5 Tips To Find Your Style For Interior Design

If someone has something of value that they love, I want to be able to figure out a way to bring that in. And I think that gives me a lot of value as a designer. Some people will just say, Nope, that’s not possible where I’m like, yes, I want to try to make this work for you because it’s such a special piece for you. Welcome to the imperfectly empowered podcast with leading DIY lifestyle blogger on a fuller where women are inspired with authentic stories and practical strategies to reclaim their heart. And homes by empowering transformation, one imperfect day at a time. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the imperfectly empowered podcast. I’m your host, Anna Fuller today on the show we have Kira Jeffers. Kira is a residential interior designer, DIY blogger, Airbnb owner, and mama four with a passion to share purposeful design ideas filled with color. To help create a home. You love who of us does not want a home that we love also a personal friend of mine and a DIY blogging colleague. Welcome design pro Kira Jeffers. Hello. There she is. How are you? Look how cute your room is always. Thank you, except there’s no wallpaper with this view. There’s not, don’t like the queen of wallpaper. I know I’ll have, um, a floral mural, like over here that I really love. So that’s like my pattern in this room, in my rug. Are you able to show us your floral wallpaper or is it gonna mess up your. Screen that we just spent 10 minutes trying to get pork gear on. Hold on, let me turn off my, my main computer screen. This is like, so this is like a hand painted mural. This isn’t actually that’s hand painted. Yeah, I didn’t do it. I hire, um, I have an artist friend who I cute. But if you want me to give a glimpse to that, then I’ll move all this stuff outta the way. oh, no, you don’t have to move stuff. Oh, no. We’re looking at it in real time. No, we’re very laid back here. Right? That’s so cute. And look at your, yeah, you guys saw that sign. Hope house love. That’s where you need to follow her at. See that right there. Hope house love. And that mural is a good taste of what you’re gonna find on her absolutely site. Well, speaking of design, We talked about this before you would say your design is boho style, right? Ish, modern, boho, eclectic. I feel like it’s, it’s constantly changing because I know it’s so hard to define whatever I like right now is what I’m going to do in my home. Yeah. Well, it’s funny cuz people ask me like, what is your style? And I’m like, well, it’s French country meets farmhouse, meets vintage. yeah. All of the above. Well, Kira it’s fun to have you on here. So Kira and I met, oh my word. What. Two years ago now we met in the summer. It would’ve been two years ago. Cause it was COVID. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So there was, this little retreat was called the social gathering retreat. I think it was the first of its kind. And it was like a mini blogging conference sort of, and it was in Waco, Texas. And uh, we’re like similar stage of life were both engram eights. Right? Are you an eight? Yeah. Yeah. Eight. I think we talked about this. Yep. we’re both. Go-geters we’re like what you say? I can’t do it. Yes. I will just watch me. I know I’m a, go-getter at bossy pants and I’m really, really like, you know, and she likes color and wallpaper girl after my own heart, neither of our homes are just white canvases. Unlike what you see right now, don’t be fooled. Yeah. I love your story. It’s I always say it’s so easy to especially. Influencer position. Mm-hmm that we’re in, it’s so easy for people to see our Instagram lives or even our blogging lives, if you will. But especially Instagram is so misleading, cuz it’s like a snapshot in time and it’s easy to look at what we do with our power tools and our gear and miss the back story. Like at some point we had to learn how to do these things. When you look back on your younger self as a little girl, Can you hindsight’s, you know, hindsight, vision’s always 2020. Can you see that? Oh yeah. I could see myself wielding power tools one day. Or do you look back and think like, I would’ve never, ever guessed I’m doing what I’m doing? I don’t think I would’ve ever guessed what I’m doing, what I’m doing in the way that I’m doing it. If that makes sense. Uhhuh. I think I always hoped I’d be in some type of design career. I think I always hoped that I would be a full time working mom, which didn’t start that way. But that’s where I am now. Power tools. Never, never, never, never, even three years ago. I would’ve said never. Yeah, I think. Yeah. So, and then like nine, nine. So you heard that everyone, listen, listen, you heard that when you see her on her Instagram and she is super cute with her overalls and her power tools, just remember, although she’s always been super cute. She was not always holding power tools in her hands. So let’s talk about that a little bit. Rewind. Sure. Tell us some of your story, how you got to where you are. You mentioned you were not always a working mom. You’re a mom of four. Super cute kiddos. Yeah. Just tell us a little bit kind of where you started and why and how you got to where you are today. Sure. I mean, if we can go back to college, like I never went to design school in college. I actually have a marketing degree. Because