The Ins & Outs - Your Questions!

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

This is the episode where we answer some of your questions on interiors and exterior design!Over the last 6 weeks you have been slipping into our DMs on our instagram account - @the_insandouts_Producer Andy Rowe has been sorting through the questions and will be firing them at us. InstagramJojo - @houseninedesignPolly - @pollyanna_wilkinsonAndy - @andy_rowe_WebsitesJojo - https://www.housenine.co.uk/Polly - https://www.pollyannawilkinson.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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powered by Gemini. Anyone who knows me knows the Pixel has always been my favorite out of all the phones I've ever had. Now, with Gemini built in, it's basically my personal AI assistant. Since I'm truly terrible at keeping up with emails, I use Gemini built in, it's basically my personal AI assistant. Since I'm truly terrible at keeping up with emails, I use Gemini to give me summaries of my inbox, which is a lifesaver. And if I'm feeling stuck creatively, I just ask Gemini for help and bam, instant inspiration. You can learn more about Google Pixel 9 at store.google.com. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Welcome to episode six of the Ins and O outs. Today is our final episode. It's our season finale.

It's the episode where we answer your questions. Cheers, pal. Cheers, my friend. What are we drinking? It's actually a Malbec. Just picked it up in Sainsbury's before we got here, so it's nothing fancy, I'm afraid. I know I did promise you a Montepulciano. You talked a big game and then here we are that's a nice drop

last week I schooled you you schooled me on on planting colors for for the seasons yes what have you done since have you done anything in the garden I haven't no I haven't but I sort of have because I bought one of those... That's what we did. Auger. Auger. I bought an auger, a twin head auger. That arrived. Haven't ordered my bulbs.

Twin head? It's got two different sizes. I thought you meant it was like a double-ended. Oh, that would be good. Did you not know about that one? Anyway, I got a double-ended auger good yes look that's copywriting that that's not for sale yet copy it don't know don't you go stealing that from me uh it is actually two separate parts i'm not going to claim one big

one small one big one small in preparation for my bulbs which i haven't ordered you're gonna be left with the yellows my friends you're gonna get the yellows and the reds is it really like that once they're out they're gone once they're gone they're gone yes you're just left with the dregs yes okay all right i'll go you're playing with fire but i really loved in your guide it actually says that i'm gonna get flower in january with some of them i can actually put something in now that's gonna flower in january only if you fucking plant it sorry don't swear okay fine so you've bought an auger for planting of the non-existent bulbs i'll be furious when i haven't done it next year i'll be furious with you too what have you been doing at home because you've just moved house i've largely been polishing

turds pulling up red carpet oh god i mean the carpet everything is from the 60s it's all a bit gross I painted the kitchen just so that I didn't have to look at it for the next year before I renovate and it's not that much better no it's not that much better polishing turds I I am and I've replaced the carpets and it's a very nice carpet but everything else just looks a bit shit around it you know that old saying you do up one room it makes the rest of them this is this is my life now do you know when you first move into a new house you get the keys it's so easy to want to rush into doing it all and you've just got to take a few big deep breaths and think you can't do it all so just do the bare minimum that's going to not cost you a load of money. And just accept that over time you will be doing it. There are some things that are small wins, like pulling up red carpets.

But there are other things that you might just be better off just not doing and leaving. What I'm quite excited about today, because today we are doing a quick fire. Andy, you're going to fire questions at us that have come in to our ins and outs podcast Instagram. There has been so many. We're not going to be able to cover them all. but we'll hit some of them there's been hundreds i'm really excited really oh my gosh there's some fun ones there's some fun ones okay there's some fun ones there's some interior there's some exterior there's some business okay okay this one's from kate elizabeth when painting a room i don't know when to paint the skirting and coving the same colour as the walls or do them differently.

And is it generally best to match your trim woodwork to the ceiling colour? Smiley face. A few rules here. If you don't have any coving, you want the wall colour to run up and over the ceiling. Can we just clarify? Coving, let's just go back to basics. Woodwork, bit in the top. Yeah, cornice, coving, cornice, coving,'s just go back to basics bit woodwork bit in the top yeah cornice coving cornice coving same thing um in the states they call them trims i think but it's the bit of plaster or timber

that's molded around the corner great meets where the ceiling meets the wall and the reason it's usually there is to add a detail and hide any discrepancies in the ceiling and the wall so that you don't get wavy lines like this. Great. If you don't have a coving or a cornice, you want to take the paint up and over so that you don't see this wiggly line. Because imagine if you had a slightly uneven wall and then you painted it green and then you had a white ceiling you're going to literally sit there and see a wiggly line so rule one if you don't have a corner slash clothing slash trim you're going up and over even if it's a bold color if you're going with like a really deep green yes yes okay so i tend i tend to say if it's a very neutral like this a sort of lovely off white

take it all the way up and over even onto your coving and up and over okay i tend to color wash all the way up the ceiling onto the coving and onto the you know onto the ceiling fine however if you're going to go with a darker color on your walls then i would stop it but i would take it onto the coving the reason being what a lot of people do when they have a color say let's go green again is that the coving would be white. Sorry, they leave the skirting boards white. Yes. The walls are green.

