#29: An Unexpected Con To Calling In A Pro: a house

Glad Holidays everyone! We got you a little something to celebrate. It is the show notes for Episode #29 of Turbodizin Has A Podcast. On this week’s episode we talked about hiring out renovation work in your home. Specifically, that it can be exciting and excellent.. and sometimes it can be deflating and frustrating… which was the case lately for us. So we are sharing some red flags to look out for and some pointers to try to avoid that issue along with a few more ways that we have cut down on holiday stress (and gift excess). Plus we dive into our go-to design books, dig up John’s old journal, and enjoy some holiday tunes from a quite special guest.

You can download this episode from iTunes, Google Play, Stitcherand TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos that we referenced.

What is New

Above you can see that pic of John in the “baby chair” that we promised. It is about 12″ off the ground, and he’s 6′ tall.
Below we have included a look at our Christmas card this year, which we picked up on Minted (it was this design)

Here is that recap of holiday gift themes we have used in our exchange:
- Travel Junk (things you pick up while on trips or vacations)
- Say Cheese (photo or cheese related gifts – we got a Wisconsin-shaped cutting board for our cousins who live in Madison)
- Back In The Day (vintage items like these retro-style Scrabble and Sorry game sets)
- On The Road (gifts good for road trips or travel, like this travel art kit we received)
- The Year of Granny (to honor grandma’s 90th birthday we chose gifts that reminded us of her, like an automatic card shuffler)
- Be A Good Sport (sports-related gifts like memorabilia for your go-to team or actual games to play together)
- Feeling Green (eco-related gifts, or things that were literally the color green)
- Across State Lines (local gifts from the town of the gifter)
- We also did more general categories like “Music” and “Entertainment” in past years
And you can check out the poll we referenced about devices like Google Home, Amazon Echo, or Amazon Echo Dot in the show notes for Episode #25

What is Not

Here are all of those holiday-inspired paint colors: White Christmas, Sleigh Bells, Holiday Wreath, Reindeer (on second thought, it may read more pink than peach), Santa’s Beard, Egg Nog, December Eve, Elf and Winter Snow.

Listener Call

Here is another post (scroll halfway down) that tackles some common questions we get about working with contractors or hiring pros.
Also, pointers for negotiating with contractors!
Do not forget – if you’ve got a Hands-on, decorating, or house question for us: leave us a voicemail at 571-4-YHL-HAP (that is 571-494-5427)

We are Digging

Here are links to the design books Sherry mentioned:
- Absolutely Striking Things by Anna Spiro
- My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living by Jonathan Adler
- Styled by Emily Henderson
- Domino: The Book of Decorating
- Domino: Your Guide To A Stylish Home
- Turbodizin and Lovable Livable Home (figured we’d toss ours in for good measure ;)
And check out the Grown-Ups Read Things They Wrote As Kids podcast for plenty of adults-relishing-their-younger-weirdness hilarity

Psst- Looking for something we have dug in a past episode, but do not remember which show notes to click into? Well, here is a master list of everything we have been digging from all past episodes.