I went and got, I had a cheerleading scholarship in college. And for me, when I was 18, that’s what was important to me in life was, was my sports. And so I did that. They didn’t have a design program where I had a scholarship. And so I got business marketing degree thinking I can always use that while low and behold, my senior year, they started an interior design program at my school. And I like had. Stinking feeling in my heart that I had like completely did the wrong thing. And like I had like missed my calling, but I wasn’t about to go back and like redo things. You know, when I was more than three quarters of the way down of my right, my degree, I always thought, I always thought I’ll go back. I’ll go back to design school. So I had tons of like sales jobs, retail jobs, all kinds of different jobs. I was even like a nanny for several years after graduating college. And I just never felt like I had anything that I just really, really loved. So fast forward to my mid twenties, Mar met my husband. We got married, we started having a family and it just became this well, I’ll just be a stay at home mom. Like I didn’t really enjoy working when I was working. Yeah. So I’ll just be a stay at home. I was still always like interested in making my home look nice, interested in organizing my home, interested in doing like little crafty things. It was hard to do the big things at that phase of life because they were like, I felt like children were coming out of me. Like, like nerve starts, and then they’re attached you for this unknown length of time. They are. You’ve done yet. Where’s the table for? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So. Anyways, we started building our dream home in 2017 and I took over the whole design process of that. And that is kind of what lit that fire inside of me that I. Had been missing. And I realized that that’s what I needed to do. And so shortly after we moved into our home, our youngest had just turned one and my husband was like, you know what? You gotta start somewhere. Why don’t you like start a separate Instagram account and start talking, like showing people your home and you know, why don’t you just say, Hey, I’m doing, you know, if you need help, like styling things in your home, I can help you do that. You know, it started off as just kinda like. A home styling business is a week for me to like get outta the house a couple hours a week or whatever. And over, you know, a short period of time, I built up like a decent clientele in, in my area. About six months later, I had people on Instagram. Cause my Instagram had started. To grow at that point. Um, reaching out to me from all over the country, asking if I would help them with their home. And it was at that point when my business started growing that I decided I need to like actually go back to design school and get that credential. Yeah. Even though you don’t have to, technically now in these times you don’t have to, it was important for me to have that credential. And so I did end up going back. I actually have my interior design certification. It was just like an online course that I took with basically things that I had been. Practicing in the workplace for a while already. And, um, and then with that, my Instagram, my social media, my blog was growing kind of like at the same time. And so I now had these two areas of my business that were like my babies growing together. Mm-hmm um, You know, and then just, and then I’ve just thrown in all these extra things in the mix, like learning how to use power tools. because why not? You just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, and then you’re like, oh yeah, I like this. Or forget this. This is way too much time. . Absolutely. Absolutely. So how did you, you know, I think there’s so many women who are in positions where they have a love of something. They’re a mom, their kids could be who knows what age of all different stages. And they just don’t know where to start. I mean, it could be anything maybe, maybe you’re listening and you love sewing. Sewing is your passion. First of all, come to my house. Let’s be friends and mine too. yeah. Okay. Me and Kira, you’ve got two clients right here, you know, and, and you would love to be able to make some extra money. Maybe you’d love to do it full time. Maybe you don’t have a passion to work full time, but you would love to do something and monetize your hobby. What advice would you have for that woman? Who’s juggling motherhood. Who’s juggling being a wife. Who’s juggling everything that we. Goes along with that. Mm-hmm how do you encourage her? Where to even where to start? I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is I feel like as mothers, we come up with so many of these roadblocks in our head of why we can’t do something because it’s not the right time. Like I don’t have time for this or, or we have this going on or we have that going on. And my biggest piece of advice is to just start, like, there’s never gonna be a good time. So you gotta just do it. And even if it’s just carving out like an hour during nap time, or, or you, maybe you get up a little bit earlier in the morning or after the kids go to bed, you have a couple nights a week where, where you and your significant other have decided that this is your time to work on, on your hobby, that you wanna turn into a business. I think those are the little times like, okay. Instead of binge watching a show or instead of reading a book, I’m going to lean into this hobby. I don’t know. That’s just that, that I think, I think we can always find little segments of time. I mean, sometimes it was during that time and I didn’t make dinner that night or right, right. We liked quick deal or, you know, or maybe the house didn’t get cleaned up. Like I wanted it too, but I had that me time and that was so, so important. Yeah. I love the concept that you’re alluding to that I, I think. Perfect is that it’s not all or nothing. And I, this is true for men too, actually, who are in a full-time job that they hate and want to know, how do I, how do I launch a side hustle that I could eventually, maybe do full-time and I think what you’re saying is perfect. It’s this idea that it’s not all or nothing. It’s not like you instantly move into this full time, but it’s the idea. Reprioritize some of those extra hours, like you just said and invest it in what you love. Yes. And see where that takes you. And we both did that in various ways. You know, for me, it was getting up earlier in the morning. That was where I really started everything. When I started blogging. It was the only time I had to myself. mm-hmm , you know, between renovating a house. My husband being a coach’s wife and a coach’s, you know, football widow for three months, you know, it’s just, we all have those things and it’s never a good time. Right. And so you have to, you have to reprioritize some of that time and be willing to put in the work. If you love what you’re doing, though, it doesn’t quite feel as much like work and that’s absolutely. Absolutely. That’s the whole point because , yes. That’s why it’s worth fighting for, because you love it and it gives you, gives you life. The other thing you touched on that I also want to highlight is you involved the significant other. And I think that was something that it took my husband and I a while. To work out is suddenly I was working on Saturday mornings instead of cooking breakfast for the kids, you know, our family breakfast. I was like, you said more often than not, I didn’t have dinner ready. I was still working at my computer. And so we did not communicate well at the beginning. It was kind of like you’re working all of the time and then we had to communicate and be like, okay, That’s something I’m passionate about. It’s been years. I’m now finding something that I enjoy. How can we work together? So he started taking over family breakfast on Saturday morning. And to be honest, I think he’s now kind of proud of it. It’s his thing that he gets to do, you know, dad makes breakfast on Saturdays. So anyway, yeah. I love that you involved the significant other there, cuz. You have to, it has to be a team effort in some way, shape or form. And it was not like an instantaneous thing. It wasn’t like we had one, bam. It’s definitely one of those things where it’s like, um, oh, Hey, by the way, like, I need you to come home tonight because I have an appointment that I have to go to when you go from work. So you’re on duty, you know, it’s just this progression of communication over time that we, it was, it was a shift in our relationship that we weren’t used to in it. Yeah. It took some practice. Or in our case, you fought about it first. We argued about it first, and then we had the rational conversation. sure, sure, absolutely. However it, however it works, however, it works. I recommend the rational conversation first, but sometimes life happens and you have to fight about it first. And then you’re like, okay, we’re both saying the same thing. Let’s stop yelling at each other and let’s have a reasonable conversation. So we talked a little bit about some of the backstory there, power tools. As I mentioned before, it’s easy to see anyone who has accomplished something and forget about the messy before story. When all we see is the, uh, curated highlight reel after the fact, tell us a little bit about the process of learning to use. Power tools. We are both power tool fans. yes. Um, and I have my own stories, but share some of yours and what it was like, what was the first power tool you used and then tell us some of the backstory there. Sure. Well, I, I wanna say the very first power tool I ever used was PR I mean, probably a while back, but it was like a drill I feel like. Right, right, right. That doesn’t really count. Let’s talk about the kind you could saw a finger. Yes. Okay. So the very first time, I think I could probably tell you a date. Like it was . It was like, it was literally like the middle of March in 2020. I decided that power tools were going to be like my, one of my pandemic projects. Like I was gonna learn how to use power tools. And my husband, he asked me for Valentine’s day in 2020, what I wanted. For Valentine’s day. And I told him I wanted a miter saw and a Brad nailer. And he was like, girl, after my part y’all we got excited about powers he had, at that point, I had just been like, thinking about it. And I, so I think when he asked and I said that he was like, Are you sure? Like he, it just came outta left field, you know? Yeah. And so he was like, okay, well, I don’t know which ones you want. So just, just go ahead and pick out what you want and ship it here. And then we’ll