Yes. The coving is white and the ceiling is white. And what you then do is create this band of green around a room, which is like neither here nor there. Okay. So you want to go for it. Take it down onto the skirting and then onto the coving and then you can leave the ceiling bare but just take go so from floor to quite literal ceiling if you have detail go for it and if you don't have detail yeah all the way over yes i tend to say if you're doing a color

like a dark color always ensure that your skirting boards are also dark it doesn't have to be the same color that you've got green but always go dark on the skirting boards as well it doesn't look good when you've got a white skirting board and then you've got green walls that is why my hallway looks so shit new carpet yes magnolia walls and white skirting it's not good i didn't do that i would just like to clarify you want and also if you've got a lovely light color like this on the walls yeah you could then go a couple of shades darker on the skirting boards to help lift from the skirting board up so general rule is you don't want your skirting to be a lighter color than your walls exactly it's the same or darker exactly what else did kaylis with her she asked something else in there as well didn't she she said does should the curtains match the drapes that should the curtain should the ceiling match the do your curtains match your drapes i think they

do the top but not the bottom i can't decide how to answer the question do you have any drapes do you have any curtains these are my curtains these are my curtains? These are my curtains. These are your curtains. That's straight. And these are my drapes. I do not. Cheers. Oh, does it interfere with the rack? Okay. And is it generally best to match your trim woodwork to the ceiling colour? I should add that there is no general stop laughing about your

curtains and your drapes. Stop it. I know now I'm thinking about what they look like because of your hair colour. Okay, sorry, general rule. Go ahead. When it comes to colour, everybody feels differently about colour. Some people like tomatoes. Some people don't. Some people like marmite. Some people don't. Colour is the same. I'm not here to say don't like a colour. I'm just advising on what colours work best where. If you have a navy sofa and you love your navy sofa, then good for you. That's great. I'm not here to tell you to burn your navy sofa because I don't like it. But I would say it's a very difficult colour and it's a difficult object to make look inviting and cosy and warm unless the entire room around it works. Well, that's what you said about greys as well, Aditya.

You said that you find grey very difficult to match with things. It's a dictator. It's a colour dictator the getafe of colors yes it is so it's just on that just on that what you're talking about that because jodie bargen's got a question loving the podcast what is wrong with gray carpets and what basic color would you go for if you needed to lay one when moving into a new house well jodie Jodie, what is right with grey carpet? Oh, I know, but I'm sorry, I just don't see anything right with it. It is a dictator.

It is going to dictate to you what you put down everywhere else. So I would say if you move in somewhere and it has grey carpet and you don't want to pull it up, and I agree, no one wants to be wasteful and just throw something in the bin if it's brand new.

To all developers out there, please consider when you're putting carpet down in new developments to just veer away from grey because it's a dictator. But the colours that you can bring in, if you want to warm it up, you just can't bring in anything with a warm, sadly you can't bring in any sort of browns.

You can go black, you can bring in navies you can bring in yellows greens a really nice color if you've got gray bring in green but you're slightly dictated to your hard furniture is going to be quite hard to bring in off the back of that there's been another question how do you warm up a gray and white house without starting from scratch it's from con. So many questions on grey. If you are living in a house that has grey and you can't replace it, the things to do to introduce warmth is through colour, but you have to think about the colours that you're going to use.

My number one colour to use with grey to introduce some warmth would be green, green strangely but not when i say green i mean green green i mean like a olive greens yeah so what does gray like gray likes black white green blue yellow and pink those colors are complementary to gray you can use muted versions of those in furniture and then white will help brighten the grey so where you might have so you've introduced a pink sofa like a lovely blush pink sofa on grey will work nicely then bring that kind of pop of colour is needed and sort of perhaps off white cushions but the off white won't be able to be an off brown white it will have to have grey in it

cool tone so all the white all the warmer, you need to have a grey undertone. This one's from Alex. We have an office at the end of the garden. Where do we put the path? I love this question. Such a great question. And this is the scourge of Pinterest as well. You do not put it down the middle.

There's a desire in English gardens for them to be symmetrical. It seems to be like a real thing. And so they're like, I just put the path it down the middle. There's a desire in English gardens for them to be symmetrical. It seems to be like a real thing. And so they're like, I just put the path right down the middle. And all that's doing is creating two awkward halves, which you've then got to figure out what the hell you do with. And that is when you're like, oh God, I need to make my garden exactly symmetrical because I've essentially put a big old line down the middle. Always put it to the side so that you're not robbing your lawn of its one natural shape. I think in gardens, we're always trying to create

one cohesive shape for your lawn. We don't want you having lots of bits of lawn. We want one generous one, and then you hand the rest to planting. So put it to the left, put it to the right. It doesn't need to be the path of least resistance, interestingly. So we will often change the direction of travel. It makes for a more interesting view. So you're saying always stick your path to the sort of off the front, off the door that you're coming out of, but then almost wind off to the left or the right.

