Curated Conversations: Hey guys, welcome back to Curated Confessions where we drink wine and talk design. Cheers. I think I was supposed to say things I already forgot. ⁓ hi. I'm Hillary Smith. I'm Brittany Palchacomo. And we are the lead designers and owners of Britton Hill Interiors in Prairieville, Louisiana. Welcome. Yes. I'm frazzled. Me too. Okay. Hi. ⁓ My foot is throbbing, so I'm gonna like drink this fast. You said it was from trying to fill up your bathtub, but I feel like it was a pickleball injury. I did not pickleball this weekend. I had big plans to pickleball and there was no pickleball. Did you see about the pickleball? Nevermind, that's dark. There was an airplane crash full of pickleballers. What? I did not hear about this. I don't even know how that's a headline, honestly. ⁓ But I saw that. The plane broke in half. Is everyone? I don't think. No, I didn't click the link. Oh, man. I hope that was spam and not real. Hmm. You know, some of those things that like get you that give you viruses. Maybe it's not real. Is that happening? Yeah. Oh, that's why I don't click the link. Remember you clicked on that speedboat thing and how is on like social media in a comment section? Definitely don't click on those. This was like the news. Oh, man. Well, may they rest in peace. I'm sorry. I don't even know if they passed. I think I just put that out in the universe. Let's move on. I just was like, oh, didn't. It said that there was an airplane full of pickleballers and I was like, when is that happening? Balling out of control right now. don't, I'm not laughing at the airplane situation. I'm laughing at these pickleballers. It's hardcore. I see that. I have yet to go out there and do that. can come to my house and give it a go first if you want. That's still up because you're not impeccable. But no, you know, when you get distracted and you turn on your bath water. I'm going to say when you turn 40. That too. She was in them breaking ankles and playing no basketball. I was like, I hate it multitasking, right? So was like, I'm gonna go start my bath water while I heat my dinner. And then next thing you know, I'm eating dinner. And I was like, got into this show I was watching while I was eating. And that last bite, was like, ooh, bath water. And you have no overflow, huh? And it was a long time. When I tell y'all, it was like, that's crazy. It's a big tub. I would have had a flood. But I like, I jumped up so quick, I about fell on the concrete, hit my head, but I did not roll my ankle though, getting to the bathtub and turning water off. I don't mean to laugh. So yeah, about those accessories I was supposed to do on the ladder tomorrow. I hadn't made that call yet, so I hope she's... watching but I'm gonna have to reschedule that. I called her to schedule or reschedule schedule. Unschedule is that a thing? It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen soon. It has to. Her party is next week. Though I did set up her tablescape. It is adorable. I got some very cute dinnerware? Serveware? Yes. Dinnerware. Dinnerware for a... Have we even talked about this? I think we did. In our rentals. Rental division or doing a rehearsal dinner for a client. son is getting married. Yeah, it's going to be lots of Italian, lots of limoncelloes and ⁓ blue and white and green and accents of yellow. So that'll be in a week. Next Thursday. day, five weeks. So, um, that's happening. But I was setting it up and making sure. Normally I would never do this, but because it's for a client I am, but, um, normally it's just in my brain and then I figure it out on the fly. Yeah. But I am actually like pulled the stuff out and placed on the table to make sure it was going to work the way I thought it would. I'm sure there'll still be plenty of. rises day of, but always are. We're gonna pivot. We're gonna figure it out. We do pivoting really well. I think that's like part of our business model. you see Ross in the sofa? Is that like a thing? That's all I think about every time I say that. I watched a clip of that on something while I growing the other day and I just sat there and watched it like five times in a row and just laughed. That and Big Bang Theory, every time I see them on social media, I'm like, I always watch the clips. I'm like, you've seen this. You can tell like the cast members legit couldn't, like they were like, acting, not just acting. feel like it was. But also I feel like we've tried to deliver that sofa before in this type area. And there's usually, I'm usually Ross. And that's usually what I say when we start talking monthly business numbers. but I digress. Speaking of numbers, we can wait to get into that. We've been like, swimming in numbers today. And I love numbers. I am. We have a lot going on this week, but ⁓ a big part of this week that kind of trickled in from last week is getting a probably the biggest bid we've ever done together. But at one time, like, I mean, we've