like, surprise you. You know? So I bought, I got the power tools for Valentine’s day in 2020, and I kids you not, they sat in my garage for a month. I did not even get them out of the. Because I was like, okay, now I have them. Now I have to figure out how to use them. And, and I wanted to figure out like, like a very easy project yeah. That I can do that wouldn’t that would like help. So it was the weekend after the whole world shut down and I phoned a friend and I said, I just called the hardware store. They’re gonna be delivering me like some one by twos. I don’t know if that’s the right way to do it or not. to call and have them delivered, but will you get on the phone with me and walk me through how to use this saw? Yeah, and we got on FaceTime and she was talking me through it. She’s like, well, you know, you gotta look for this button and this button, and this is how you’re gonna hold the wood. And this is how you’re gonna make the mark. And when you push the button, it’s gonna, it’s gonna have a kickback, like a long, were you videoing this or was this by the phone? We were, we were, that’s a hard tool to describe on the phone. We were on a FaceTime call. Oh, okay. So we were on a, we were on a FaceTime call and so she was like, I was like, show her and be like this one, this one. And she’d be like, yeah. Yeah. So she was there when we made the first cut. And I even remember she took a screenshot when I was done. She posted it. That’s amazing. I love that. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s like that you need that screenshot. Do you have that screenshot? That’s like be blown up on your wall somewhere. I can probably locate it somewhere. I will. You find it, send it to me. She has it. Yep. We’ll include it in the show notes. Yep. So I remember that. And the very first thing I ever built was it was out in my garage. I painted a rectangle. Like in a Navy blue on the wall. And then I framed it out with four pieces of wood, almost like a large picture frame. And then I used some plumbers, pipe and flanges, and I hooked them to like, I screwed them into the wall and I put shelves on top and it was a way for us to like, Put shoes in the garage that weren’t like in like our shoe baskets that we already keep in the garage. Like nice for anyone who doesn’t know this, Kira is obsessed with organization. dare I say, dare. I say, maybe even more than I am, which is saying something for anyone who knows me. It is saying something I don’t know. We’re pretty close, but she might, she might take the. I feel like for me organizing has to come first in a space. Amen. Like you forget cleaning. If it’s not organized, I don’t care how dusty it is. This and the space has to function. Yeah. Like functionality comes before pretty. I just want to be able to mesh the two together. Yeah. And that’s kind of what my brand is all about, so yeah. Yeah. So you racked power tools. You rocked design and then somewhere in all of this, you ventured into the world of Airbnb ownership. So you’re in the home. Yes. Like this is you’re sitting in the home that you built. Yes. And then tell me what got you started with Airbnb. What made you go for it? What are the advantages? The challenges it’s in Arizona, by the way. For anyone who wants a gorgeous Airbnb location with the pool, we’ll, we’ll make sure all those links are included. Don’t worry. We’ll give you all of that, but tell us a little bit about Airbnb ownership and what to consider. What’s hard. That’s great. Wow. I, I feel like that is a very loaded question. Like marriage, Airbnb and marriage loaded. Very loaded question. so kind of all where it started. First of all, it’s always been a dream for us to own homes in multiple places. Early on. We just never really knew where those places were going to be because we were the type we’re like, well, we’re just, whenever we go on vacation, we’re gonna go to different places all the time. Yeah. Until we find that place that just feels like home to us. And Scottsdale, Arizona is one of those places for us, which is a whole nother story of how and why, and, and what brought us out there. It had always been a dream of ours. So about a year ago, what are we in may? Uh, I’d say about a year ago, I looked at my husband and I said, Where are we financially? As far as like possibly, maybe looking for a vacation home somewhere, like literally just throwing it out there, wanting to see if it was a possibility he ran some numbers and, and, and, and, you know, kind of to see where we’re at. And, and we both looked at each other and. He was like, well, where would we go? And we just, we were like, Scottsdale, like that’s where we would purchase a home. And so there were obviously a lot of things that, that went into the purchase of that and, and purchasing home site on scene, like across the country, I could do a whole podcast on weren’t we together when you were you like just putting in an offer on it? Okay. So last year, yeah. When we worked together at Haven conference. Yeah. I had just come back cuz we went out to Arizona every summer. And I remember I flew to the Haven conference from that vacation and I was like super jetlagged. And I remember. And when I came to the Haven conference, I told you that we started looking at houses on that trip. Yeah, we had, we had met a realtor and, and we looked at a few houses