← Business of Home Podcast
Business of Home Podcast
The Thursday Show: Rue editorial director Kelli Lamb on rebuilding after the LA wildfires. Plus: Burke Decor goes dark
01:06:12
Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world. Later, Rue editorial director Kelli Lamb joins the show to talk about how losing her home in the LA wildfires changed everything.
Loading summary
Transcript103 lines
- [00:08]
Dennis Scully
This is Business of home. I'm Dennis Scully and welcome to the Thursday Show. Later on, I'll be talking to RU editor Kelly Lamb about how losing her home in the LA wildfires changed her work. But first we're going to catch up on the news, including how tariffs could impact antiques, why Burke Decor is shutting down, and the booming demand for high end panic rooms and bunkers. To do all that, I'm joined by Business of Homes executive editor Fred Nicholaus. Hi, Fred.
- [00:37]
Fred Nicholaus
Hi, Dennis. How's it going?
- [00:39]
Dennis Scully
Very well, sir. How are you?
- [00:40]
Fred Nicholaus
I'm good. I'm back in New York, back on solid ground. I know what day it is. I don't know what the tariffs on China are going to be tomorrow, but nobody does, sadly. Exactly. I also know where you're going to be this weekend, which is in good old High Point, North Carolina, for what trip number 225. How many High points have you done, Dennis? Ballpark it for us.
- [01:04]
Dennis Scully
Seeing old friends. Yeah, you know, I was thinking how many high points have I done? Darn it. Because I actually went as a very young man for the first time when I had a furniture store and then didn't go again for years until I got back into this industry in a big way. So, you know, many. Many is what I'll say.
- [01:24]
Fred Nicholaus
Many. So I was at the first dibs 50 dinner last night. I cannot yet reveal who's on that list, but a lot of great names on it. And there are definitely people there who have never been to Highpoint. And they talk about it as if it's this exotic what's it like? And tell us.
- [01:40]
Dennis Scully
And what did you tell them, Fred? What exotic tales did you tell?
- [01:44]
Fred Nicholaus
I told them if they go this weekend, they will see a panel with Dennis Gulley hosted by Dennis Gulley. So why don't you plug that for our listeners in case they're North Carolina bound worth going.
- [01:52]
Dennis Scully
And interestingly, Fred, one of my panelists I only just discovered is also coming to High Point for the first time. So Ashley Montgomery, who is who is kindly coming down from Canada despite how we've treated Canada in recent weeks, she's gonna be part of the panel along with Brian Paquette and Nazna Zawa and Jeremiah Brent and Mikel Welsh. And Saturday at 3pm you can see us all at the High Point Theater.
- [02:18]
Fred Nicholaus
Very exciting. And also our editor in chief, Caitlin Peterson has a couple panels, both on Sunday. Yes, four hands at 10am for a live version of her podcast, Ask Us any. And then 3pm at J per living. She'll be talking to Corey Damon Jenkins, Dan Mazzarini and Kim Skodrow about finding and retaining good team members. So a lot of boh at High Point. A lot of reasons to go. Not too late to book your hotel and your flight. You may have to stay at an airport inn at this point, but it's a party, so come join us if you can. Let's quickly look back on Monday's episode, A conversation with Alfredo Paredes. Lots of interesting insight from a man who was for 30 years behind the scenes at Ralph Lauren and has recently stepped out into the spotlight.
- [03:02]
Dennis Scully
And what a challenge it turns out that is to come out from behind such a big name and such a prominent figure in a position where you had really done so much. But of course, credit wasn't always given to you. It was all to the company. So it was interesting to hear him talk about coming out into this world, being a relative unknown and having to make a name for himself.
- [03:31]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, credit is sort of a funny thing, especially for a company as big as Ralph Lauren. Of course, the attention is very much on Ralph, which makes sense, but there's obviously tons and tons of creative people who work there, and getting that balance right is difficult. That's even hard for smaller design firms. I'll never forget one of the first Kips bays I went to. I was talking to a very well known decorator and this person's assistant was standing right next to them and finished talking about the room. And I looked over at the assistant and he kind of was very quietly like, I did this. It is a complicated thing in this industry and I think Alfredo definitely handles it with grace and has already made a pretty big name for himself. I mean, he's only been on his own for four or five years and I feel like he's. If you didn't know his name before, you do now. So a good conversation, start to finish.
- [04:19]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. And I look forward to seeing some of Alfredo's collection at High point at the 313 building where he's got a new showroom.
