How to Decorate

Ili Hidalgo, architect, interior designer, and co-founder of the Atlanta-based firm Terracotta Design Build, joins the podcast to demystify the often intimidating intersection of architecture, interior design, and construction. She explains how keeping all three disciplines under one roof allows her team to row in the same direction, ensuring that beautiful designs are actually buildable and stay aligned with realistic budgets. The Design-Build Advantage: When the architect, designer, and contractor are on the same team, every design line drawn is tied to a specific construction cost, preventing runaway budgets. Ili stresses that clients must be completely honest about their budgets upfront so the team does not accidentally over- or under-deliver on the initial design. Hidden Construction Costs: Clients are often surprised by the overhead expenses required before the "pretty" things are even ordered. A significant portion of a budget goes to demolition labor, dumpster dumping fees, site containment (to prevent mud runoff fines), and tree removal or recompense funds. Renovation vs. New Construction: Renovations can sometimes be more expensive than starting from scratch because the labor involves both undoing and redoing. A good architect will evaluate zoning requirements, future floodplains, and your home's equity before finalizing whether to renovate or build new. Where to Splurge: Always invest in the hidden systems of the house (plumbing and electrical) and in architecture that respects the neighborhood's fabric. For interiors, splurge on high-quality furniture frames that can be endlessly slipcovered or reupholstered over the years. The Invisible Magic of Circulation: The unsung hero of a great home is how you move through it. Logical room adjacencies, sensible sightlines, and practical switch and plug placements (like hidden appliance garages in the kitchen) make a home inherently comfortable without you ever noticing why. Exterior Colors: Moving away from the trendy white brick with black mullions, Ili favors deep, moody jewel tones for exteriors—like a rich teal she recently used on a Victorian home in Candler Park, or dark greens and charcoal grays. Surviving Construction: Because supply chain delays are a reality, Terra Cotta utilizes a 5,000-square-foot warehouse to order and hold materials before demolition begins. They are also building a new studio in Decatur that will feature rooftop apartments specifically for clients to live in during the most intrusive phases of their home renovations. You can keep up with Ili's upcoming projects—including a new resort community in North Georgia—on Instagram at @terracottadesignbuild and at terracottadesignbuild.com. If you had to choose between a moody charcoal gray or a deep jewel tone for the exterior of your home, which would you lean toward? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The How to Decorate podcast celebrates its 10th anniversary and nearly 500 episodes of design advice, interviews, and decorating dilemmas. Hosts Caroline, Taryn, and Liz reflect on their favorite conversations, the evolution of design trends over the last decade, and the most memorable lessons learned from top industry professionals. Memorable Design Lessons Bunny Williams highlighted that successful design relies more on technical scale and function than aesthetic budget, offering advice that applies to any home. Melanie Turner shared her practice of creating annual vision boards to map out her business and personal goals, resulting in an incredible home and career. Architects like Gil Schafer and Stan Dixon changed the hosts' perspectives on how architectural scale directly dictates the feeling of a room before furniture is even added. Kathy Graham provided approachable, humorous tips for floral arranging, encouraging hosts to mix in unexpected objects like a Barbie doll for fun. Decorating Dilemma Themes Common listener challenges include managing double-story entryways, executing window treatments, and blending different styles in a marriage. Solutions frequently center on nailing the proper scale, understanding design rules before breaking them, and introducing softness through rugs and drapery. A Decade of Trends While stark black and white aesthetics dominated a decade ago, the design world is currently shifting toward warm hues, rich textures, and brown as the new neutral. True timelessness is less about chasing specific colors and more about curating a space that functions perfectly for your specific lifestyle. What was the most significant change you made to your own home's design over the past ten years? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Samuel Cochran, Global Features Director at Architectural Digest, joins the podcast to discuss his book, American Designers at Home. The book offers an intimate look inside the personal residences of 20 influential American interior designers, including Kelly Wearstler and Ken Fulk. Cochran explores how these professionals use their own homes as spaces to experiment and recharge, free from client demands, rigid timelines, and external expectations. Specificity of Place: Rather than relying on red, white, and blue clichés, Cochran noted that modern American design is often defined by a deep connection to local architectural history and the surrounding environment. The Freedom to Experiment: A shared American design ethos is the freedom to pull references from anywhere, honoring the past while maintaining the irreverence to break the rules, mix styles, and live with what you love. Embracing the Journey: Many of the featured homes were born from transitional life moments and evolved slowly over years, proving that even for top designers, a home is a process of trial and error rather than a polished overnight success. Ken Fulk (Provincetown, MA): Known for his polished, maximalist client projects, Fulk's personal waterfront home is a crumbling, weathered refuge where he preserves the historic house's peeling wallpaper and patina. Roman and Williams (Montauk, NY): Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch’s home reveals a wild, time-worn connection to nature that contrasts sharply with the slick, romantic commercial spaces they are known for designing. Jessica Helgerson (Paris): Helgerson embraced thrift and creativity in her small Paris apartment, hand-stenciling a bedroom mural and mimicking the building's basement millwork cutouts for her green kitchen cabinets. Jean Liu (New York, NY): The Dallas-based designer created a quiet personal escape in a grand uptown Manhattan studio, utilizing the extra-thick walls of Joseph Pulitzer’s former Gilded Age mansion to create an acoustic refuge. Markham Roberts: A masterclass in mixing styles, Roberts’s home is an eclectic, effortless mishmash that proves you have to truly know the rules of design history before you can successfully break them. Cochran hopes readers walk away from the book remembering Dorothy Draper's philosophy that decorating should fundamentally be fun. You can follow him on Instagram at @samuelcochran and find American Designers at Home anywhere books are sold. If you had the freedom to completely ignore timelines and expectations, which room in your home would you experiment with first? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Lawrence, partner at the interior design firm Williams Lawrence, joins the podcast to discuss her first book, Decoration, co-authored with her partner Bunny Williams. The book functions as a collection of essays that groups rooms by stylistic similarities rather than presenting individual projects, drawing inspiration from vintage French design books. To encourage readers to slow down and step away from screens, the physical book features a photo-free, linen-textured cover and pages that alternate between matte cardstock and gloss finishes. Rules of Scale and Floor Plans: While Lawrence believes most interior design rules can be broken, scale and a solid floor plan are the two non-negotiable exceptions. A strong floor plan serves as a roadmap that dictates the proper scale of the room's pieces, allowing you to confidently mix heavily carved antiques with clean, modern lines. Shopping for Antiques: When out shopping, it is best to take a photo or a tear sheet of an item you love, even if it does not fit your current project, because you will likely find a place for it in the future. Approaching Art: Art should be chosen for its personal meaning rather than simply to match a room's color palette. Artwork must be placed thoughtfully based on scale and medium, such as keeping delicate works on paper out of brightly lit spaces. Additionally, swapping out a heavy or dark frame for something simpler can completely transform a piece you thought you disliked. Wall Brackets: Adding wall brackets to a gallery wall provides three-dimensional interest and breaks up the flatness of frames. Brackets can hold jars, plates, or sculptures, and they often add grounding symmetry to an otherwise asymmetrical layout. Slipper Chairs: Small slipper chairs are versatile pieces that transition easily from a first apartment to a forever home. They can be placed in bedrooms for stacking books, covered in terry cloth for a bathroom, or used as supplemental seating in living rooms. Chair and Ottoman Pairings: Pairing an upright chair with an ottoman creates a dedicated reading spot. This combination also provides a practical alternative seating option for guests who might struggle to get out of a deep sofa. Hurricanes: A signature of Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, large hurricanes add necessary height and scale to coffee tables and dining tables. They also provide atmospheric candlelight, which can easily be achieved with modern remote-controlled, battery-operated candles. Dining Chair Details: Because the outside back of a dining chair is the first thing you see when entering a room, Lawrence recommends embellishing it with custom embroidery, a ticking stripe, or a small check pattern. Celebrating Artisans: Decoration features photography highlighting the chaotic, dusty workspaces of the craftspeople, painters, and upholsterers who make the designs possible. Lawrence notes that clear communication and pushing for custom samples lead to the best collaborations, citing one instance where a trusted artisan seamlessly reconstructed a three-foot lacquered jar that had shattered on a limestone floor. You can purchase Decoration by Bunny Williams and Elizabeth Lawrence on Amazon via Rizzoli, and you can keep up with Lawrence's work on Instagram at @elizabethmlawrence and @williamslawrence. What is one unusual antique or piece of art you have kept an eye on, even if you do not currently have the perfect spot for it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Designing with Vibe and Layers with Corine Maggio California-based interior designer Corine Maggio joins the podcast to break down her strategy for adding warmth and character through strategic layering. The founder of Corine Maggio Design focuses her work on cabins, cottages, and historic homes, specializing in creating casual, deeply personal spaces that reflect the real lives of her clients. The Four Pillars: Corine bases every project on a careful balance of the client's style, their everyday lifestyle, the home's architectural style, and the budget. Visual Vocabulary: Rather than relying on design terminology like "modern," which means different things to different people, she requires clients to pull four to six inspiration images per room to establish a clear visual vibe. Sequential Sourcing: After establishing a space plan to serve as a shopping list, she sources the most substantial pieces first—like a living room sofa—since they carry the strictest requirements. From there, she pieces the room together like a puzzle, using smaller additions like lamps or chairs to continuously pull the room's style in the desired direction. The Rule of Contrast: Items sitting next to one another should always contrast in either color tone (light, medium, or dark), texture, or pattern scale to keep the room dynamic and prevent it from falling flat. Envelop the Room: Avoid plain white drywall by applying architectural texture to the walls and ceilings. Corine utilizes paneling, tongue and groove, beadboard, wainscoting, and wallpaper to make rooms feel cozy and complete. Embrace Patina: A home should not feel like a pristine showroom. Incorporating materials that age, scratch, and dent gracefully, like real marble, fosters a relaxed environment where families do not have to stress over spills or daily wear. Subtle Accessories: When hunting for accessories at estate sales, look for textured, neutral items like paper mache bowls, woven potato baskets, or antique brass boxes. These items add layered depth and utility without demanding too much visual attention or overpowering the room's main features. Design for Yourself: The most timeless, successful homes are created when owners stop worrying about trends or what their guests might think, and instead design exactly what they would want if no one else were ever going to see the space. You can keep up with Corine's work by following her on Instagram at @corinnemaggiodesign or by visiting corinnemaggiodesign.com, and you can shop her favorite versatile entryway storage piece, the Ballard Designs Nina Apothocary Cabinet. If you were to design a room purely for yourself with zero concern for trends or what guests might think, what is the first bold choice you would make? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices