 Hey, I'm so glad you guys joined me today. Thank you so much for those of you that are just joining us. I'm Angela Brown I'm the CEO of Savvy Cleaner and for the last 32 years I focused on leaving the world a better place by leaving it clean now today We're streaming to a couple of different audiences We're also speaking to our professional organizing group and everybody that's focused during since since the pandemic Focused on cleaning those scary rooms and the attics and the closets and all the stuff that has extra clutter So I was really excited when I learned that there's a guest that could come on our show today and teach us How to have a happy home? Is that possible the answer is yes It is and she's gonna share with us her journey about she went how she went from having an ordinary home to a happy home And she's gonna share with us some secrets and some actionable tips on how you can too So I'm gonna ask you to jump in and on the comment section add your comments and add your questions Because we're here for one hour only one hour, and we're gonna be able to answer as many of them as we can So please help me welcome The happy home specialist Rebecca West Oh, I'm so good, I'm so excited to have this conversation. Thank you so much Angela Well, thanks for being here today. Now. I got to start all the way back There was a time when your home was ordinary and you decided to turn it into a happy home Tell me the story and tell me all about how it happened and how you got where you are today Yeah, I have a lot of home stories, but the one that was really pivotable pivot What is it? Pivotal the one that was really pivotal was about 15 years ago I got divorced like many of us do and I was blessed because I got to keep the house I had with my ex-husband, but I was trapped in this house That was filled with memories of my past marriage and basically I just felt like it was staring at me and making me feel like a failure in my own life and So I transformed that entire house on a divorced newly divorced woman's budget and it was truly transformative because I felt like instead of being trapped by my past I was looking at my future and then that led to me going wow our homes are really really important to our like emotional and mental well-being and People should know this and then that's when I launched an interior design company so that I could help other people Have the tools that I had discovered for myself Well, I love that answer and I want to go back to just a second You said you were going through a divorce now divorce did not normally mean like hey, I'm shouting with joy I'm at the happiest moment of my life, right? It's usually kind of a sad reflective sort of time What during that time made you decide that home is where I want to be happy and because I'm here I want to turn this into a happy place What was it that made you make home the happy place at that point of your life when that's not the normal situation you know, I think it's because so I grew up in the military and By growing up in the military if there's any other armed brats out there, you know that a Setting up home is a big part of constantly moving, right? So my parents did a really good job of You know within two weeks our homes would be set up and we would feel like we were home Even though we were in a new state new school new country, whatever it was So I'd always been aware that My environment mattered and I'm also the kind of person where if my surroundings aren't tidy My brain isn't tidy like I cannot sit down and work if the room is messy So I'd already had some awareness that was the case I'm also the kind of person who asked for a roommate over when I was 13 So I am I was already kind of cute into my spaces But it wasn't the first thing that occurred to me when I got divorced It really wasn't until maybe I don't know two or three months post-divorce that something just Shook me and I said I can't keep feeling like this. I cannot keep coming home and Feeling like a failure and I was working from home. I was trying to start a business I was renting out rooms in my home. So I was always home And I just I just you know There's that moment when you just hit your wall you hit your wit's end and say I just Refuse to keep living like this and I didn't at the time know what that would take I didn't know what it would take to make me feel differently. I just knew something had to shift So honestly if I'm being honest everybody I went through some terrible design phases because I was so desperate I just went into the garage and I grabbed old paint and what I had was this nearly black paint and I painted my Vaulted ceilings nearly black Then I grabbed some other old paint which was lime green and I did this faux finish on this one wall I mean it looked like a haunted house in the first round But it was so great because it was so terrible That it kind of broke me free of the space, right? It was so bad that it definitely wasn't my divorced home And it was so bad that I clearly couldn't keep living like that either and so then I got intentional about it I was like, okay. Well, what do I want to live in? Where do I want to live? How do I want to feel and I bought I bought paint for myself and I bought it in soft Pinks and purples and I made this my now husband called it my dollhouse I made the whole thing feminine and And so me you know if anybody's seen the Barbie movie and like that's that was she's like This is my house. This isn't your house. This is my space and that's what I needed I needed a space where I would heal and where I wasn't tending to somebody else's needs or accommodating them and That was amazing and then after a while I no longer needed my like feminine cocoon like my no boys allowed Girlhouse and I started shifting it again So it would be a little bit more gender neutral as I was ready to start dating and that's when I met my now Husband and it and the thing about homes is they're never done, right? They should be following us through our chapters And so that was That chapter of my home and my life One thing that I heard you say and I think it's really important is that you got to a place where you realize I don't want to live like this anymore Yeah, and there are a lot of people that are on our call today There are in that exact spot where they don't want to live in their house anymore because it's not the Representation of who they are today Maybe that's who they were at one point But that's not who they are today or where they're going and so if they're looking towards the better version of them Self the home that they're living in is not that best representation where you said I couldn't live like this any longer There was something intrinsically about what you're doing that made you say oh no way I'm not going any further living like this Exactly so whether it's clutter or whether it's paint or whether it's moving to a whole new house And I love the fact that you started with what you had and I want to just hone in on that for a second Because it's really easy to say well I can't live like this. I need a new house and then you're not going to be happy until you have the new house You're like I'm not going to be happy until I go out to my garage and find out whatever it is I have oh, it's black. That's all right I'll just I'll see if I can make it work and you try and then I got lime green I don't know where the lime green came from but green and black and whatever and okay I'm just gonna express myself and boom here it is Well, that's not it either but yet you started with what you had with the resources that you had to try to make a difference And I love that. I think that's amazing. I'm gonna give you a happy bell. This is my happy bell Yay, I know it sits on my desk and every time I look up. I see happiness. I love it speaking of happy I want to interrupt us for just a