on that trip thinking, oh, maybe it’ll take us like six, six months sometime within the next year. Maybe we’ll find a house because obviously the market is like nuts. And so three weeks after the Haven conference, we had done several video walkthrough. Of homes via FaceTime with our realtor. Yeah. And we found one and it was weirdly low priced for the area that it was in. So we knew that it was gonna have like some underlying things and no one had made offers on it and we’re like, let’s go for it. And so we did, I didn’t tell anybody. I mean, very few people knew. I flew out to Arizona for four days. Went through the home inspection, obviously lots of, lots of things that we, we went through the purchase of the home. Tommy flew out four weeks later for the closing still. We had not really told anybody. And then I flew out four days after he did the overlapped labor day, weekend, last year. And then after about a week, he flew home and I ended up staying there for like a month to get this house ready. And it. The most insane month of my career. I believe it, yeah, it was nuts. I mean, every single wall in that home got painted every single cabinet in that home got painted. Like, like there were boxes coming out of places that I did not know that boxes could come out of. It was like, there was so much, I filled up an entire. With just boxes, boxes. Yeah. You know, boxing things that were coming in. So, I mean, that whole process is nuts. I have it all saved. If anybody is interested in going down that rabbit hole, that is all saved to like five different highlight bubbles on my Instagram called like Arizona. Arizona two Arizona three. So that whole rabbit hole is on there. And it was literally like a three and a half week time period. I think it was like 26 and it shows, I mean, it shows them all of the renovation process or the, I should say the decorating process. Yes. So it’s fun to watch. If you enjoy like highlight reels of before and afters, then you will enjoy that. And you also get to see the wonderful Airbnb rental. Yes. That is available. Yes, correct. It is. It is. Well, we are currently switching property management companies at the time when this podcast goes live. Yeah, we should be under the new management. And so people will be able to book as far out as you want to as far out as you want to, there’s a pool. There’s how many bedrooms? There’s four bedrooms there. How many can it sleep? I guess I should ask it that way. Well, it’s hard to say that currently right now, right now sleep’s 13. We might be taking a couple out once we do the transition, so it’ll at least be 10 to 13. So mm-hmm, at this point, go to look at the rental list and to see what we ended up deciding on once we make the transition to new management. So, yeah, and there’s a beautiful pool. There’s a big. Yes. We have fenced in backyard. Yeah. It’s so pretty. It’s huge. Yeah. Everything has to be in Arizona. Like you have to have like a fence or a wall because of like wildlife coming down from the mountains. Like you don’t want a mountain lion in your backyard or your pool. Nope. No, don’t so Nope. From the front yard, you can see there’s a mountain range that you can see. Beautiful sunrise. Yeah. It’s just. It’s got two living areas, dining area, beautiful outdoor space. It’s what would people want to do if they go there other than lounge by the pool all day, which is what I would want to do. yes, but for who aren’t as lazy as me, what would they do? Yes. So Scottsdale is known for its golfing known for its hiking. It’s known for really golfing. I’m not guessing golfing. Yep. Um, they have lots of like major league. Like what is that? The, the big, I almost said lb, but that’s baseball. The big PGA. Is that what it is? Oh, oh, oh, PGA for golfing. Yeah. Like big, huge PGA courses out there. Okay. So like the golfing is big. Yeah. In the spring they have in the spring, there’s a huge golf tournament. There’s a huge like car auction and there’s spring training is out there. Those are huge things in the spring. Um, hiking. Interesting. Um, the green Canyon’s only three hours away. Yeah. Say hiking is a big one. If you guys enjoy, that’s a big one. Yeah. And it’s good for family. I mean, you guys have four young kids, so it’s hiking. That’s also conducive to families as well. Yes. And, and in hiking of all. Ability. So like you do something very, very simple, or you can go and like literally climb, literally climb a mountain in the middle of Phoenix, like right in the middle of Phoenix. yeah. Okay. So most important question. So if a family goes there, somebody visits, is there a restaurant, the number one restaurant recommendation or like food choice somewhere around the house that you recommend? Okay. Yes. So I have about food. Um, no, I have met pool and food. I have many. Um, so there is a breakfast, brunch place called hash kitchen and they have kitchen. I’m gonna make sure my editor has all this in the show notes, people, hash, kitchen. Okay. Hash kitchen. They have amazing breakfast, but more importantly, they have a bloody Mary bar and mimosa flights. Hm. I mean, that’s, we’ll just let that sit there for a second. for a second moment of silence for those of you that need that. Yeah. For the mimosa flights, I mean the, I mean, amazing coffee, amazing, amazing breakfast. The chicken and waffles to die