show me today okay i'm gonna show you he would it's just an art actual designer in the old house took it and put it all on like in a cool gallery wall like did kind of put it all in the same place and that didn't bother me yeah exactly but i don't know where to do that in the new house you just like

kind of smoosh it together yeah yeah but over there on the corner he doesn't love that idea but like we're like you get this powder room yeah isn't it gorgeous what is one design trend that you absolutely hate like do you hate a fiddle fig no okay what do you feel about I feel fine about it okay I think it's beautiful and I and I would say like it's a great example of everybody who's all into it and then everyone's anti like but it's still really pretty you know what I mean yeah shiplap is texture on the walls so I support it fully all right and I would say thank god for you, Leanne. Thank God for Kelty's house. I shiplap to my bathroom and they're making fun of me. We kept calling her Joanne. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Joanna seems to be just

fine by the way. Yeah. She's fine. So what is the trend that you hate? Like everyone look around the rooms right now or while they're driving to work, think about your house. And Leanne says, this goes to the dump. Like, I don't think you ever put shiny metals. You know, but like, I would say anything that I would say hate now in two weeks, I'm like, might do it i mean i look back i'm like i just put wall-to-wall carpet in some of my house oh like literally went and got carpet like how had them install it was like i'm turning into my mother wow what kind of carpet i ripped that up when i was you know in 10th grade i'm like who does wall-to-wall carpet well it was for my baby's room and it's all fluffy it's like plush it looks

like a teddy bear i just got like the most yeah like the most the deepest fluffiest one does your baby not barf on it i know that's so scary really i think she's over the throw-up phase okay so she's like past i'm like my baby's 14 she's 14 years old she's one so but no she's put crayons on it but i like you're fine yeah um what is one thing that if everyone has it looks like this oh yeah so she's wearing a teddy bear coat it like actually looks like this the rug looks exactly like what i'm wearing that's amazing um what is one thing that if everyone has 100 this weekend and they want to spruce up their house yeah i mean you're gonna say paint um but what is one thing they should do to their home okay so i my my disclaimer before this is why back to white

and color story is when you keep things in a color store you can't go wrong so like my first thought was you go to a flea market and buy something cool that's exciting and um and i also paint everything like i painted sofas i will paint anything new old doesn't matter if it if it's the right shape and size and you want it like just anything i'll go to a real store you know rip off the tag and off it goes to the spray painter but um that being said because like if you keep it in a color story everything fits together right so you can go buy some weirdo something or some chair that's like strangely shaped but because it's in your neutral color story it looks cool in your house if you were gonna do oh it's a spray paint yeah

get it girls if you were gonna do a pop of color i know you don't like color yeah what would be your pop of color that's not brown or white or black i i like colors of dogs okay like like i like i mean because i realize of dogs is so smart so good it's all and then it's also like yeah it's all natural well like i was looking at my dog i was like oh great color story i love dogs color stories you're like i'm inspired now like a copper genius like a copper but what about like a color like olive green you know okay green i love olive green and i also really like if you're like if you're a color

person don't let me stop you by the way like that's it's your house but I also like a powder room like to get wild like do something crazy your crazy wallpaper or like if you want something hot pink like that's a fun place to do it yeah and then it's always like

kind of you know you walk in and it's exciting on its own all right when we come back Leanne is going to finally once and for all tell us what to do with our rugs you're listening to the lady gang she still won't do it well i think you have i think that there's you have an ability to make ugly things beautiful yeah by the way that you style it it's like a it's like a really great wardrobe stylist you can give them something that you think is so

hideous on a hanger right right right i would never wear that and then you like put it on put a belt yeah yeah you also your outfits on these shows yes oh my gosh you're oh all right we're gonna skip rugs till the end we're going to style like um you sort of have this uniform that you wear which is what you just have like these you are like yeah it's like jennifer aniston but like a cooler version where it's like you don't you're not wearing the craziness it's like you have a sort of a uniform that you're always in so what are those pieces like just style wise yeah yeah um i'm so like i love cool things but i'm lazy so it's if it's easy i'll put it on if it's not i won't so i like have a whole pretty much costume closet of weird stuff that i like love and but i

don't throw that on so i throw on button downs all the time um t-shirts all the time my husband as a Buck Mason, a men's brand. By the way, I love Buck Mason. I do too. My husband is obsessed. Oh, good. He has a sweater cardigan type thing.