second. I want to say hi to all of our friends We got a whole bunch of friends that have joined us here. We have Eve from Chester UK. Hey Eve. Good to see you We got Jody here from Minnesota. We have Heather. We have Julie Bean looking forward to today's topic This is great. You guys we've got grammar 82 and that's us from Stephen maid service in Wisconsin We've got Alan is here. We have Colleen from Los Angeles, California. Hi guys. This is so awesome We've got Catherine from Ireland. We have a grammar again. We've got a parasaur. Hello all we've got Richard here And I think I just made Richard disappear. Nope. He's got a cleaning question Richard I will answer that in the notes after we're done here. I would love to answer that one I can give that the attention it deserves We've got Stephanie here and Nicole. This is so awesome. You guys we have a Keo from Japan We've got Peaches family who's gonna start their own business. I love this you guys. This is so awesome We have Chris Chris I'll get back with you in the notes when we're done about your cleaning question as well We've got Cindy here from Texas you guys. This is fantastic. I really appreciate you guys We've got Jenny Clark here. Hey Jenny good to see you you guys It's so awesome that you guys are here and I appreciate you guys Jumping in to say hello and to spread the love. Okay, because what we're talking about today is really important It's taking the place that you live your home is a safe place If you're a professional cleaner when you go to someone else's home That is their safe place and if you are in a place where your home is not Place that you want it to be do not lose hope. You're not alone But there is hope. Hey and Rebecca is gonna tell us how to create a happy home. All right, Rebecca I love this. All right So if we have a cluttered house and maybe during the pandemic we bought a few too many things online Or maybe we inherited things from our parents or maybe our kids that have moved away How do we start with the clutter first? Clean it up the clutter so that we can turn it into a happy healthy home. I Mean, yeah, I mean that is the place to start. We have to we're trying to create a happy home Frequently the first step is to clear out what isn't making us happy to begin with and that's often stuff from past chapters of our lives You know, so it's not necessarily that they were bad things or are bad things. They just don't fit us now and unfortunately Things have a way of flowing themselves into our lives, but they don't flow themselves out of our lives So we have to do that really like purposefully um, so, you know, I like to start with a place of Thinking about the future that you want. That's that's what I did when I was stuck in my home is I feel like this Rather than dwelling on how I am feeling thinking about how I want to feel and then trying to identify Either a few things that like a room in my house that be deeply connected to feeling that way or Identifying some things in my house that are giving me the opposite feeling right trying to start with some really low-hanging fruit easy wins I remember there was a client that I was helping and She she wanted help with her bedroom. She was feeling not good in it and a lot of times when people have these conversations with me They don't have specifics. They're just like, I don't know. I just don't feel good. It's like going to the doctor I don't know. I just feel icky and then it's the doctor or my me is the design doctor's job to help identify why But she are after our work together The main thing she did was move one tall bookcase out of her bedroom put it on the curb for free And she said that the difference of how light she felt before and after was night and day because that bookcase Came from an old relationship. So it was a perfectly Lovely bookcase nothing wrong with it except for that every time she'd look at it She was brought back to These unhappy memories and it was the first thing she was waking up to when she opened her eyes every morning and the last thing She'd see going to bed and the psychological impact of that stupid bookcase was too much for her But we all get stuck. She needed basically permission to get rid of this perfectly good bookcase Well and permission is an interesting topic that you bring up I know that in my own house my husband loves to collect things because he paid good money for them Yes, and so just because we had a bookcase that we've had for 20 years doesn't mean we need to keep it for another 20 Just because we paid good money for it, right? Exactly and if we are in the house looking at the bookshelf He doesn't want to let it go because like I'm looking at it and I see that it's real wood And so therefore I can't let it go because not only is it cost a lot of money But it's very well built where am I ever gonna find another well-built bookshelf, right? But if I'm out walking and we're talking about other things in nature and I mentioned the bookshelf He's disconnected from it enough that I consider you're done with that bookshelf And he says I think I'm done with it and once I get permission to let it go I've done the exact thing that you just mentioned where I just take a picture of it I put it outside in the driveway after he's gone to work and then I say hey, it's free. You want to come get it It's yours and then first come first serve. It's gone within like 20 minutes, right? But I've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff I call it my driveway clear out because I'll ask while we're out walking and when he's Disconnected from it and he has a chance to think about it. I don't you know, I don't really think I'm using it I think I'm done with it once I get permission. I don't ask again, and I hurry and I get rid of it Before he changes his mind and then decides he really does want it and he's gonna hang on to it for forever But I'm at a point of my life or just because my grandparents had something for their whole lives And then my parents had it for their whole lives I don't need to have it for my whole life just because there's a lot of different choices out there Yeah, right and so I'm giving permission like you said, where do you draw that line? And you say I'm gonna give myself permission to have a pink or a purple room like you did with your dollhouse Well, and you're also have to give yourself permission to get it wrong sometimes we do get it wrong I made some serious errors with paint in my house as I was figuring out my new career, right because I experimented on myself not on my clients and Recognizing that getting things wrong in life is just part of being alive and it doesn't mean it's the end of the world So you might get rid of something and later go. I wish I'd held on to that and Still be okay, right still be like, oh, you know, yeah, I did misjudge that for me in addition to the permission it Comes to a place of gratitude and generosity I want to be able to walk through my house and only feel gratitude for the things I own Which means that I can't be holding on to things that make me feel icky and then I want to be generous and not hold on to things I'm not using because That feels Ungenerous to me like oh, I'm holding on to this. Why when somebody else could make really good use of it You know, we're leading up we're moving to Paris and We're selling everything and this is really hard for me because I I love my stuff It's in my house We're holding on to our treasured mementos our scrapbooks the things that we are irreplaceable But I'm letting go of everything and it's because I want to start off this new chapter of my life from a place of generosity rather than fear So will you sell your things will you give them away? You're taking just a bare minimum. What are you? What are you doing combination? So we're gonna be putting everything into three piles There's gonna be