Yeah, definitely. Not fill up the whole garden. This is from The House in the Shire. Would you give any tips in your podcast on how you started your business and how you managed to employ your first employee that's a great question we talked a little bit about how we started businesses in episode one we did that's probably the best listen for that initial start of sort of after studying jojo went into a studio i started my own studio straight away but I think the really

interesting time in any business owners business journey is that time when you need to take on your first employee but oh massive and for me it actually came I was working with a graphic designer actually on the website she was very experienced in terms of business growth and what she said was Polly if you're finding that you are so busy that you're starting to drop the ball it's time to start outsourcing you must start outsourcing and what she meant by that was to to start employing people to help me and it just hadn't crossed my mind to start working with others I was very much like no this is my studio it's you know I'm I'm the designer and actually realizing as soon as you start outsourcing and sharing the workload with fellow employees,

or it might be that you want to start with freelancers if you're new to the game, but even your administration, even just easing the burden of your administration by bringing on a PA or a virtual PA or an accountant who's going to deal with the money side of things. But actually reaching out and bringing people in to help you is one, how your business grows, which I think can feel quite scary to start with because it's a cost. And it's that feeling of if I hire someone or if I have to pay someone to do something that I was doing,

will my business fail? But it won't. It will thrive. It will grow. That's how businesses grow. I also think it's a giving over the responsibility of what you've grown as a baby and you've nurtured and looked after and it's got you all over it and then suddenly you're handing that responsibility to someone else and it's letting go of that sort of feeling of the control control it's letting it's letting go of control but when you do my gosh it's the best thing ever it's learning how to and when to delegate if you're wearing yourself out and you're wearing

yourself too thin and you're not giving your clients 100 of you then it's time to start looking for help yeah i would say that's the time and know your worth know your value which is what charlotte said earlier what i said to you in episode one. Believe in yourself and then clients will believe in you too. And when they do, you should be commanding the right amount of fees that will happily allow you to employ really good staff and good employees to help you and grow your business. You can't be good at everything. No, absolutely not. to help you and grow your business. You can't be good at everything. No, absolutely not. So you need to get outside help, whether it be finance or HR or admin or design or, you know, drawing or

whatever, technical, whatever it is. The likelihood is you're not going to be able to do all of those things. And every single one of those is an expertise, an expert in itself. Yeah. And therefore it's, you know know lean on people there are people out there you know that would that you just got to find your match finding your match is a is a really important thing as well when you have a small studio you know this that first hiring that you make is absolutely key yeah um and the smaller the studio the more vital it is that you find someone that fits with you personality wise actually as much as skill set totally but i think the trick is to actually sit down look at your business and figure out what it

is that you love to do in it don't hand over that bit hand over the bits which take up a lot of time which give you no joy administration finance i don't know well you know it depends depends what you love those you might absolutely love that in which case hold on to that and outsource the rest. But it's a big step, growing a business and starting to delegate work, introduce others to clients. But it takes bravery, but you can do it and you will thrive. A question from Julia Howe Bailey. Is a feature wall a bad idea?

It's a no from me on a feature wall. I find it a bit early 2000s. should we just clarify what a feature wall is in case someone say a feature wall is where you might paint your whole room white and then one wall behind the bed will be dark blue oh that is a feature wall okay that feature wall i don't like it same if it was a wallpaper on one wall so is that same I'm not asking if you like it is that also a feature wall yes okay yep go on if you're going to do for instance a feature wall of paneling behind a bed and you don't want to panel the whole room but you're paneling behind the bed that's okay but paint all the walls the same color but in general I would say no to panel

no to feature walls I find them just a bit I don't really get it either go for it or don't go for it I don't really like them but again it's my opinion you've said no to feature walls however I feel like we had a conversation just last week where I said is it okay if I paint my son's room with a dark blue and you said just do it on one wall as I said in the color episode anything goes in kids bedrooms I like to get kids involved in the process and in the decision because kids have an opinion on color and they know what they like and okay you might not want to be repainting every year or so so again take that color and tone it down but feature walls and kids bedrooms

are totally fine I kind of put feature walls in the same bracket as hanging chairs and short curtains how do you feel about typography and decor? Is there ever a situation where you would allow it? What about a Christmas cushion that said, ho, ho, ho? Nope. What about if it was a Ginsberg cushion? Those are very cool.

No, they're not. Oh. No, there's no place that is allowed. unless it's in a kid's bedroom seeing kids bedrooms you can have like fly me to the moon even even if you don't have children why don't you in your room in your house have a room that's for children just for you so you can have all those things i don't want any of this to clarify like an adult playroom i do not want any of this i just ask the questions lady you are beautiful in neon thank you oh i've got a really good story for that i can't say that on here i'm not going to say his name but it rhymes with james hunt

and he um i went to his house in ibiza with some friends and he has this really really cool dressing up like enormous walk-in dressing up cupboard same just anything you want like if you want to dress like a teacup or a gnome or a sparkler or like a christmas tree honestly the coolest setup i've ever seen down by his pool and at the end of the pool it's got this neon sign that says, you are beautiful in pink. It's pretty cool. That's allowed. I'll give James Hunt that one.

He's allowed. That's allowed. He wrote a fairly famous song that's got that in it. Please don't tell me you just, please don't tell me you just said that. I just deciphered the code. Oh my God, Polly. Riddle me this.

What I want to know is what did you dress up as I've probably still got the picture somewhere actually I hope we share that we can share that I absolutely love it when um I'm not a big fan of sort of slutty sexy costumes I like I like to look revolting like a giant croc a giant what so I saw someone is going for Halloween Halloween as a giant croc and I thought well that is my nightmare that is so funny for me scarier than I'm not sure because you'd have such a giggle imagine going to a Halloween party dressed like a pair of crocs a shoe yeah like or just something so stupid and unattractive because you could actually just have a lot of fun rather than trying to be like awkwardly sexy like mean girls yeah

should we go to halloween should we go trick-or-treating we've answered no questions we're talking utter rubbish leah has a question my question for the pod is for polly please i would like to plant a lavender hedge but i'm overwhelmed by the varieties lavender head coat oh that's what i would use it's a it's a great one it's one we use loads it's brilliant if you want to do it as a hedge or if you want to um edge any kind of path or driveway just make sure it gets at least six hours of sun we've talked about this before people love putting a lavender in shade that's not the one it needs a minimum of six hours of sun along paths along drivewaysways. And it's quite a polite,