Oh, yeah. So cute. He left it in an airport and I've never seen him so distraught in my life that I had to go buy him a new one. That's cute. He's never been upset. Tell him thank you.

Tell him thank you. It's such a good store. It's like really good prices and chic AF and the way that you decorate them is like insane. They're fun. They're like my favorite. So I love those t-shirts. And then I always just like simple...

simple pants i don't know well we love your jumpsuit we're like my jumpsuit yeah you have like the white coverall coverall jumpsuit yeah yeah are you guys canadian i am what do you call it i overall romper like a boiler suit overall wait boilers you have a boy like that's where are you from california i really don't know what to call it oh my gosh i'm definitely stealing that do you love the boiler suit i feel like that's the fashion like term for it yeah i don't really know what i'm saying okay so i like overalls a lot and rompers and jumpers and boilers and all that i do because they're easy to throw on and they like you don't have to think about it you don't think about it you're you're like it's easy i'm i'm so lazy i'm like lazy jane but then but

then also when you're working you don't have to pull your pants up and so do you what you just said about the room like if you have one color story then everything looks chic do you apply that to your style then to wear black paint white yes i saw that i don't need to bring you guys i gotta send them over now i know your address um we love that okay can i talk about the rugs yeah we have um many subgroups in the lady gang online so there's a million lady gang conceived lady gang gets married like all these girls yes yeah and so one of my favorite subgroups is the lady gang interior design and we have a major issue in the group which is how big should the rug be okay does the rug go halfway under the sofa does it go all the way to the sofa is it

small are we layering what are we doing so can you just give take me to the church of leanne rugs well you're not gonna like this first answer which is all of the above yep they all work oh god but if you just fail proof i guess let's say okay there's a couple things one if you are renting or you have walled wall carpet you don't like feel free to put a rug over it it already helps you're like already cooler yeah i'll probably do that two weeks you know what i mean And then I would say I always put the sofa slightly over the rug, like let's say six inches or something. OK. Another thing is keep the furniture away from the wall.

We are not in a dorm room anymore. Get your sofa away from the wall. Oh, like six inches of your sofa is on the wall. No, it's not. It's like six inches away. OK, good. Because I have to plug my plugs in behind it. That's not what she means.

That's like absolutely not what she was trying to say right now. But my apartment is not that big. I don't have that much room. Nope. See? That's not an excuse. But how much do I... I am like a good six inches.

Do I need to be more? She thinks so. Leanna's face is... I would say if judging by what you just said about you are against the wall, yes. I think we need a little bit more. And then my rug is... The point is you put it in the middle or like... I mean, don't be afraid to bring your furniture in.

And people think it's going to make your room smaller, but it makes it feel better, more intentional, and sometimes bigger. Okay. Moving it now. And also using rugs for areas. So, like, if you have a big space, which actually is harder on people sometimes. Yeah. Because you're like, the sofa's over there and the chair's over there.

Well, like, if you're like, hello! Yeah. Yeah. If you have, like, an open concept, it's very hard to figure out what to do. So, rugs help with open concept because you really create areas, right? Right. So, it's like, okay, this is definitely a dining area. And then I always love layering rugs.

So I like do a big rug and then I do a smaller rug over it. And I love sisal and jute and straw rugs, which you can get anywhere. Yeah. And then we stained, like I did a black one in the crate collection and a like sumac colored one. Cool. And that was just because I always just wanted it. And I couldn't find it.

Isn't that such a cool thing that when you're designing your own line, you're like, oh, this doesn't exist. You know what I've always wanted? Yeah. And then it's weird because, you know, we do such like, I'm like, what if, and I look it up and I can't find it. Like, you do such a deep dive search for everything. So, I paint my straw rugs, which I don't know if it was a good idea, but I do it.

It's so crazy. You did something with grout. You grout washed something. Yeah, that was fun. I want to do it to my fireplace. It's, like, this ugly stone, and it's so dated. Okay. So, let me tell you about that.

