My Chat Alongside Jonathan Adler

Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy Nate Berkus and Jonathan Adler more than anyone else in the design world (although I have sizable girl-crushes on Sarah Richardson and Candice Olsen) so when I got an email asking if I hoped to hop on a phone interview with J-Ad (as I like to call him in my head since we are besties) well, I momentarily lost my mind.

I debated saying no (I will certainly get awkward and squeal-y and make him think I am nuts) but after chatting about it with John, he convinced me that a 15 minute call with Jonathan Adler might end up on my highlights reel of this whole blogging “career” when we look back on this crazy ride of ours. Hubs was right, I had to do it. Clamminess and too-loud-laughs be darned.

So I emailed back a response that I hope came off cool and collected (as opposed to hyper and maniacal) and was given a Friday at noon time-slot for my call. I hardly slept on Thursday night thanks to getting all of my questions ready and second guessing myself a million times, and I even asked you folks for question ideas on Facebook. Then fifteen minutes before my time-slot for the call on Friday I got an email asking if Monday would work instead. Ahhhh! Half of me was relieved to put it off for another few days, and half of me immediately went into a bigger tizzy (the anticipation of more days of planning/waiting/second guessing every question sufficiently loosened more marbles).

And then I heard his voice. And all was right with the world. Turns out I still was too giggly, talked way too fast, and generally simply could not assist myself (as interviews go, I am sure I was far from the smoothest or the most professional) but he was so pleasant. And I did not know this was possible going into the call, but when I hung up the phone, I enjoyed him more. I could not stop talking about it with John, and I am SO GLAD I did it. It was certainly highlight reel material.

I am terrible at taking notes while talking, so I recorded the interview on my phone (after asking J-Ad’s permission of course) and as laughy and loud as I am, I thought you might like to hear it all go down in real life, so here is the clip. Update: Click here to be taken directly to the sound clip if it is not showing up below.

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Is he excellent or what? You folks. My design idol said I got his CHAKRAS TINGLING. I am floating on air. And we exchanged I enjoy yous. Hello? Is this real life? My go-to discussion was the whole “simply start with the vibe – not the walls or the curtains – and define how you want your house to feel in three words and use those as your guide. SO SMART.

My only regret is that I did not make John snap a picture of me while I was on the phone. But this is fairly much what it looked like:

So I hope you enjoyed that little brain-picking session with one of my go-to designers ever. Have you ever met or phoned someone up that you are crazy about while half worrying you’d put your foot in your mouth (or simply start babbling incoherently)? I am telling you, it can be fairly remarkable, even if your heart’s beating out of your chest the whole time.

Psst – For anyone who cannot listen to it right now, or would prefer to simply read the interview, here is a general recap for ya (there is a little more banter in the recording, it was simply tough to write every line out since we overlapped sometimes, etc).