well-behaved one. It's sort of 70 centimetres. So it's not absolutely massive. You will need to prune it twice a year. What sort of soil does lavender like? Free draining. So think about it, it's a Mediterranean plant. When someone says free draining, I actually don't know what that means. So if you were to dig a hole and pour water in it, you would expect the water to seep out. If you dug a hole and poured water in it and just sort of sat there, you've probably got very heavy clay. And essentially, if you imagine if it rains really heavily, the lavender is just going to sit in that wet, wet ground. And it's a Mediterranean plant. So if you're going to plant anything like lavender and you have a clay soil, whack in a load of organic matter.

Okay. That's what we would say. So that would be sort of manure compost mulch is what you put on the surface so it means sort of compost or well rotted manure okay organic matter but you could add some sand as well basically what you're trying to do is open up the earth so that water will run through so make sure it's sunny make sure there's plenty of drainage. Okay, great. Lavender head coat. Can't go wrong. Nell's messaged in.

She wants to know how to sell her house and garden. What should she do? Okay, garden perspective, what you want to do. I think people can be a bit blind to the garden and just think, oh, it doesn't matter. You know, they're coming to look at the house, not the garden. And I would completely disagree with that. Most of the people that I work with say they bought the house for the garden. So I think it's really small things. it's, they're no brainers.

I think the same applies to the house. Get rid of your crap, declutter. So you don't want there to be loads of pots and garden crap and kids toys everywhere. You can certainly have an area which is a play space because it might ignite in imaginations if you've got a family home, you know, that sort of you're selling a lifestyle but the neat and tidy mow the lawn get rid of the crap and also try and set it up uh so that's slightly aspirational even if it's a doer upper so set out your furniture in such a way that it looks like you could sit out there to dine or to cook or to just chill out and And that's as simple as just before the viewing,

put cushions on your outdoor sofa or get a tablecloth if you've got a table and you just want it to look slightly more aspirational. It's really small things in the garden. The trick is to try and sell a lifestyle. So neat and tidy, no clutter. And just do some really small things such as if you've got big holes in your fence,

for God's sake, repair it. Or mow the lawn we definitely definitely mow the lawn definitely mow the lawn it would be the same i think pretty much the same answer for the interiors from the moment you put your key through the door and that person walks in the door the first impression they're going to get is it needs to be clutter free keep it tidy there's something psychological about walking into a house and I always remember as a kid my parents were selling our family home at the time and my mum was a bit of a you know she's a bit of a clean freak bit like me and she likes things in order she just likes things to go back where they belong and I remember we she would do things like she would um you put a piece of toast down.

The smell of toast is a really welcoming smell and little things like that. You want somebody to feel like they're home. If you walk into a room and the bed's unmade and it smells funky and there's a pair of tights hanging on the end of the bed, you instantly recoil and you actually just want to get out of the room. You're almost not looking at the room. You're looking at the stuff in the room because you're us fascinated little human nosy brains are looking around going oh my god what is that on their bedside table or you're actually thinking oh this is really dirty so just tidy it up get rid get rid of the clutter and then from an interior perspective

i mean you don't want to go and spend a load of money when you're selling a house yeah but equally you do need to put money into certain things that are obviously going to help but if you were a real color fan and all of your rooms were i don't know very bright yellows and oranges would you just say paint it white people can see that people can see through that well but it also depends because if the house is if the rooms if it does have a yellow room and it's furnished and you're showing the house it's better to show it in its true light with the furniture that works in that yellow room. If you suddenly are stripping the furniture out and it's an empty house, then I would say paint all the rooms off-white,

get some cheap paint and just paint everywhere to get it looking neutral so that you're walking around and you're appreciating the spaces as opposed to what's in the spaces. Sometimes when people are viewing houses, they can't see past how the room is set up. So they might walk into a living room and the positioning of the furniture might be really odd it might all be if you walk sort of into say a big living room and the door is in the center of the room the sort of back of the room and you've got a sofa over there and then you've got another sofa over

there and then a tv in a really odd place people walk in and they think how's this gonna work oh i don't know i don't like the setup of this room it's a funny funny shape this living room not sure about that it's a bit odd so those sorts of things you might have realized that that's how you like to live there but actually people like to see again symmetry they might actually want to see a sofa with two chairs and see that they can fit it all in that space so maybe a bit of rearranging might be a good idea too but don't go spending loads of money i wouldn't spend loads of money yeah no keep it tidy declutter i think this one could be from ifa but i'm not sure how to say it because it's irish i think it's ifa ifa how to hide a trampoline we've got two options here you call them something funny bouncing prison bouncing prisons i mean i love a trampoline i have a

trampoline i have two boys that are exercised on on said trampoline so um worn out yeah but but I do absolutely worn out yeah but I do think the best thing you can do is try and make them not the focal point so even in small gardens you can do this we actually just put a trampoline into a very very compact London garden and the way we did that was we sunk it into the ground which I know people get very nervous about but we always keep the net around it so that keeps the kids safe obviously if you take the net away then you have the risk of sort of bouncing onto something outside of the trampolines or something hard so you can still keep the net but sinking it means that rather than it being at eye level it's down there and then we trellised in front of it and painted the trellis dark very very dark

green and instantly boom you cannot see there's a trampoline there it's vanished so one of my favorite things to do is to move the trampoline further away into the garden and I appreciate if you have young children I know that most people want to watch their children on said trampoline and in which case, maybe have one that's above ground that you can see. And then when the time comes when they're a bit older. Hey, it's Mitch from SideNote Podcast, and I'm here to tell you about the new Google Pixel 9 powered by Gemini. Anyone who knows me knows the Pixel has always been my favorite out of all the phones I've ever had. Now with Gemini built in, it's basically my personal AI assistant. Since I'm truly terrible at keeping up with emails,