You saw the invention of grout wash on Rock the Block. Yes. Because I had never thought about it. I'd never done it. um but like the stone that was in our budget was very orangey yeah and i was like happy that we got stone and sad that it was that but it was like i didn't want to paint it so anyway steve and the team were like showing me like okay here's the grout do you approve and they hadn't wiped off the grout from the other stones i'm like oh my gosh that stone's perfect like no no we need to

clean it like don't clean it it's so and then we did it and then we just sealed it so now it like looks all washable it's european yeah it's very cool i know it's fun it's like you're not afraid to do things that are not in the rules of design right and that's i think what every takeaway should be for these girls doing their own thing yeah i would say a hundred percent like you know i always quote this but einstein said the fear of failure kills creativity wow and it it just totally resonates with me and what everyone i talk to that's like nervous like well that's why you're not doing anything interesting yeah you know like you need to write that quote down it's so good like get it wild who cares worst case you wipe it off and start again yeah paint it again or move

the furniture oh i love that um i just have two more things for you although we we would keep you all day i'm gonna kidnap her um make you come see my house i need at least three more things we're really lucky because we're in los angeles where there is this like really cool architecture Like, um, you know, the houses you're looking at and Becca's house and my house, they, my house has round rooms. Like there's just cool, cool architecture here. But a lot of our listeners are in places, you know, across where it's like the houses are the subdivision houses and the track houses.

And I know that one of the things is they're not going to take a wall down and find the old wood. They're not going to find that texture. So if you have a box room, what is your advice to add some of that like cool element to the room i actually do that a lot and i like it so i add texture to walls all the time yeah so i like concrete skim coat oh and how do you do that you i use this brand called surecrete which i should have bought stock in a long time ago just me myself as the client is really selling it like yeah i'm like i have bought so much of this stuff but it's just this um it's powder and you mix it

And it's literally a skim coat of concrete. And I do it wrong. Like, I put it up incorrectly. So, on my website, on liamford.com, I had my friend Bobby, who does it for me, describe how he does it so people can do it. Oh, good. Okay. So, it gives it, like, extra texture. It's texture.

It's imperfect. It feels like what you found it in Europe and, like, walking by a little, you know, bistro or I don't know. Oh, I love this. So, that was one. And then I like texture on the walls. i like shiplap i like like box trim um that's the other thing is box trim like you know all the french apartments everybody pins like you just put those were blank walls that they just put wood trim on right you too can do that yeah right you know just paint it and then you paint it and

that's like a really kind of pretty easy like weekend project like i do um i'm doing stuff with this tool company called heart tools h-a-r-t and we're doing all these like weekend projects of easy things that we can do yeah so this weekend we just filmed videos and i hung up my own um uh shelf in the kitchen which has always been scary because yeah you put it it's heavy and i did it and i changed out a light uh light fixture oh my gosh because i usually just hand it to my brother yeah and i'm like don't need you anymore steve you're fired not as hard as i you know that's cool it's actually and i'm so glad to be doing these videos i'm gonna do more because It's like, I always just pawn it off.

Right. Right. But at the end of the day, like Steve's not always over here. Right. Well, we have a lot of powerful single ladies out there paying for their own fixtures that they don't have a man to put it up. And it's crazy. It's literally, you turn off the electric in the house and it's like three wires and

it's up. Oh. Yeah. Isn't it crazy that men have been getting so much credit for doing these simple tasks? Yes. I know. Like this took me five minutes. But believe me, I like to, I guess, delegate.

so i'm down to get people to help me but at the end of the day like if i want it done you know if you're if you want that sofa moved somehow you become strangely strong so strong yeah i know that because my husband i love him so much great man the most the least handy person on the planet so during this renovation i was like all right am i gonna task rabbit a guy over to hang these shelves or am i gonna figure out where the stud is and i do i did so much of it myself it's all on my instagram it was like yeah i basically like built everything that's in my house other that i could do wow she did a lot on her own she really yeah i need to feature you in my tool you know what so here's the thing i would i really am interested in getting some new tools

okay because i have i'm gonna send them to you the man tools yeah yeah yeah i wish someone would make a tool but we don't want we do not want women tools i don't want women tools we want tools that we women can use what i got you what i need is i just need the switch on the drill where you take it out or put it in to be a little closer to the gun because it's so far away it's like my my finger isn't as long i can't get there to flip it you know what i mean you need to use both hands i need to put it under my armpit flip it i'm gonna send you heart tools like tomorrow i need to put it put it under my armpit and whatever you are but we but we like you're perfect you're like my target market yeah but i like we were you know we were talking about it and like we don't want