the pile of if we stay in Europe long term We'd ship this stuff to ourselves Okay, because right now it's a two-year plan for how long we'll live there And then we don't know then they'll be the pile of if we bail And come back in two months We want this stuff accessible And then there's the pile of everything we're letting go And so we found somebody who just bought a house and they're buying almost all of our furniture too Because they are going from one bedroom house to an eight-bedroom house. They're like, oh, wow we need stuff and And then I'm doing a house cooling instead of a house warming And we're gonna have all of our friends come over and have them take some of the Mementos that we don't want to keep but that we don't want to just drop off at Goodwill We'd like somebody to have given them a new story Hmm. I love that So what happens if you decide to move and you said you have a bail a bail option where you decide to come back What would be the the circumstance would be job related would it be family related you just get home sick? Well, so it's coming a little bit from a place of fear for me I was in the Peace Corps when I got out of college and I lived in Nicaragua and It wasn't a great fit for me. It was not a great experience So the one time that I have been an expat on my own was not a roaring success. The circumstances this time are completely different I have an amazing partner life partner travel partner I have a career that has meaning because I'm a business coach to other interior designers So I don't think we're gonna bail but I know now that you don't know when you do something this big in your life You don't know the outcome and so I'm just trying to give myself Permission like we were talking about earlier to not control and I can't control the outcome anyway So like the more open to What's coming it's just too big of a change in my life to know what's on the other side of it? Let me ask you a really weird question. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense So let's say that you move over to Europe and we've got lots of friends here from Europe So hey all of our European friends. I know I'm for your neighbors guys What happens if you go to Europe and you decide being over there that this is a new chapter of your life? Instead of bringing all of the elements from your old life That you just completely start over and you say hey wow That's what they have here And this is the decor for this area and I'm gonna start over again I'm gonna do something new and start fresh because it is a fresh start But starting over fresh instead of bringing all of the stuff that you used to have Overseas with you and then pay a fortune to ship Yes, because I have been learning about shipping and apparently it's a very expensive and fraught with challenges So you're saying just how does that feel if I start from from scratch like that? Yeah What what see here's the thing and this is what where I where I think of this I've gone on a lot of trips and I travel like six vacations a year I'm really fortunate and I like to go all over the world and when I get to other places of the world I always ask myself this question If I were to stay here right now with the stuff that I have with me right now Could I survive and my answer is always yes because I always take two laptops with me And I've got my my online business with me. Yeah, I could I could make it work So are you gonna like die without all your stuff? Like how connected are we to our stuff? And I think being in the house with all the stuff. I'm like, oh, yeah, I feel like I'm at home But I've been in other cities and other places where I totally felt at home and I'm like right I could do this Yeah, and it reminds me a little bit of your story with your husband and and you know The permission aspect of once we're away from our stuff. We do not feel nearly as attached to our stuff Right, so it's only the letting go honestly. That's hard And then once you do it's like if you pay a bill after you pay the bill it doesn't hurt anymore paying the bill That's a lot right um and You know, I do believe in fresh starts and it may come from the fact that I grew up military I like wiping the slate clean and getting a chance to completely reinvent myself, you know after my divorce I chose my own last name. It's not my family name or anything West was my my own invention I like these opportunities to think who am I going to be in this next chapter? I like to reinvent my wardrobe So shopping at Goodwill is my favorite thing because I can totally start from scratch without paying new prices Um, so yeah, I'm I actually want to embrace exactly what you're describing Let's start from scratch and I think that's important because our homes get a vote as well Right the geography of where our home is affects what should be in them or what feels right in them what colors they're gonna be and Living in Europe. It's all about small spaces and we're treading Steps that have been walked by people over hundreds of years. It's a completely different culture And so I don't want to bring my American habits and my American lifestyle To Paris completely. I do want some of the comforts of home Because we are all about all about comfort and convenience in America But I also really want to experience Smaller living daily shopping, you know, they don't have big American fridges They don't have big American sized appliances You are much more living in the moment there with your daily and weekly grocery shopping and things like that and I'm not gonna be going to Costco and stocking up on six months of toilet paper and cat litter Which means that I'm gonna be hauling cat litter up six flights of stairs Working out. I won't need a home gym because there's six flights of stairs between the street and my apartment So, yeah, I don't want to just transplant my American experience. I want to Find out how to adapt myself and learn from a European experience in this case No, if we were to take that same concept because that's a really pivotal concept that you just mentioned How do I change knowing that my life's gonna gonna change? What if your life was not gonna change and you do get to stay in the same house, right? What can you give yourself permission to let go of that would clear up your space and give you the design space so that you could either paint the walls or you could change out the furniture or you could Swap out a rug for something new and just give your whole room a different kind of a look or a different kind of feel How could you do that living right where you are right now? And that's exactly what I did when I Got the house and the divorce, you know, I was stuck with the house. I wasn't moving There's that would be stupid because I was blessed to get it So I had to find a way to move on without moving out And so my advice whenever I'm working with a client is Look at let's dream and let's pick one space that's going to give you the biggest sigh of relief So for some people that's your private spaces like your bedroom What you wake up to needs to be the moment that pivotal moment in your day. So let's okay Let's focus on your bedroom. Let's give it a new paint job. Let's get you some new bedding Let's put the bed on a different wall or I even had one client post divorce, you know, because that's obviously a common transition And she's like, I do not want to sleep in the same bedroom that I used to share with my ex-husband So we we converted her Her bedroom to being one of the old guest bedrooms And then she took over the master with its en suite and made it her home office So she had this grand palatial work from home space and a cozy refuge of her own for sleeping That had no memories of her past marriage Well, and I'm glad you brought that up because we've got a lot of people right now Even in the the space that I'm working in