I use Gemini to give me summaries of my inbox, which is a lifesaver. And if I'm feeling stuck creatively, I just ask Gemini for help and bam, instant inspiration. You can learn more about Google Pixel 9 at store.google.com. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. At six, seven, eight, then you can push it further away. I prefer to sink it. And then we put hedge in front of it or trellis or fence or just something which basically hides the trampoline.

It's that simple it's as soon as your kids are old enough that they don't need constant supervision the goal is to take it away from being a focal point a question from clara hammer hello hello hello i have a topic i would love to hear your thoughts on wallpaper are you a fan how do you choose wallpaper how do you decide whether to paper the whole room or not if going for a floral paper how much how to match with curtains i'm so i am a huge fan of wallpaper love wallpaper wallpaper oh absolutely love it but it's certainly something that is client so clients love it or they hate it and sometimes you have to try and push clients into it kids bedrooms we always tend to go with wallpaper especially little ditzy prints so ditzy prints

means small when you go yeah little ditzy flowers and whereas a little sort of think like grandma's wallpaper the bigger the print the harder it is to use the bigger the print you'll need to use it on a very square straight walls uh we love using wallpaper and lofts for instance like loft bedrooms little loft bedrooms but again you have to go ditzy because obviously you're probably joining walls on angles which can be quite oh i see so it has the patterns yes so you don't want a big pattern that's going to completely destroy at the corners so and also decorators just hate it so ditzy little prints up there but feature wall she asked so i presume that's a no you've answered again no it's a no for me for feature walls of wallpaper okay but again if you

if you love a wallpaper just go for it if you're afraid of it being too overpowering in a room do dado height paneling so that's sort of hip height paneling and then up do up to the ceiling do your wallpaper and then do a nice complementary color from the wallpaper on the ceiling or on the paneling i was going to ask about that with the paneling so say you've gone my old favorite downstairs loo and you've gone for a really dramatic i presume quite small print because you've said small room small print yes um do you pull out one of those colors and do the woodwork yes if it's a three if it's a if it's a three color print yeah and say it's got a little bit of blush pink in there okay you could bring

that blush pink onto the paneling below and would you do that on the ceiling no sometimes even more fun in downstairs lou is then take say the other color was i don't know light blue yeah take that light blue and put it on the ceiling so you go two different colors yeah you can do that it's fun exciting yeah and then again the you know the mirror that you might use could have a bit of fun in it all the lampshades that you use on the wall lights or whatever it is wallpaper is really fun we love wallpaper but it takes a lot of convincing because it is again something you have to live with so i don't tend to ever do it in a room that you're in all day every day you'd never do it in a you know in a primary room i don't tend to in living rooms but a room that you're not going to use all the time, like a dining room or downstairs loo,

which you are in and out of, but you're only in there for a minute or two, unless it's your husband. And then kids' bedrooms, a wonderful place to do wallpaper. Dressing rooms. Yes, love wallpaper. I'm a huge fan. But love stripes and I love little ditzy small prints.

Is there a room you wouldn't panel? Oh, I'd panel my car would you yes would you given the choice would you panel all rooms in a house no i sure don't no we don't we don't panel everywhere and we choose and we mix up the paneling that we use as well so we use different types of paneling for different types of rooms depending on the house and the style you have to be considerate of the style of the house in the paneling that you use are there any rules about mixing sizes patterns prints stripes etc that's coming also from Clara Hammer mixing wallpaper you can always mix a stripe with anything so a stripe you can always mix with pattern any stripe just make sure the colours are complementary so when you're using a stripe

if it's a sort of lovely burnt orange and neutral then make sure that whatever the pattern is it's got that sort of colour in it as well. So they sort of bleed through into each other, which is lovely. They hold hands. Because I think she's trying to do some wallpapering for her baby girl's nursery. Lovely. When you were doing colour in a nursery,

always use really soft, calm colours. You're thinking babies in a room that you want them to feel calm and it's nice and quiet so that's why we use in nurseries lovely blush pinks lovely soft blues lovely soft greens pastel colors warm lovely soft colors because it invokes a feeling of calm in our little ones babies and it's also a very easy color to use as they sort of grow up. Okay, this one's from Charlotte Hay. After a bit of a shocker of a year discovering a rather aggressive breast cancer two weeks after taking the keys for a shit pile we needed to renovate and experiencing mega chemo radio immuno,

hopefully on the home straight now but looking good, a year like that certainly makes you feel so grateful for everything you have and makes you reflect on all you see in here jojo please don't ever stop swearing please don't let a nasty few trolls get you down as any comments they make reflects far more on their state than yours. And please, continue to be your fabulous, authentic self. Oh, that is so lovely. Polly, you have created the most fabulous, successful, professional business because, in capitals, you are a working mum, not despite it.