i don't want a pink tool we don't they call they call it shrinking and pink it we don't want pink i don't know like that no we want um like the the heart tools are black and white i want them i don't want them to be on display yeah they're like they're black and white and blue i'm like they're black and white and denim like oh my gosh i love that so of course anytime i do anything with them i match them yeah i like wear coordinating oh wow that's so cute you're so amazing all right before you go match your tools i have one hollywood question i know that you hung out with hoda yeah i gotta hear all about it we love a hoda i know everyone loves her she interviewed us on today's show right yeah we met her for like two better for five seconds yes

of course i mean let's forget the fact that it's hoda like you're a national i mean i was going on the today show was my the thing i never wanted to do oh my gosh i was like are you kidding me i do not want to be on tv like live tv being saying something dumb you know but hoda was so awesome did she and carson yeah yeah he's great too you guys like i i'm car i was like oh it's carson kressley yeah yeah we grew up watching him right yeah yeah i was like is uh trl yes i was like is my wait not carson kressley you're talking about carson daily oh yeah like carson kressley like carson kressley he's great sorry carson like you both carson daily um yeah like yeah it's our youth you're like my boo

like he wasn't my bill i just like that stuff um but how cool did you i bet your family like everyone involved i feel like when you're on tv with hoda all of a sudden like you get something with your life street cred yeah oh 100 and you know you realize like i'll go to my husband's family and like they have today's show on the tv right you know like what you're by default yeah by default i'm like oh my gosh this like this is real yeah so we went and anyway i was so so like never wanted to do it but then when i found it was with the rock the block girls which is alice and victoria and jasmine roth and mina starziak hawk we had so much fun yeah and like i was actually also didn't want to wake up at 4 a.m it's awful yeah but like that was so early

that it was fine yeah novelty yeah exactly like are we going to disney world so so it was it was actually awesome and hoda was just as great as dreamy she makes you feel so comfortable she's so warm and yeah and even if she doesn't care that you're there you feel like she's like in my brain she was going to call me afterwards we thought we were going to be friends with her yeah we met for two minutes and we're like besties loves us yeah we're like like waiting for her to ask us yeah we're like we must have been your best interview you've ever had still not following on how we feel. Oh, I'm definitely

Googling this later. She's amazing. Did you guys sit in the studio? We did. Kathy Lee and her. We did. It was a while ago. Right before Kathy Lee left

because she made her departure right after that. Right after that. Did you have a real moment of like, can you believe this is our life? It's weird. It was crazy.

Well, and like growing up, that was my mom's jam. Yeah. Kathy Lee has been in my mom's icon. Oh, she's an icon. Best friend icon. Forever.

All right. Well, Leanne has to go paint now. No. Head on down and get to Pittsburgh Paints and get your PPG, Timeless Pure White. Remember to decorate and dress in the color of dogs. Head on over to Crate and Barrel right now to check out Leanne's line.

It is gorgeous. And if you had no idea what the three of us were gacking on about, about her beautiful website, it's leanneford.com. There's so much inspiration. There's so many ideas. She has this great blog where she really breaks down a lot of the things so you can be just like her. Yeah, and feel free to steal those ideas.

Thank you. like the skim coat brilliante and if you're on Instagram right now follow her at Leanne Ford Interiors you will not be

disappointed she is so chic the queen of our chic Becca has crowned her the chicest in the land which means it's actually great

Leanne you're a dream thank you for taking time to be with us thank you so much for coming you guys are so good at this by the way thanks

and we will see you next Tuesday thanks for listening and make sure to rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcast we have new episodes of lady gang every tuesday and thursday follow us on social media at the lady gang uh follow us personally at kelty most importantly at becca and at jack

bannock the lady gang network is produced by will sterling steve delamater kirsten woodward and elizabeth baquet thanks for rating and reviewing wherever you get your podcasts and tune in for new episodes every single week if you loved listening to this episode make sure you check out the other lady gang network shows mama said showmance the stacks ladies like us trash cast and our newest show with Brad Goreski, Brad Behavior, available wherever you get your podcasts.