where people are doing that They're taking the primary suite that has this great big room in a little tiny bed in the middle of it And it's wasted space and then they're crammed into a little what was a little bedroom that they're making their home office We're doing that exact same thing. We're saying, what are you doing inside your primary bedroom? You're like sleeping like let's move the bed to a smaller room where you can go in and it's cozy And you can sleep and take that whole entire what was the primary suite and make that the home office Where you have room for a studio or bookshelves or a place, you know With a little sofa where you can sit there and watch tv or take a catnap or whatever Because we're finding that people are then embracing like it's I didn't move to a new house I moved my house around And I used either the same furniture or I was able to get that futon that I always wanted that You know when nobody's you know people in the other room I can like take a little catnap and nobody knows Right, but it's it's using that space in a different sort of way that makes you feel differently about living where you live I love that. You nailed it. Exactly I love that we have uh the broken homes the broken road homestead here with a question that says Um, I'm moving into a new homestead and struggle with organizing barns and outbuildings in the house Have gotten rid of some things, but oh the struggle. I want to be organized Yeah, this takes me to a question. Is it better to organize the stuff that we have? Or just to get rid of it Well, obviously there's no blanket answer to that But if I were going to give a blanket answer it would be to get rid of it We all have way more stuff than we can handle and you know when people ask me about organ organizing so often The first question they ask is what organizing system should I buy what containers should I buy and I'm like Wait a minute. We got to start with a much more important question What are we organizing and why are we holding on to it? Because there's just no reason to organize something that you shouldn't be holding on to in the first place You're wasting energy and time and time Is the one thing that's not a renewable resource. We want to be really careful and thoughtful about how we're spending our time This is why a lot of times it's not necessarily worth your effort to try and Sell something and squeeze every dollar out of it because you know, how long is it going to take you? Time-wise and energy-wise to get that money out of that object and would that time and energy be better spent elsewhere? Again, no cut and dry answer, but you want to ask yourself these questions So uh get rid of things is always a good idea always Well, and I love the fact that you were weighing it against your time and your emotions Because if selling it and creating ads is not your specialty and that's going to cause you a lot of stress Putting it out in your driveway and just taking a picture of it throw it up on next door saying hey come get it It's yours. It might be an easier Way to go for a lot of people. I know for me. It's a lot easier I don't and I don't even want them to come to my door and knock and say hey I'm here to pick up the free thing. I'm like don't don't interrupt me Just come get it take it away and make it disappear Exactly and I think the longest we've ever had anything in the drive is like 26 minutes is the longest it was ever there Boom and it's gone. It's like that was fast And now somebody gets to use it and they're so happy Well, and I'm happy because of the free space that it's cleared up And what I'm looking at is is my day better And like you said if you're working from home And I know I am as I'm working from home If there's stuff all over the desks and there's stuff sitting in the chair and there's stuff over here When I sit down my creativity even though I may be focused at an unconscious level I'm analyzing all the different stuff and why is this here and how come I didn't move that and Some of the stuff we have in our homes and I see this every day with the people I work with They have stuff. They're not attached to it's not an emotional thing They just never got rid of it and they don't know why like it's just here Somebody brought it in or somebody left it or whatever it's just here And I I never took the initiative to get rid of it So then we have all these weird things that are tripping up our unconscious mind and wrecking our creativity And it's just there for no good reason And if they walk themselves through it, they'd go this is here for no good reason. Let me just get rid of it Right. Oh, but that would require effort Yeah, or it's going to disturb somebody else's emotion You know, you might not have a motion attached to that object But you're taking on the emotion of whoever gave it to you like it's my it was my grandma's it was my aunt's My aunt gave this to me. It was a gift from so-and-so This person moved to europe eight years ago And I told him I'd hold on to this thing and they're never coming back and I now I have now I have to hold, you know So many emotional burdens that people hand us when they hand us stuff even if it's well meant Yeah, you know when we got married and this is 21 years ago My mother gave us a waffle iron And I can count on one hand the times that I've made waffles since I've been married we just we don't eat waffles It's just not who we are and I got rid of it And so my husband one day said don't we have a waffle iron here somewhere and I said we did and I got rid of it Did you get rid of it? It was perfectly good. It was But we made one used less than five times in 21 years of marriage. Therefore. We don't need it We haven't we haven't missed it for the last three years since it's been gone, you know Yeah, yeah, hopefully somebody is making amazing waffles in their home now Yeah, but I mean there's so many things that many of us have in our lives many of us have in our homes That we just have because like you said somebody's that was important to us gave it to us But it doesn't necessarily mean That it is part of our lives. Yeah, or should we yeah And we often have to evaluate how many tokens of memory do we need to remember an event or something You know one photograph of an event for me will trigger the entire memory. I don't need a hundred of photos of the same Maybe one teacup from an entire dish collection will bring back memories of your grandmother. You don't need the whole set Um, you know, we're thinking about this as we move to paris and a lot of the things that we're getting rid of I'm just taking a photo of it Sometimes when people are taking the mementos as part of the house cooling I'm taking a photo of them with the object and then making a little note of why they picked that thing for their house So we don't have to like people feel like they have to get rid of the memory or they have to get rid of grandma when they throw out our dishes, but The memories don't go away Just the stuff and we clear out room Uh, well moving and I know moving across the country you're gonna have to make some tough choices But I know that when we moved from one house to another we had to make some tough choices You know it was because we had just bought this whole house full of furniture that fit perfectly where it was But then when we moved to a new house, even though it was a bigger house It had walls in different places And there were windows that you wouldn't put that piece of furniture in front of a window for example And so the walls were different and our furniture didn't fit and we had to then downsize some of our furniture And I was like, oh, but we just paid good money for this, you know And I it was it was literally a conscious decision Do I want to get rid of the furniture? But it didn't fit the design or the layout of the new home And we went