That is your strength and superpower. Please have the courage to share as much or as little of your personal life as you feel comfortable with. And by doing so, you'll get to pick and choose the clients that respect and connect with you. Oh, my gosh. What's her name? Charlotte Hay.

Charlotte. That is so lovely. Oh, Charlotte, what's her name? Charlotte Hay. Charlotte. That is so lovely. Oh, Charlotte, I'm so sorry. What a shitter of a year for you. And that's just so generous. That's so lovely. To even take the time to write that is just... Andy, are you crying about now as well?

I'm crying. Thank you. That's really lovely. That is just... Oh, how kind. How kind to spend your time saying nice things to us yeah i know it sounds funny but i'm always quite taken aback when people actually take the time to send us really lovely messages because i know it's very easy to so i think people are more inclined sometimes to say what they don't like or the negative things but actually that

really is so lovely that you took the time to write that and i'm so sorry for the year that you've that you've had awful just awful um but these things very very well yeah these things are definitely sent to try you and get over oh anyway thanks honey isn't that lovely that was lovely do you know so many people that have written in questions have talked about how much they love both of you guys? Like every single person except for maybe one. Does this mean we can count?

Except for maybe one? And the people that gave us one star. Yeah, who does that? Who does that? Charlotte actually has a question. Oh, okay. Oh, good. I'm glad we can get that back.

Bring it. It's on decision fatigue. When you have an entire house, which she called a shit tip, and garden to design, a variety of design styles you love each, supported by a gazillion Insta or Pinterest boards, how do you see the wood from the trees and start making decisions? Can I stop this one?

Please do. You're in bits. I know. Charlotte, you're probably in bits. I know. Well played. No, I do just quickly want to say it it and i said this recently and thanks that's probably in response to me saying that there were a few trolls that had said some unpleasant things and it's it doesn't take a

lot to be nice it doesn't take a lot to be kind and in a very confused messed up world that we live in you you get to choose who you follow you choose what you eat you choose what you drink you choose who you follow and you don't need to be bitchy just stop following just back off leave people alone be nice it's also very scary doing this it's scary putting ourselves out there it is scary talk about the fear of judgment is a major major thing it's a real thing so thank you to everyone who always sends the loveliest messages and we feel very very hashtag blessed indeed she said right uh charlotte sorry question was design paralysis is a major major thing when you buy a house and it's an entire project and you've got the garden you're faced with a garden and a house and first off take a step back take a deep breath and look at what you have look at that house look at the garden and think about what it can be and how exciting it can be. So when you start planning, try not to get overwhelmed

by what it is that you want. You can't have everything. You can have a little bit of everything, but I think follow your heart, know what you like and kind of stick to it. I always say start mood boards, however you want to do it digitally or on paper and start to get that, get that picture that keeps coming back to you, that you love. And just think about what it is that you're using that can be timeless, because it's very easy to fall into trends and fads and think, Oh my God, that tile looks so fun. And Oh my God, I'd love to do that. But think about how you're going to live there for years and years and years and years to come.

Think about timeless design and how it's going to grow with you. And then just try not to get overwhelmed by all the decisions and build on that one styling image. It might be a picture that you've probably taken from house nine and Pollyanna Wilkinson garden design.

I imagine those probably are going to make up the entirety, actually, of your entire mood board. And not why not in fact why is there anything else not that I know and then just go from there pick the start pick the samples start to put little mood boards together for each room and just take it easy don't rush it don't rush things take your time yeah breathe. Breathe. Just breathe. But Charlotte, thanks so much. That was my favorite question.

Yeah? Yes. Okay. This one's, we're going to the exterior. Love your podcast, ladies. This is from Liv. How do you make the landii, hedges, borders look nicer? I mean, the landii is awful.

Is this what I've got? Yes. That you're ripping out. Oh, gosh. It's a really difficult plant because it is a brilliant screener and i understand a lot of people put leylandii in 10 20 years ago if you're not sure what that is it's the massive dark green conifer very very tall very oppressive nothing will grow under it so how do you make it look good the only solution we found where we have to keep it either because it's the neighbors or because it's doing a really great job of screening something hideous

is to plant something in front of it but i do not mean right up against its stems everything will perish because these enormous conifers are sucking the life out of the ground in terms of nutrients and water so your best bet and i don't know the size of your garden to know if this is possible, and if they have to stay, is to almost bring in a false boundary. So you would bring in, for example, you could do a border, but it can't be against it. It needs to be further forward.

So you might put in a pathway and then next to it, you've got a new hedge, for example. So the Leylandii is almost becoming a first boundary and you're installing a much more attractive hedge such as a portuguese laurel or a yew or a hornbeam far enough in that that's your new end of garden almost create layers like a layer exactly so your eye is going to first of all planting at ground level then your hedge and then you've probably you're going to have a bit of dead space this is really only something you can do if you've got a garden big enough to essentially sacrifice a run to it because nothing's going to grow so close to

it but it's a great way of maintaining your privacy but giving you at eye level a far more attractive approach but the trick is you cannot plant up against it and for god's sake don't go hacking into it if you cut lowlandii too much it goes brown and that there's no coming back from that it just you'll just be staring at ugly brown conifer so i've got time for a couple more questions this one's from phil how to link the inside and out yes phil yes phil well done phil how to link the inside now this is Yes, Phil. Yes, Phil. Well done, Phil. How to link the inside and out. This is a really important question. This is what actually started.