had clients that have. done large projects, but over the course of three years and we're still doing, you know, one room at a time and it's still, this is... All at once. Yeah. Well, not even all, but... No, but... Not even the whole house, but still... Yeah, I was actually, so I was a bit presumptuous, I think, whenever I opened my mouth and we presented to them, not last Friday, but the Friday before. he was asking if these were hard numbers. And of course I'm like, well, yeah, but like, but not. Like, it doesn't include... tax and install and shipping and it doesn't include any of like the labor to facilitate the items that we've spec'd out and so yeah a lot of it's it's not just you know furniture pillows it's we have to get subcontractors involved in multiple subcontractors that would have to come in and schedule and bid accordingly which we you know normally have go through the homeowner, but we are kind of facilitating it all. it's construction and we have a builder, but this project is there's not that much construction. So we don't have a general contractor. So we are wearing that hat, which I mean, we do on a kitchen remodel or so it's just, I keep telling myself it's just a lot of small jobs and one big job. So don't get overwhelmed because it's we do it every single day. But yeah, when you start building out the spreadsheet, it's a little overwhelming. my sister was talking to me about it this weekend and she was like, I just don't understand. Like, why are you do this every day? Why is this like such a big deal? And I was like, OK, there's think about one powder room. Yeah. So we were like, OK, we want to take out the can light and swap it for a ceiling ⁓ chandelier. And so that would require an electrician and there is wallpaper on the ceiling as currently. So the likelihood of that getting damaged in the swap is high. So, okay, now we're going to get an electrician and then the wallpaper needs to be changed out. And then we had picked sconces and the electrical is probably going to need to be moved. So now we're going to have the electrician do that. But now we have sheet rock work that needs to happen. we were leaving the countertop and the onyx bowl that's sitting on top of it. That's staying, but we didn't love the plumbing faucet. So now we're going to change that, which now needs a plumber. Yes. When you're using a vessel sink, they're they're faucet. comes right to the edge, like to the top edge of their vessel sink. I'm like, you don't have room to like put your hands to wash your hands. very awkward to get. So yeah, we need a taller faucet. And so then we, they had hardware on the vanity, but it could be better. We wanted to swap that out a little bit, which we went large hardware. So of course. We'd like to make a statement. the hole is not going to fit in the same location. So now I need to putty and paint and fill those cabinets. Now I need a painter for that. And I also need a trim carpenter to install the cabinet hardware. And also now that we changed the faucet, we need to change the drain. We also need to change the hardware, the on the toilet and of course the toilet paper holder, which is one, one's a plumber and one's a trim carpenter. Yep. And then installers after the, then we have wallpaper, like I said, for the ceiling, but we also were going to change the wall. And then we have, ⁓ we're keeping the mirror though. Look at us. One thing, keep enough floor, we're keeping the mirror. So proud. Keeping the toilet. And so then we also have ⁓ art and accessories that are coming in. So which that is our personal installer. But I'm like, I have six subs to coordinate just for one powder room. that is a small ⁓ square footage compared to like 5 % of the job. And so making sure I list out every single item on every single room to get it. a bid is, I mean, I spent an entire day working on the list for the electrician and then they want pictures and I spent an entire day saying this chandelier is being replaced with this chandelier and writing out all the information that he would need, send it to him, five seconds later he sends back, I would like to know the weights and the SKUs and then I was like, what? That's an entire day worth of work that is still not good enough. So, ⁓ We're like, it's heavy, just assume it's heavy. So, and I was like, okay, I'm still gonna ascend for plumbing and pay and stair railings and fire. Bernie has been going back and forth with this fireplace for about three weeks now. this fireplace is so good. So who knew they had so much, so many different facets and different types of inner workings in the fireplace. Which in all honesty, I normally I would have taken that as my sure wish you would have but she happened to be over on that side of town i was like just stop by and talk to the girl about the fireplace and sure i love to chat and britney took that on and i think she because i love the engineering side of things so every time