from a home that had lots of little walls on the inside The great big open space plan and there were no walls to put that furniture up against So we ended up getting rid of a lot of furniture And moving to our next home and we haven't moved yet But I'm already thinking would I take this item right now to the next home and the answer is no I wouldn't So Wait a second. Why do I have it now? Yeah, right? If I'm not using it now and I wouldn't take it to the next home Can I give myself permission right now to go ahead and let let go of that? And it isn't those small moments that I think we do our best work All right, you know people try and attack clutter or cleaning the house or remodeling their house They tend to start with like Picturing the entire project and that's just too big. It's overwhelming for anybody So we should be taking it one object at a time just you know If every day you just looked at one object in your house and go do you belong here or not? And then if once a week the answer was no and you took action on that That's one thing out of your house every single week So it's it doesn't have to be this huge ordeal and it's frequently More successful if you're building a tiny daily habit than trying to kill yourself doing it all at one time That's a great point I know that with your clients you have a lot of conversation About items in your house that are just flat out hard to clean. Yes Tell me about that because as a professional house cleaner. I have a whole laundry list of those Where I say uh, no way I would never have that my house because I know how hard it is to clean or how high maintenance Well, I'm excited to hear what your list is but I'll start with mine So yeah, so I am a full professional interior designer and up until recently I was helping people with full remodels and obviously I've gone through my own And I also had my own housekeeping business when I was in college. That's how I paid for my part of my tuition So yeah, it was super fun I actually loved it because I'm like cleaning your own house when you clean somebody else's house You can pretend it stays clean in your head for like a whole week And I loved that. All right. That's how it works So Yeah, okay. Here's a couple of items. Um, if you're doing your if you're doing a kitchen or bathroom remodel I like to avoid natural stone. So like travertine is really inexpensive for bathroom tile. I did that to myself once Marble is a classic kitchen counter beautiful But the problem with both of those is that they're made of the same thing as limestone and they're easy to etch So if you use any kind of a cleaner that has I think it's an acid high ph It will etch that surface. So you have to be thoughtful about how you're cleaning it Which I don't want to be thoughtful about how I clean anything in my house So can I can I stop you right there because we're we're just teetering right on the brink of one of those It just makes me so angry and that's that's the natural stone back splashes behind the stove And I bid two jobs this last week and I walked in and they're beautiful homes And I looked at I'm like, uh, no way and I'm trying to make my eyes stop from rolling in my head like Uh, you so did not just do that and I'm thinking spaghetti sauce and bacon grease and as soon as it hits that stone games over Yeah, I can't I can't help you there. You know, and I don't mind Why do people do that? All of you guys stop that. Please don't tell your builders. Don't do natural stone is a back splash Well, and it's it's a problem because sometimes it's Inexpensive and sometimes it's just gorgeous. There are things first of all, there are things you can do with natural stone that are really hard to do with porcelain and Mother nature my first my first degree was geology. I love Rocks, I love what this planet has created And so there are things you can do and there are things that natural stone looks like that you just cannot replicate That's getting better Because with the printing technology now porcelain tile Is phenomenal and if you go with a little bit higher end porcelain tile where they don't repeat the pattern over and over again Which is a real giveaway that it's not natural stone Some of it really looks real You have to pay attention to your edges Right because the cut edge of that tile won't look like a cut edge of the piece of stone So you have to be a little bit clever about it But they're with technology now. There's lots of solutions that don't require natural stone And that's what we want to go with And so yeah, so marble travertine natural, uh, and when I say natural stone granite Isn't nearly as high maintenance And granite is a word and interior design that is used for basically all natural stone that isn't marble So it means something specific in geology Ignore that definition and interior design. It's just natural stone. That isn't marble. Basically That still needs sealing officially about twice a year. Nobody does that like nobody You should But it doesn't tend to stain and etch the way marble was so you're not taking as big a risk if you don't seal it But if you're wanting the lowest maintenance kitchen counter or any counter surface Um, and you want the stone look then that's where the quartz is come in That's a man-made product that doesn't take any sealing or anything It's made from stone But it's also got a bunch of resins and stuff in it that make it So you don't have to seal it and that's sealed right so that it doesn't have the porous effects of Exactly. Yeah. Now obviously anything can be nicked or stained if you work hard but hard enough at it And um, or you're neglectful enough Exactly, but it's a pretty good bulletproof surface And then I also like to shout out laminates because they're not as you know Fashionable right now, but they are so bulletproof. They're fabulous Um, so laminates for less expensive super durable counter surfaces And then of course the quartz is are really easy to use and then in those bathrooms porcelain and ceramic tile just Just don't install the natural stone Especially in your shower floors and your and your and your bathroom floors around the toilet Because urine is an acid and it will etch and stain because I mean, it's mostly the boys, but I suppose us women might be making a mess sometimes too But pee gets on the floor around your toilet And you're not going to clean that up often enough or frequently enough to keep it from etching So you get those horrible stains and smells and smells because it soaks in. Yeah, because it is a porous material But hey, at least we've stopped putting carpets in the bathrooms. So that's a win Every time somebody has those like little covers that go over the toilet seat and I grow up with those The furry toilet seats, whatever they send me pictures and they're like, is this still a thing? I'm like, please no, please don't oh It's a thing I grew up in kentucky most of my life and it is definitely still a thing I think my grandmother had one of those when I was young and at the time it seemed really cool and soft, you know But now that now that I know better. I'm like, uh, no, please don't I know So another please don't for me is the ferns that people put above their kitchen cabinets And oh, yeah, when the cabinets don't go all the way to the ceiling gone in too. Yeah And there's like bacon grease on all the ferns or all the flowers that are up there I'm like, why did you do that? People are like, oh, it looks so beautiful Well, it does for a week the first week and then when the dust starts settling and nobody ever dusts it on time So literally four times a year. We got to pull all those plants out. We got to take them outside We got a hose and rinse them down and put some suds on them And I mean we got to give them a full bath Yep And then they go back to a cooking bacon grease and it goes right up there And