for. Ooh, that’s so good. And then I would say so for dinner, this is a little mom and pop place that we found. The last, when we were there this past Christmas, actually. Yeah, it’s called I Cappo. I Coppo, or I kapa I’ll have to. How do you, how do you spell that? COPPA? I L it’s like, it’s like I L ill, I wanna say cop C a P a or C a P. I’m gonna look it up and I’m gonna send it to, but it’s a P it’s a little, Ooh, Italian. And they make homemade gelato and all of their, all of their pastes, something scratch, you know, their pizzas are like massive and they put all the weird stuff on it. They got normal stuff on it, but they like put the weird stuff on it too. The weird stuff is what makes them legit and genuine and fancy. That’s how we know when there’s weird stuff on it. Yeah. Yes. So that’s awesome. And the owner, the owners are like literally serving too. They’re amazing. They’re amazing. We love that place. Yep. So a breakfast place, hash. Hash kitchen. It’s like B hash kitchen. Mm-hmm love it. My favorite foods, actually, these are both my favorite pizza and breakfast. and then I’ll Coppo cop. We’ll make sure it’s on the share notes. Yeah, little Italian mom and pop pizzeria. I love that. Well, We are gonna take a quick break, but we come back. We are gonna dive into your design expertise a little bit more. Okay. And we’re also gonna play a speed round of this or that. Right? When we come back from this. Great. You have tried it all worried. You will never lose the extra weight or reclaim the energy you once enjoyed. Want to achieve fat loss without spending hours in a gym or eliminating entire food groups from your diet. 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And start your own transformation story. All right, we are back from our quick break. I just verified it’ll Google. It is ill Coppo. Cappo Coppo cop it’s Coppo C a P O. Yeah. Pizzeria mm-hmm . So you definitely need to go check out. I Coppo when you. Kira is Airbnb. Yes. So quick brown here of this or that. Kira you get two options. You don’t have to think about it too hard. Okay. Um, okay, well, let’s start with this. Would you rather hash kitchen or I Coppo hash kitchen candy or baked goods? We’re on a food kick here. Oh, geez. A baked. Good. What’s your favorite baked good banana bread. woo. That’s no judgment here. It sounds delicious. would you rather decorate or do a project? Do a project. Okay. Uh, speaking a project. Would you rather do a fun paint project or wallpaper project? Mmm. She’s got some really cute spray paint, DIY skies. You need to check those out. Does the painting include. Those all of the above. all of, I can’t decide. I can’t decide if it has print or like if I’m doing something fun, like geometric on the wall. Yeah. You know? Oh, that’s so hard. I have such deep roots with both painting. I’m gonna say painting. I’d rather do a painting project. She loves all of the above. I understand these are challenging as much as I try not to make them challenging country or pop music. Pop. I don’t wanna country at all. We’re still friends guys. We’re still friends. I still love here. Flats or heels heels. Okay. Also, let me just make a side note. Speaking of that Haven conference that we went to this girl was like traveling the world. She went to Arizona and was. Had a lot more going on her plate and she still had more clothing prepared than I did. I ended up borrowing like half of her. yeah, you did. I showed up and I I’d never been to the Haven conference and you’re supposed to have these cute little like tea dresses or something for a party. And I didn’t bring a single, super nice anyway, I’m like wearing her clothing and she was, I’m like trying on this dress. I’m like, Nope, I’m falling out of that one. You’re smaller than me. Let’s try on this one. Uh, Anyway, thankfully she has very cute style. I was grateful and she’s prepared. good. Good memories. Good. oh anyway. Oh man. Try to make sure I have enough clothing this year. . It’s the weird dichotomy. That is me. I’m never packed. Well, I don’t know why. Anyway, moving on. So let’s chat a little bit about home design. You have a vast array of experiences and on your website, which people can also check out. We’ll make sure these links are available. You know, you do everything from virtual design consultations to. Full service. I’m reading off your website, building remodeling selection, meetings, site visits, correspondence in person and online purchasing and returns as well as in person staging. You really offer everything from a simple virtual consult to pretty much taking over the project. You’ve created quite the portfolio. If you could boil it down to five of the most important design elements. So creating a home that you love, what you’re passionate about. Yes. Tips. However you wanna phrase that, that question, you know, for the woman who’s looking at her living room, or who’s maybe looking at her entire first floor, whether it be in whole area or just one room, what are your five design tips for her? Even though I think she should definitely do at least a virtual consult with you. What do you want her to think about even before you guys meet, give us your five tips. Um, Okay, this is very interesting that you asked that cause I’m actually getting ready to I’m I’m working on currently. An email where people will get these five