she calls i'm like so what's going on explain to me that everybody's like i don't ⁓ it's a lot ⁓ basic long story short ⁓ if you ever have a masonry ⁓ fireplace and you want to change it to a what do you even consider this? Like enclosed glass situated I invented I don't know I wish I see I wanted to do the research on it but I don't have time that. But basically this is a two-story house and the fireplace is on the first floor they wanted to enclose glass you know right now it's like a standard Three to four foot, know, 30 it's three foot wide. You know normal height fireplace and they Well, I found an inspo picture. It really started all my fault. I found it. I went to put on the presentation I go, do you know how to facilitate that? Yeah, but I was like, I'm gonna find out and I did oh I'm so glad we remembered that conversation. That is why you're handling the fire So this inspo pic, I was like, it's simple, right? It's like a... fuck's sake, are you sure it's not AI? Is this even plausible? It was real. Believe me, it's real. And it can be done, but it's better to be done in a new construction house. Easy peasy if you're new construction, but... Still wouldn't say that. So just picture like my height, like glass, you know, and about four foot wide. Just some pretty glass and gas that comes through there and it has a light in it. It's just that easy. Just that easy. Who would have thought? Like they went for the inspection and came back and said that ⁓ the whole pipe system from the fireplace to the roof would have to be ripped out. The whole fireplace wall would have to be gutted. ⁓ by the way, I don't know if we can get the fireplace because it comes in one piece through. into the house and I'm like they have literally a 17-foot nano door that opens but okay and then still haven't understood this pipe that's in the chimney I'm like there's a pipe in the chimney replace it take it from the from the roof which they said they could do I mean we just need a crane I got one of those like jeez please apparently like the pipe diameter is different for that kind of fireplace versus this kind of fire seems like easy fix for me and you know, the homeowner, which she had a good point was like, why can't we just put the new pipe inside the old pipe, call it a day, which ⁓ let's do that. he said, no. Codes. mean, people are worried about things kept on fire and whatnot. So I pivoted once again and came up with a cheaper solution, I'll say. ⁓ but it's not going to be as pretty. Don't say that. I mean, it's gonna be pretty, just not as pretty as a five-foot piece of glass. know. So, we'll see if we might still get a quote to... We'll probably pivot again. Yes. But it was really holding up my bed problem... situation that I had. Fix that. I will say, I mean, to listen to all of this is probably like, this isn't... why we tuned in. want to talk about pretty things, which I don't know if we talk about that ever either. I really don't know. like people want to hear about our problems. ⁓ y'all better sit down and kick your feet up. I don't know. Y'all tell us like you turned on HGTV and it's like, ⁓ this pretty room and it all happened seamlessly. And I'm like, that's not real life. I mean, it did happen seamlessly. Just, I mean, no, I can't even. fib and say that I was gonna say day of but no that's like the craziest day too like yeah it happened seamlessly when the homeowner walked in the house yeah and that's what we tell them so we don't I mean to homeowners we like to seem like things are just sometimes we got a I know it's I mean it's part of it we included them in all of the we ⁓ let them know what's going on. Their bid has been a little delayed because of all of this. So today we have to get to do them too. Yes. But what I was saying is I think people, still don't understand exactly what we do for a living. so my sister has watched me at work many times and she still is like, I don't understand what you are so like you, you love math, you do numbers every day and you, you, you do like, why can't you just tell them how much their sofa is going to be? And I was like, that's not it. There's so many, there's so many things that you've got to account for that, yeah. So you give a true number and not just, let's just figure it out as we go, which is how I did my house. that got me in trouble. And that's why my outdoor kitchen isn't finished. Like we have, we still have to do, you know, people are like, oh, just hire a contractor, hire a builder. But it's like, they need to know we provide the information to them in order for them to create a bid and do the work. So we're going to do it anyway. So there's drawings involved. There's multiple meetings involved of, you know, things that could arise that they come up with. We might not think about him vice versa. So it's like a lot of, ⁓ lot of that going on. So stairway is, in the works, the stair railing, which, ⁓ Hillary just found out that's going