then when dust comes into the kitchen or the air conditioning kicks on it dances around your house And it sticks right on those leaves. Oh, it looks atrocious guys. Please don't you're gonna have me at your house yelling at you going on away This is really the key to a low maintenance house is you first have to figure out what low maintenance means to you And what you're willing to do Like I don't I don't keep house plants because the maintenance of house plants isn't worth my time and energy I love them. I'd love to have a jungle. Oh But it's not worth my time and energy And that's the large part because travel Is too high of a priority for me and travel and plants are in conflict with each other You know clutter clutter means something different to everybody. I have a rock, you know geology major I have my rock collection. I love my rock collection But that's a lot of tiny tiny things to dust. So I only display them behind a closed cabinet So we have to be very thoughtful Parties I For me my home is a is a social place I want to have people come over and I want them to drink wine and I want them to eat food And I don't want them worried about spilling on my carpets So my carpets are low cost And they are They have a pattern to them so that they'll camouflage the sins of life Whereas if you choose a solid colored rug, it's going to show every fuzz every pet hair in every stain And and you either have to live with that or replace it. Whereas if you have a rug that's a bit more camouflaging It'll live longer in your home and and cause you a lot less stress or at least me Well, and I'm glad you brought that up when you said it will camouflage the sins of life And I think that's really important when we also talk about pet proofing our homes Because there are a lot of people that have pets that Um have abused the furniture So if you have furniture that is pet friendly or you have things in your house That are pet friendly like a rug that will forgive the sins of life and things like that Then it's going to be much more user friendly as far as your home goes Or if you have a family coming over you're not at the last minute scrambling going. Oh, wait a second I have to either renovate or replace everything in my house before my relatives come And I don't I don't want that to happen either, right? We want to create a space That's that makes you feel safe at home That makes you feel like, oh, yes, this is my happy place And that makes you want to have people come over And we have a lot of people that I deal with every day that are embarrassed to have people come to their homes Because those homes don't their homes don't meet that criteria. Yeah, and so how do we get from I'm in a place where maybe I don't really want my friends and family to come over or when they come over I'm just shoving everything into one particular room and slamming the door and hope they don't go in there To getting to a place where you're like, hey, come on come on in my house is yours I would say that the clients I've worked with her in that situation. It's usually Best when we focus on the public spaces first, you know, give them a big win And so I'm thinking of a specific client right now. She Her husband had lost her his job And he was really really depressed because that happens for us, right? And she had bought him a big tv like a bunch of things just like try and like pep him up And it wasn't working and so out of desperation. She actually called me an interior designer I have no idea what made her think to do that and she's like, I don't I don't know what to do She's like but I bought this huge tv and now it's eating my living room and and everything looks even worse So we ended up We got rid of about half of their furniture because they had too much furniture We repainted the walls a medium color so this big tv blended better into the walls It didn't seem so massive against a big white wall And what was so cool was the husband who was really not on board with the project He's like whatever do whatever you want. He was you know, he's just feeling depressed He didn't have a big vote or care to say anything He came to me afterwards and he said I had no idea How ashamed I did feel how much that was keeping me from having people over And I feel so much better and so much lighter Because I I feel proud when I walk into my living room when I walk into my house And then he asked me to help with his home office Because that it was like it cracked open a little bit of light in the darkness and he saw hope And so then we did his home office and then he started his own firm in the industry that had been fired from Wow, I know So go so the point is Try to identify one room do not tackle the whole house Tackle just your entry or just your front porch. Like what's the very first impression? That your guests are going to have that sparks shame start there And then once you feel good about that move to the next Step that they're going to see that sparks shame And the what's so wonderful and what I found when I was making over my own home Is it builds momentum? You have to have courage to get started And you have to take on wins that are small enough that you actually win Because once you have one win You get hungry for the next one and the next one and the next one and the next thing you know your whole house It's done and it's a big thing I I want to tag one tip on to that because I think you're spot on there And for those people that are like I just can't seem to keep my house clean Once you have a win and I really want to tag on what Rebecca just said because this is really important you guys When you have a win and let's say it's just the little area on your vanity Next to where you put your makeup on in the morning if that area is clean That's a win and now keep it clean So when you're done just get one of those little tiny, uh, Swedish dishcloths It's like a paper towel sponge thingy and it's very small You just wet it ring it out and just fold it over the top of your faucet leave it there But it can get wet every time you brush your teeth or you put makeup on or whatever Grab that wet it and wipe the area down and wipe out the sink Now you have that win, but now it is a new way of life for you And so every time you brush your teeth every time every morning every night when you go to bed at night Just wipe that out. It only takes a couple of seconds But you're maintaining that area and then what happens is it starts to eat edge It's weighed down your vanity and as you use makeup and you put it away wipe them off and put them back And then maintain that area and let it grow a little bit What you'll find is without you know, oh, it's this huge cleaning project It becomes a little tiny bit that you just kind of eat edge it over every day And you make that space a little bit bigger and bigger and then you maintain that And it makes it so much easier because suddenly it becomes the new norm And without changing everything and going oh that's so out of my comfort zone My comfort zone is all cluttered and messed up and toothpaste dripping off of everything It becomes your new norm and even if it's only one bathroom sink What happens is you go in the next bathroom You're like wait a minute my new norm is like clean and tidy And you'll start tidying things up and like rebecca said it it starts building momentum And then you'll find that every day for a year you've kept your bathroom vanity clean And you're like whoa, look at me now, right? You've created a new normal And that's what I want to encourage you guys to do You don't have to live an old lifestyle in the current home that you're living in Our bodies reproduce themselves like every seven years from top to bottom We have a whole entire new cellular structure our hair our teeth our nails our bones Everything rebuilds itself. Why are we trapped in the old