This is what started the ins and outs where we wanted to branch into this more because it's so important. The marry of the inside and out is so important. And I don't think people think about them enough together. I think they think, I'm going to do my house and then I'll do the garden later., I'm going to do my house and then I'll do the garden later. Or I'm going to do my garden and then I'll do the house later. It's that the way to connect the two, for instance, usually you've always got one main front door. And then at the back, you've usually got bifold doors or French doors that go out onto your terrace from your living room. How you connect those spaces is so important.

And therefore, the materiality is key I would say and it's really thinking about the colours that you're using from this especially from the hard landscaping into the hard areas of the house we spend our life liaising with interior designers architects or just the client in terms of our first question when we're looking at materials is what is going on in the rooms adjoining your garden it's often a kitchen and so we will feed off exactly exactly as you said the colors in that room so if you have a huge gray porcelain kitchen floor then we're probably going to look at a similar tone we we're not big on the matchy matchy we don't often do exactly what you've got inside is going outside usually because that can be quite hard to achieve unless you're doing a porcelain and it depends is the answer but we will try and match the tone yeah

exactly so you might have timber on the floor a warm timber we will use a warm limestone outside so it's it's all about tonalities but not only is it about that flow of material and i really do reiterate it does not need to be the same material for it to feel cohesive it can be if you want that really sleek look but it's also it's very contemporary so it doesn't always work so it depends as long as the tones correspond but it's also about picking up materials in those rooms and taking them outside absolutely so we'll look at your knobs for example in the kitchen and see if we can marry them outside somehow so we might use the same hardware on the outdoor kitchen or if there's going to be metal work we might echo it

if you've got bronze lighting indoors we might put bronze features into the garden so it's all about having that same design language indoors and out and usually although not always it starts with the interiors and we feed off it although in rare beasts it is very rare we get to do it the other way around yeah it's i would say it's probably easier for an interior designer to feed off the exterior finishes than it is the other way around i would say it's probably easier for an interior designer to feed off the exterior finishes than it is the other way around i would tend to say but i wouldn't say color in flowers though would have anything to do with the interior so that's one thing i wouldn't say any bearing colors that you choose inside don't have a bearing at all it's more exactly as you say it's the tone

tone of the materials that you're using on the sort of flooring, the metal finishes, the lighting tones is quite important. So always use warm white bulbs inside, use the same outside. Furnishings, the furnishings that you're using need to have a sort of somehow a connection in perhaps era. So they're sort of lovely metal outside. You still want that feel to kind of tie into the main house it's exactly it's design language it all needs to feel like it's come from the same it's not it's a it's yeah there's got to be a connection for instance if inside you had sort of lovely quite traditional sofas and your interior theme was quite calm, traditional, you know, bit of colour in there. When you walk out of your French doors outside,

it would almost feel jarring to suddenly see sort of white paving with a sort of glass and metal furniture. It would feel like really disconnected. So it's definitely a sort of feel. I'm presuming if you've chosen one thing you'll have an idea of what you like outside as well completely it's it they go hand in hand if you have a beautiful old farmhouse and it's decorated in a very traditional way you do not whack in an incredibly contemporary garden it would feel nuts in much the same way if you have

a really sleek modern house and it's incredibly minimalist and all sort of shiny surfaces we're not putting in a classic cottage garden with cobbles it will look weird so it is always about just making sure the design intent flows through the indoors and the outdoors exactly next question is from sophie what's the biggest mistake you see indoors and out a classic would be coming in and a client has put in an enormous swathe of paving i'm talking like half a tennis court worth of paving because they like to entertain and so they wanted a big load of hard standing massive mistake it's looking at your garden as if i mean you wouldn't do that to your house you don't live in half a tennis court with

all of your functions in one big open space you have rooms right per use you have a room you've got a kitchen you've got a living room you've got a playroom outdoors is the same we would never just do an massive expanse of paving with no delineated use we would divide up that space whether it was changing the materials introducing planting even at the very least dividing it up with some really big troughs or planters so that you had a designated use per space would preferably rather give you a few different rooms in your garden rather than one big old yeah okay expense so that's a classic mistake that's far too much paving mine i would actually say the number one for me poor design is is people not getting their proportions right.

So this is what I'm talking about where it's sort of the same as where, especially when someone started from scratch or they might have built an extension, like a kitchen extension. And again, the marry of a new kitchen extension in an old house. of a new kitchen extension in an old house the amount of times I walk in someone's house and actually the house that's not done yet but it's got the sort of all the traditional features and things that might people might not like you then step through a threshold and suddenly you're in this modern box totally different flooring quite contemporary kitchen the lighting levels are totally different to the rest of the house it's so jarring and it feels really uncomfortable. And then the kitchen itself is proportioned wrong somehow. Planning is everything before starting a refurb or renovation.

It's thinking about the size of your island, considering the space that you need to walk around the island. Can you go bigger with the island? The amount of times I see like a tiny little kitchen island and a huge kitchen. And then a tiny little kitchen dining table over here and this massive amount of space sometimes people think bigger is better yes so they think oh my god I can get this amount of you know side extension so I'm just going to go for it and they have this whopping side extension this modern side extension that's got zero character is badly proportioned

it's badly laid out the doors oh here's a big one for me huge one for me is when people do a new extension they instantly think massive bi-folding doors 10 meters of bi-folding black doors right you've got to think about where you're going to put your curtains and where you're going to put your blinds. But also, do you really want that great big glass bank of big black folding doors? I personally would divide the space and have, you know, painted pillars in between and then sectional doors. So have almost three sections of doors. So you've created instantly using those three doors and a huge extension. You've created zones.