to be like a built on site kind of like he has to. It was like, mean, with the radius of these stairs and with the detail of this, ⁓ of y'all's inspiration and pictures and ⁓ this is all going to have to be fitted on site, basically stair tread by stair tread. And that sounds fantastic. When can we get started? But he was like, no, I think it's gonna be beautiful. we, he was like, there's gonna be a lot of engineering involved and, know, basically mapping it out and drawing it out and, okay, build one and like, do you like this? Are you good with this? And then move on to the next one and that sort of thing. So which is the part that I actually love. Like I love being at the house when the construction is happening. Yeah, it's my favorite part. All of the planning stuff. I mean, I love to plan too though. I love the end after all that stuff. Let me come in there with some accessories and let me make this pretty. Yeah, then you love that's where I'm. Britney's been having a lot of things going on, I've been trying to pull, like, because the B wants turnkey number. So I'm like, does he mean accessories? Because that can add up. Sure, he's not like this. So punk. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, we can go with this is not my favorite part of the design, but I have been having a blast. Actually, Britney's been pretty, I don't know, stressed or. Had no time. Had to have the time to think about it. But I'm like, well, so this is what you're going to use for accessories in this room. She was like, okay, love that. like, make it work. thing is we, we do like love the same thing. We love the same things. And we always joke about how I love the behind the walls and the engineering and you love the finishing stuff. But honestly, we both love every part of it. It's just. one's better at one than the others. course, why would us get in the middle of her doing accessories? I'm all about going meet a contractor and like figuring something out on the job site. I actually prefer that than like sitting at home like trying to think of like, if I draw it this way, will he be able to do it this way? Like I'd rather do it in person and Hillary is like the, let me do this detailed drawing scale. Let me just meet with them. Yes. You know, I also just like to come in and be like, I know it's going to work. sometimes, mean, even architect and people will tell you that things just don't always work. Yeah. 3D versus 2D. Like, that's just not how that works. And that's not to say like, you're using a 3D program. No, it just literally doesn't work. Yeah. computer versus real life. It's the same thing with materials are just different things just don't work the same way. Same thing with accessories. It's like, you know, we're pulling these accessories and I love nothing more to have like accessories and set it up here before to know the scale and the proportion. And I'm like, okay, done. Versus looking at it on a computer screen and having to draw it out to scale to know the amount of time that I've spent going, okay, this face is 18 inches. So this one over here needs to be 17 or around that in there. Now this one is chagrin finish so this one over here needs to have a gloss. It all matters y'all. Funny thing is my sister called me this weekend and I've been working on this bit and I was maxed out. don't think we lived on between the installed in a different city that there was no food on the way there we literally even live on gas station food for like gas station food and starbucks yes higher week i'm so much starbucks malnourished i have no sleep and i'm over here stretching about like the all of these intense and I'm like, if he's saying turnkey, does that mean that if we go a little over this number I present, he's gonna be like, sorry for you, you figure it out. And so I'm sitting here going, I have to think about every single detail and my sister calls and she's like, so shit, like I rip up the carpet in my guest bedroom and I was like, are you serious right now? got time for you. All the time. I know that's what she goes, oh, I can see that you don't have time for me. And I was like, No, I do. Just not that day. It was like 10 o'clock at night. I was like, are you being serious right now? Please don't rip up your carpet right now. I cannot figure that out before. Like she's like, I have company coming in June. I'm like, please don't do this to me. Please don't do this to me. Like, I think we have an area road somewhere. Which I go, what are you going to put back? And she was like, rugs. And I was like, I'm not picking it out. Good luck. I don't know what to tell you. I need a refill. Santa away. You all couldn't find them. I know why. So I might have taken the last bottle. found our Santa wine stopper in the kitchen. So he says, hello. Merry Christmas. And with me, I mean, it's not like we have that much Christmas decor. It's that we would put it away. I still have my Easter stuff up