version of us? When we have all the capabilities of becoming Something new as our body is regenerating itself and becoming a whole new person, right? Create the new norm and let it evolve with you I love this rebecca This is just fantastic. Thank you. Well, and and those wins are so important and in our culture We are so terrible at celebrating our wins You know, we if we have a list of 10 things on our to-do to-do list We get one done all we think about are the nine that we didn't get done So in my coaching sessions and also with my accountability partner, we meet every single week We start with our wins. We've got to take a second to celebrate them And so if you haven't developed a habit of celebrating your wins I encourage you to keep a list of things you've accomplished And anytime you start beating yourself up over what you haven't accomplished. Go look at that list and go, oh, yeah I did do that And then yeah, the the habit thing is huge People that keep their house clean Aren't miracle. They aren't magic. They just have built habits over time And so for us in our house, we have daily habits that help us keep things clean We have a rag underneath of our vanity where we do we wipe out the sink and wipe off the top every time we're done We keep what we call picnic blankets in the living room They're these really pretty textiles that we picked up in spain And so when we eat on the couch, which is pretty much every night for dinner We're all you know for being honest again First we just spread out that textile on the couch so that we're not worried about spilling and worrying And then we put the picnic black blanket away or throw it in the laundry if we did spill And it's easy. It's kind of it's like setting the table. Only we're just setting the sofa There's these little things that help you keep it tidy And then our other secret is because I do like to consider my house a social space We use parties for the deep clean because you do still need the deep clean. You can't the daily habits don't get the corners So whenever I know, okay, it's time to host a birthday party or I want to have You know a friend's giving Then I get so excited Because I know I'm in a deep clean the house but everybody comes over and I'm doing it for them because my You know swiss military baptist father's had voices. It's still in my head telling me to but also I get a clean house. I get a party And after the party I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor. It's awesome I'll love that. I love the inspiration that drives the momentum. That's so cool You mentioned earlier Um, just just because clean is good. I love cleaning Not everybody feels that way, you know Uh, no, and I I'm not I'm not a fan of cleaning. Um, as opposed to what everybody thinks I don't wake up in the morning go. Oh, yeah, I get to clean today But I clean because of the way it makes me feel And I like the way that I feel better than how I feel when my house is dirty or clutter Wake up every day and I'm not to be arrogant. I'm kind of arrogant, but here you go I like to wake up and say I deserve a clean house And I'm only going through this life one time. So if I get to go through today today is a gift How do I want to spend today and how I want to spend today is I want to spend it in a tidy area That's clean. That makes me feel fantastic So that when I'm here if I'm working out of my house, I was here today I got to spend my whole day in this space. This is the space. I designed this is the space I want to hang out and this is my safe place and I have rules about my house that go far beyond cleaning This is a no drama house. You do not even get to bring any drama into my house And so if you come to my house, you're like Whatever then go outside and go take a walk around the block and when you're happy you come back Because that's not that's not happening here. See you bye and I will boot you out my door. Go go. Goodbye Because it is about the energy. It's not just the visual clean. It's about the emotional cleanliness too Well, and it's it is it your happy place And I love that that's the name of your business because for me My home is my happy place. It's a safe place I can go outside and get all kinds of crap in the world around me and there's anxiety and there's frustration And there's you know drama and whatever but when I come home, it's like, whoa I'm at that happy place, right? And it's the one thing one place we can control and this is why I want people to understand how much influence and and and control they have Because we can't control what's happening outside of our front door But we sure as heck can control what's happening inside our homes. We have that power and that agency Well, and that's interesting you brought that up because my husband and I had a really heart to heart on us chat the other day And he keeps thinking. Oh, I got to move. I got to move and he's been over at this new neighborhood every day for a couple weeks Looking at a new house and I got to move and then suddenly it was a car I got to give you a new car a new car. Well, there's nothing wrong with the car you have and there's nothing wrong with the house You have why are you moving? And you're like, I just need to move I need I need to do this And we narrowed it down to know you don't need to move What you're trying to do is your whole life is about to turn upside down And you're trying to seek control of it before it turns upside down His father's own hospice right now and his father's going to leave us at any moment And his world is about to dump upside down And I said, I think what you're experiencing right now has nothing to do with the house and nothing to do with a new car I think it has everything to do with you're about to lose control over something you have no control over And I said until you resolve that It doesn't matter where you move you're going to have the same anxiety in the same fear of loss Buying something new or bigger or different is not going to change. What's about to happen And what's about to happen is inevitable. You don't have control over it. You just don't And so having some of those hard conversations with ourselves, they're not they're not pretty and we can't always resolve them There's I hate to say I don't always have an answer at the end of our our conversations, right But having those conversations makes us stop and it gives us pause and says wait a second I I am happy with the house that I have or I am happy with the car that I have and what I have is enough Or you can say like you did I'm going to stay in the house that I'm in but I am going to run out to my garage And I'm going to get a different color paint whatever happens happens And I'm going to give it a world because whatever I'm in right now is not the space I want to be in And we do have control over some things and I love the fact that you were like at didn't work out But I sure gave it my best, you know Yeah Exactly, which brings me to my next question. Um, you're really great with helping other people through those difficult moments Tell us about your consulting business and how somebody might work with you What does a session with you look like? Yeah, it's actually pretty straightforward at this point because of the upcoming move so I offer what are called design help lines and they are an hour long session by zoom and People just bring me their design challenges their home challenges and we talk through them and Ideally we always come up with actionable practical steps that they can take To solving whatever the problem is it's presenting and so Sometimes it's about like the emotional like I just feel icky and I don't know why and sometimes it's super specific Like I need to pick a backsplash and I don't know where to start, you know Um, so yeah, it's all via zoom. It's all on my website happystartsofhome.com or seriously