tips. Ooh. So it’s very interesting that you happen to ask me that. And I’m like rambling to find my notes real quick to make sure that I’m like, this is like a preview guys. You’re getting it is five secret. You’re getting the, you’re getting the preview that I’m like currently working on developing right now. And so I’m looking for my notes really fast to make sure that I say the right ones. . Uh, we’ll never know. You will never know. You will never know. You will never know. Okay. So five tips. The very first thing is two floor plan. There is a free floor planning website called floor planner. Dot com where you can go in, you can measure out your space, you can actually draw it out in their software. You can add furniture, you can add doors, you can add windows. This is very, very basic. The free version. There’s a paid version, but that’s a free version. That’s very, very basic. And you can actually. Figure out the layout of your space, which is very, very important because you want to know what pieces of furniture you will be able to fit in there. Like if you’re thinking about buying something, a lot of people don’t know, well, what does, what does a 32 inch accent chair look like? And how is it going to fit into this space? And will it be too big or too small? So you can plug all of that information into this floor planning website. So, so helpful. Uh, that is like one of the very first things I do in the design process. Uh, if I, or if I take a step back and just think about the room as a whole, like, I guess this would be tip number one and full pending would be tip number two, but, um, it would be, how do you want the space to function for you? That is always the first question that I ask myself. And I guess the, the two can kind of intermix, like, yeah. How do you want the space to function for you? So you, you need to. If those things will fit into the space, but functionality is the number one thing you should be asking yourself, like, what is the purpose of this room? What are the types of things that are going to be happening in this room? And therefore, what kinds of furniture do I need to plan in this room to serve that purpose? So I guess those are the first two, like figuring out the purpose and floor planning. The third thing would be pulling your ideas together. And I, I call this like speed dating, but like speed Pinteresting if you set a timer for 20 minutes, get on Pinterest and you’re not gonna be lingering on Pinterest, but put in like a keyword, like living room, paint colors, or modern boho living room, whatever, whatever kind of keywords that you could think of for like the mood or the vibe that you want this space to have type those things into Pinterest. And you know that, you know, Pinterest does the drop down things for other ideas too, but, and then quickly, quickly, don’t don’t linger, but quickly scroll through and anything that catches your eye, pin it, no questions asked, just pin it, then move on very, very quickly. Just go through it. Anything that catches your eye, just pin it very, very quickly. I love that. Don’t think about it. Don’t look too close. Don’t think about it. Yeah, no, that comes in the next step. So yeah, so like you just, you go through it really, really quickly. You pin. And then if you’re done, we kinda can’t find anything else for, you know, 30 seconds in that keyword, look for another keyword, but set a time for 20 minutes. And that’s how you’re gonna create your Pinterest board. And then once you have those, you know, 10, 15, 20 things in your Pinterest board from, you know, your 15 to 20 minutes of scrolling or whatever, then you go back and look at it and you study it. And you study things that are similar and you study things like, why did this catch my eye? Oh, well these two light fixtures are both gold. So maybe I am drawn to like the gold hardware in the room. Um, what do I, okay, so these rugs are both kind of neutral, you know, what find similarities in the things that you have. That have caught your eye. And that is always like a really great place to start. And then you wanna to put them into like a mood board. So whether you kind of like clip images and I hear a lot of people say that they use Canva for this. I, I have design software, so I clip things in design software, but, um, a lot of times in the free version of.com you can go in and just, you can upload the images and put ’em in there. And sometimes just seeing all these things next to each other, We’ll just kind of give you an idea of what the space looks like and not that you end up having to purchase those exact things. It’s just giving you ideas of things to look for. If that makes sense. And then I don’t know how many tips that is. Is that three? My next two. I mean, it’s a lot of tips. We might even be past five. It’ excellent. It’s it’s a lot of tips. You might even past five. I. The biggest thing is starting with the biggest pieces of furniture first. Yes. So yeah, I was gonna also throw in there. One of the things that sometimes can help people at the beginning stage is if you have one piece that you know, for sure, without a doubt, you want to be included in a room. Whether it’s as small as like a picture that may only be this big or it’s a rug that you absolutely love, or it’s just one side table that you are in love with. Everyone goes about things differently. For me, I will literally design an entire room around one piece because that is the one piece that I know without a doubt I want highlighted in the room. So if you’re really stuck, that’s also kind of a way to. Search and to consider how you want a room to feel if there’s one piece or even colors, it’s an easy way to start if you have one piece. Absolutely. And if you don’t have that one piece, obviously, you know, that’s not helpful, but more often than not, I usually end up having one piece that I know Yeah. I mean, really inspiration can come from anywhere. I, I have a client, um, that I was at her home about a month ago and she has this antique that was from her grandmother. It’s like this antique Sati, and it’s not exactly the style. Like I helped her custom build their home a few years ago. And it’s not exactly the style, but. I was able to find other pieces that had like some of the same, like, like the arms were similar. Yeah. The curves. Yeah. With the, yeah, the curves of the arms were similar. We’re gonna end up switching out the fabric to it, so that will help. But I was able to, I’m not a, I’m not a designer. That’s just like, oh, that doesn’t go with your home. Like if someone has something of value that they love, I want to be able to figure out a way to bring that in. And I think that gives me a lot of value as a designer. Some people will just say, Nope, that’s not possible where I’m like, yes, I want to try to make this work for you because it’s such a special piece for you. Yeah. It’s kind of the idea of throwing. I think this is hard for a lot of truly like classically trained interior designers. And I think Joanna Gaines probably had a lot to do with this where there was almost like no rules. yeah. The rules were kind of thrown. The window and it’s like, we’ll make it work for you. Like interior design is really, should be about what makes you feel like home, literally what you said. Yes. Creating a home that you love. So if yes, if you hate what a classic interior designer would say is the most beautiful room in the world. Then what good is it? You’re gonna be miserable in your own home. So yeah. I love that approach. We’ll make it work for you. If it’s a piece that makes you smile, then you should absolutely make the rest of the room fit so that you smile every time you walk in the room. absolutely. Except at the end of the day, I’m not the one who has to live there, you know? And so I think I don’t have to like everyone’s style. Like I say, everyone doesn’t have to like my style, but we can still have a mutual respect for things that other people love and things that other people want in their home, because really when it comes down to it, the only people that really matter is the people who live inside those four walls. Like those, the people who should love what’s in the home, what everybody else says, it doesn’t matter. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, I think the, the main takeaway there for people listening is I think that Pinterest suggestion is gold. It’s the idea that you need to quickly pin the things that are instantly speaking to you. Don’t take a microscope to the pictures at first. I think that’s the key is we look too hard and we’re like, oh, actually I don’t. We question it too quickly where I think the advice that you gave is perfect. To just instantly pin the ones that capture your eye. Maybe you don’t even know if you love it or not, but it captures your eye pin that initially mm-hmm and then start to find those similarities and looking at it closer. I think that is gold right there. Kira. Any other closing thoughts and where can we find you and all of your many wonderful resources? Yes. Including the home that we’re all going to rent. Yeah. so you can find me at hope, house love it’s H a U to. T house love and I am, that’s my website. Palm. You can find me at house love on Instagram, on TikTok, basically all of the social media platforms I’m at house love. And then there is a link to our Arizona home, which is called the hope Hacienda, uh, SNDA, uh, linked in my bio on my Instagram page. There’s also a link to it in. On my website as well. It has its own little button called the HOA and we will make sure the, the link directly is in the show notes. It’s in the YouTube description, wherever you are listening to this or watching it, we’ll make sure it is readily available. Kira it’s so fun as always. I don’t know when the next time we’ll see each other in real life. Not via screens or via early morning text conversations. Nobody. I don’t talk with anybody more than Kira in the early morning hours. yes, that’s true. That’s true. We were like every day for a while. Weren’t we? We really were. Yes. We’ve both come a long way. It’s so fun. We kind of are. Yep. Yeah. Story side by side. Well, Blessings friend. I pray. God’s richest blessings over your sweet kiddos, your husband, both your homes, all of your adventures. You thank you so much. And thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to this episode of the imperfectly empowered podcast. I would love to hear your thoughts from today. Head to your preferred podcasting platform and give the show an honest review and let me know what you think. Remember, you cannot be redefined only redeveloped one imperfect day at a time. Your story matters and you are loved.