there, I'm not gonna lie. You do? It's been a rough couple Okay, I'm not gonna lie either. have, um... Your Christmas tree? No, I didn't even put one up this year. Oh, dang. But I did leave my... I bought this cute bunny this year. Yeah. And he's just so cute. I was like, he deserves to be out all summer. Right? That's what I said about my bunny to be here. He's by my front door. Yeah. That I wish I would have put in the pods, but I didn't. They're just hanging out. Lips, don't judge us. No. Every day I'm like, I wonder if my neighbors are like, I wish she would hire someone else to work on her house. One day I'm going to finish this front porch. But there is that yeah, so what else do we have this week besides me? I don't even have to think about the end of the week We do have our client in Colorado Presentation. Yeah, I'm excited. Mm-hmm. Me too. She's so much fun. Yeah, and You had a presentation last Friday that you had to make some adjustments to your last week trickled into this week, too It is trickling away. Um Yeah, I had to make That was a modern house. I was so excited about it. And ⁓ I had to pivot a little bit on the master bedroom selections. Homeowner thought she sent me ⁓ a inspo picture and I didn't get that. ⁓ So I kind of missed the mark on the whole moody vibe. I mean, I had kind of moody, but she wanted more moody. The moodiest. But I really, really like the... where it's gonna go. Where it's going. Yeah, really like it. That's all that matters. And so I am finishing the proposal for that. So hopefully they'll like all the new selections and then we have, ⁓ gosh, okay, I think I have like five appointments Friday and a funeral, somehow. we will. ⁓ So install, no two installs and consultation and there's something else in there. I know it just popped up on our calendar today. Not today, you told me about it today. We need to select pool tile. Oh yes. Good thing that wasn't part of my bid. Yeah, same with mine. So we're moving into the exterior of that project. A lot of moving parts. Well, we're just moving into the exterior. The exterior has been going on ⁓ as far as demo, creating a new pool, bigger pond, new landscape. Something about a bulkhead. Something about a pickleball court. You better ice your ankle. I know. ⁓ Yeah, so exciting stuff this weekend, this week. Yes. I know. We got to make it through. We say that every week. And here we are every week. I'm like, should we cancel this week's podcast? We really don't have time. Here we are. Here we are. We just needed a glass of wine or two. A little bubbly. And also, you know. Decompress, I guess, not really, but so I can get back on the numbers. We were waiting on a few emails. Hopefully those came through while we were talking to you. Yes. So I can finish that up and have like 30 minutes to breathe and then start the next one. Yeah. So what else do we have though? So that's pretty much this week. that we have going on next week we have. ⁓ the party that I'm excited about. But we are going to do so for podcast purposes. We're still waiting on y'all to tell us what y'all want us to talk about. Because I mean, I know y'all just love hearing about our schedule. said she was going to talk about some bedding. Yeah, I've been getting a lot of, I don't know, everybody seems like they're wanting to change their bedding. So I, there's a lot that goes into. that and she gets everything. we want to show you options and also kind of explain different ways you can spruce up what you have or all new or give you some options. So we'll be doing that. And yeah, I mean, it was really that or whatever else that y'all want us to talk about, I guess. And then your outdoor pillow line should be coming in here soon. Yes. can have a whole debut for... She was going to bring it Friday and I told her not to bother because I was exhausted. And so I did think it... I think I thought it would be here for today, but also... Next podcast. That works. I know I still have my board back here that was for my pillow line and I was like, okay, I'll put the fabrics up. I'm gonna have the pillows before she puts the fabrics on them. That's all I hit. And then I was like, well, maybe I'll put the fabrics up for the part that was finish and then I'll just add the fabrics as the next segment is coming out and then ⁓ I just keep changing my ideas so that I'm not behind. And I keep stealing them. Yes, she keeps stealing all of my samples that I've ordered. This fabric will work perfect for the pillows on the sofa that I'm doing. She won't mind. I'm mind. I don't mind. So anyways, tune in next couple weeks for exciting things and follow us on social. Rate us, like us. Rate us? Is that a thing? I don't know. You said that last week. I don't think I said that. I think there's a rating thing somewhere. Only if it's five stars. Yeah. Yeah, all the things. Spotify, YouTube, and Apple podcasts. You can listen, tune in, and we will see y'all next week. Cheers!