happyhomes.com they both get you there and uh easy And I think you have an email thing where if somebody was to set up a session with you Um, you're going to give them a somebody a free coaching So today for everybody who decided to make time for us today. I wanted to say thank you So if you email me at rebecca at seriously happy.com tell me your favorite takeaway from today I always want to know what's resonating with our listeners So if you tell me your favorite takeaway One person is going to win a design coaching session with me a design helpline with me And then everybody of course will get my top 10 practical tips for creating a happy home Oh, I love that that's awesome So people can just email you and they'll get their your 10 free tips They give you the best takeaway from today And then one of those people is going to win a free Consulting session with you. Oh, I love that. Awesome. Thank you for that. That's so cool Um, so tell me how does someone pay you is that on a retainer? Is it on an as you go session? It's just per session. It's all set up to be paid um, I believe through stripe But yeah, when you credit card people pay with a credit card or something pick your date You pay the fee you tell me a little bit about your project and then I show up and and help Oh, I love that that is so awesome. Thank you for that All right, you guys now we have time for questions This is my one of my favorite parts you guys have asked some really great questions. Uh, we have francine here who says Francie, I'm sorry. I keep good order on the surface Over the old clutter. I'm no longer the hoarder, but I can't face the mess What advice would you give to francie? Oh, I'm not sure I understand her question. It sounds like she's It sounds like she's gotten rid of the clutter Yeah My first question if I were working with her would be where is the feeling of It being a mess coming from so first question I always want to know is Do you feel like it's a mess or is somebody else telling you it's a mess? Because we have to remember this is our house not our mom's house or sister's house our neighbor's house our friend's house So first I always want to pause and find out where is the feeling that it's not good enough coming from And then if it's coming from inside of you, then what would it take to not feel that way? What's one tiny Shift or one big shift even that would flip that for you. So it's always about asking yourself questions first Where is this feeling coming from? Is it my feeling or is it somebody else's burden that I'm carrying? And then what is one small action that would move me closer to the feeling? I want to have don't try and solve it all at one time Just try and inch yourself closer To what happiness means for you I love that. Oh, that was a good answer. All right our next one kaley says So do you deep clean after you host or before? I do it before which kind of sounds counter-intuitive because yes I definitely let my guests traipse all through my house and make a mess But the thing is by deep cleaning all the surfaces are super easy to Just spot clean right after the party and my husband and I love it because within half an hour of everybody clearing out You would never know there was a party. So by deep cleaning before there was a party everything already had its home It was already in its home. It's very easy to put things back in their home and the surfaces are already Clean enough that a quick swipe gets me back to normal Plus It gets me past that moment where after we deep cleaned and then like two hours later my husband, you know Leaves the toilet seat up again or something. I'm like, uh, can't I just have 24 hours of clean? Well by having the party be the reason that things aren't perfect. It's a happy thing not a annoyed thing It's all mental games. I play with myself you guys Uh, we also entertain and one of the secrets I found to cleaning up after a party because we always do a lot of food I love the food and food displays everywhere in the house Everywhere you go, there's food and treats and fun stuff to eat But I always purchase these to-go boxes And so when the party's over everything goes in it to go box and we send everybody home with to-go stuff And everything that I want to keep then goes in freezer packs inside the the freezer So that they're all ready to pull out and put in the microwave and eat if somebody wanted to have a meal for themselves So it's not like putting big bowls of food away and then you got to sort through it later and figure it out We do that all as we put the stuff away from the party and like instantly We've got food for the next couple weeks and I always like to overcook So that I have extras and then I get to put on a few extra pounds But let's just left over party food that can't go to waste, you know Those calories never count anyway No party calories. Okay. I love Oh, just real quick. We we do potlucks a lot and because I like to keep it easy And the rule is if you bring it you take it home Otherwise, you're not invited to the next potluck and people laugh about it But it's a great way to make sure you don't end up with a bunch of fridge clutter that you don't need Okay, so what we do is we buy those and you can get these at Costco They're the the to-go boxes that you see like at a restaurant And so we buy those and we put those out at the end And instead of somebody taking home the whole casserole or the whole crop pot full of stuff We let everybody make their own meals to go and then everybody gets to sample each other's food And then take it with them and that way there's no fridge clutter But everybody got like their to-go meal or their lunch for the next two or three days or whatever So that's fun. All right. Uh, we have a comment from uh, you guys our time is running out All right one last question Live with the blue butterflies this hello. I was wondering what to use to shine laminate floors We'll throw this one over to you Rebecca uh, well laminate we're talking about Lvp or pergos two different kinds of laminate, but basically the top surface is just plastic So you can wipe it down with pretty much anything you want. There's no polishing There's no there's nothing going to soak into it. You're not going to restore your floors So I'd probably just end up using simple green or maybe a pine sol But simple greens might go to cleanser for any surface that doesn't need anything special What about you because you're the actual cleaning expert here, uh, so lvp flooring I would use just water and one drop of castile soap and that's going to shine your floors really nice It's going to clean them But like rebecca said it doesn't need a lot and so ph neutral i'm going to keep it really simple And i'm just going to dust it dry dust it when it needs to be damp mop Just a damp microfiber mop head that has it's got water on it and one drop of castile soap Don't not a squirt of castile soap because it will make your floor sudsy One drop in a little mop bucket. That is all you need mark my words one drop And it will shine your floors make them look spectacular and like rebecca said keep it simple. Don't don't overthink it. Yeah Alrighty that is it for today. Oh, man. I'm so sad our time is up But you guys get on the uh on the email send rebecca your, uh comments we designed I win your design coaching session rebecca at seriously happy.com rebecca this is so You guys this is so fantastic. Thank you guys for joining us today I've really enjoyed this and I will see you again next time on the same Network we meet every thursday and this is actually the clutter corner show today We just happened to stream it also to our ask a house cleaner audience because we got lots of friends here that are joining us today But uh clutter corner thursday same time same place next week. So thank you rebecca and we will see you guys again soon