Yes. created instantly using those three doors and a huge extension you've created zones yes and an area that you can have lovely curtains and have an area that could be sitting have an area that could be dining have an area that's your kitchen so the mistake is the same yeah it's not essentially we're saying bad spatial planning bad spatial planning yeah big one interesting this question is from lucy pierce i'm a trained interior designer and decorator, and I've always had a big confidence issue. It's seriously held me back, even more so now that I've had two boys. I hear the mention of imposter syndrome a lot lately, and I would also love to hear your opinion or advice. I expect it's something that may resonate with many in the industry or even the DIY lovers at home. Looking

forward to hearing more. Love you both on the podcast. Sending lots of love and good luck. Lucy. Oh, I've got so much to say on this one. Okay, this could be a whole episode. First of all, your boys should be your superpower because you have a family and you have two little ones that you can look to and make proud so use them as your inner fire my children are one of my biggest drivers so use them and as as you've got a family you're lucky enough to have you know this lovely little family use that as your your strength and then know that every single designer myself included you every designer I know that I speak to personally has imposter syndrome. So I would say a lot of people in this industry do.

It is an aspirational career choice and everybody is different. Our tastes are different, how we perceive things is different. And therefore it feels like quite a big, bad, scary world and how you're going to get clients believe in yourself be authentic and have integrity in everything that you do and just don't get distracted by what everybody else is doing one of the most negative things that you can possibly do is constantly look at what everybody else is doing it's a bit like when you're scrolling on instagram as soon as you start looking at other people with these wonderfully aspirational lives you can fall down a hole what does does that make you feel? You get that feeling down here in your stomach that makes you feel sad, sick, depressed, whatever it is. Stop

doing that. Put your phone away. Focus on you. Focus on the things that make you happy and your boys. Grow your business without the distraction of what everyone else is doing. That is my number one bit of advice. Grace Wasluck has messaged in, just found time to listen to this episode and want to say that every single word resonated with me. I actually cried. It was really reassuring to hear that even people who make it look easy also find it tough. I switched careers from publishing to interior design six years ago. I run my own small practice on my own and offer a full service so i'm sure you can imagine what that entails the loneliness and feeling of imposter syndrome is often overwhelming combined with looking after

a seven and ten year old i just often feel like i'm not good enough i completely get this i mean this is what jojo and i probably bonded over the most when we first met I am yet to meet another female in the business who doesn't admit to imposter syndrome I think that generally I find that men are probably better at blustering through or that my experience has been a lot of women are very happy to admit imposter syndrome I think uh I don't know just culturally I found women are more open to owning that I think that men are just better at hiding it I think perhaps we carry a little bit more empathy and worry especially both of these callers have had children so they're mothers with children

please look at Polly and I and know that both of us are where we are in our careers and you might see us as these strong badass businesswomen but my gosh we've been on our knees and we've been exhausted and in tears and this absolute imposter syndrome has taken over both of us many times many and more so when you first have children I think because you think how could I do both and again it goes back to that juggle that struggle of trying to manage both and being good at both and wanting so much and that urge to want to have a career and be proud of something that's not just looking after your children but then also wanting to be with your children and you know and give them everything that they need as well the tug is so real and never ever ever beat yourself up for that because we're all in the same boat and everybody

feels the same we're all mums are in this together and i think there's there's a huge amount of growth in owning vulnerability as well if don't let fear stand in the way i think everyone's scared it's just some people are more ready to admit it than others and the ones that are admit it are the ones that you will find that you bond with yeah and you do and it does get easier and you do get stronger and you build up resilience and you're used to getting knocked down if in business actually as a starting out if you're in that place that I'd say Lucy and Grace and anyone else is don't be afraid to ask for help don't be afraid to lean on people and I know I said about turning away from people that make you feel maybe jealous or you get that stirring of imposter syndrome don't be afraid to reach out to other

designers and people in your industry and ask for their advice or their help there are people out there like myself who will always try and give advice and help to people you know you've got to lean on each other you know women should lift each other up and we should empower each other it's very easy to try and think I'm doing this on my own i can do this myself and it actually feels like design is quite saturated industry but there's saturated and then there's people that are doing it really well and the two are quite few and far between right dude we've done six episodes six short and sweet episodes i know so that's i mean it's kind of the end but i guess the question is are we is that the end are we going to carry on andy well this

is the thing because when we started this we only committed to doing six episodes so for us to do more episodes someone's got to pay for me here oh polly that's so kind of you thank you so much all right how much we need to find a sponsor yes so for us to find a sponsor we need to have good ratings most importantly we need really good reviews oh yes so that's please honestly i know it's cringing i hate asking this but for that reason we would love to continue we'd love to continue to help we would like to be the trinian susanna of the garden and interiors world so we can help you more but to give give give give we just need a little receive yeah and therefore all we ask from you is that you like subscribe share with everyone you know.

And we can hopefully continue to do this podcast for you guys. Because we bloody loved it. Because we've loved it. Oh, it's a lot of fun, isn't it, pal? We've laughed, we've cried. I made you cry today. I love that. I mean, bravo, because no one does that.

I never do that. Crack the old gal. Yeah. Oh, man, I'll miss you if not. Please just do it so I get to see Jojo more. Oh, I love you guys. Hey, it's Mitch from SideNote Podcast, and I'm here to tell you about the new Google Pixel 9 powered by Gemini.

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