- [04:27]
Fred Nicholaus
Another reason to go. Another reason to go.
- [04:30]
Dennis Scully
Exactly. Another reason to go to High Point. I think you're overly optimistic about hotel rooms still being available, but there are definitely a lot of reasons to go and I look forward to seeing everyone there. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll get into the news. This podcast is sponsored by Jaipur Living. Rooted in purpose and crafted with care. Since 1978, Jaipor Living has redefined the art of rug making. Championing ethical production and environmentally conscious practices every step of the way. They believe that when individuals thrive, society as a whole is elevated. That's why they empower more than 40,000 artisans, 85% of them women, through financial consistency, skill development and education. Discover how they're ensuring they leave the world a better place@jporeliving.com sustainability this podcast is also sponsored by Chelsea House. Chelsea House is excited to announce a major expansion to their lighting line. Crafted from designer requests. At Spring market, they'll add 150 new designs to their already brilliant collection of lamps, sconces, pendants and chandeliers. Each one is priced to maximize designers margins. Ships in days and all are available with no minimum purchase. Discover what's new in lighting at the Chelsea House showroom, 200 N. Hamilton St. April 24 through the 30th and we're back. Sadly, Fred Burke Decor Shuts down Yes.
- [06:19]
Fred Nicholaus
After two years of legal trouble and countless consumer complaints, including from many designers, the Ohio based E commerce retailer has shuttered its sight as of last week. Could have seen this one coming. Did see this one coming for a long time.
- [06:33]
Dennis Scully
A very troubled company, sadly, and you have detailed their troubles every step of the way. Fred, you've been there. As I was preparing for this conversation, I went back and looked through so many of the articles that you've written and it's such a poignant story. But let's remind people, since we haven't spoke about it on the show for a while, what Burke Decor was and what happened.
- [06:58]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, it started in the aughts, I think 2007, 2008 was founded by this woman named Erin Burke out of Ohio. For a while it was one of these pretty successful e commerce home retailers. She put together a great curation of a lot of brands we all know and love. It was a dropshipping company and was really on the rise. Had a lot of buzz, had some great designer clients, even some celebrity clients and was a growing business. Then in 2023, things kind of hit the rocks and the company started having problems. Not delivering product to customers, not giving refunds out and words started to sort of bubble up. Designers started to talk about it and we finally wrote about it in 2024 and at the time it sort of seemed like, okay, well they're starting to give some refunds out. She had hired a restructuring expert to help the company out, but it really didn't get that much better in 2024. Its big lender, this company called Amplis, sued them for $6.4 million in alleged fraudulent misrepresentations of the company's finances. FedEx sued them for over a million dollars. Erin Burke herself filed for personal bankruptcy in California. Became a flurry of lawsuits. And then, I don't even think we talked about this on the show, but just a couple months ago, or last month actually, the Ohio ATT sued berk decor for $380,000 trying to get back over 300 customers money. This has been a company that hit hard times and it's just been a long, slow death since then. And last week they finally shut the site down and are not taking new orders.
- [08:31]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. And sadly, the CEO was a woman that a lot of people thought well of and was a dynamic leader. And a lot of high point type companies were involved in supplying product to her. And she was a good customer for some time. This was a tough one for both the customers and the suppliers. Sadly.
- [08:55]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah. To be fair, over the last two years, a lot of the customers who had been jilted by Burke Decor would not look too fondly on the company. Aaron Burke never sat down with an interview for me. I don't know what was going on with her directly. We did a couple of emails back and forth, but the company was not always responsible in the way it handled its customers. People would place orders and never get clear communication. They got the runaround, they would be sent voided checks as a refund. They would be misled. I don't know. There's no good, graceful way to go out of business. But certainly Berk Decor did not exemplify best practices in dealing with a very distressed situation. It is too bad, certainly, because it was a very successful company that worked for a long time, but the last stretch of it was harmful for a lot of people, including a lot of designers. As I mentioned, a lot of people had open orders and they just never got figured out and they never got a refund. And now, to be honest, it's extremely unlikely that they will. But one of the ironies about this whole thing is that as we've talked about this story for over a year, everyone has always asked me, how are they still allowed to keep running? How is the website still taking orders? One of the ironies of the situation is that no matter how much a company misbehaves, first of all, it's difficult to just shut it down. Also, it's counterproductive because if you want to get your money back, the company still has to keep running and bringing cash in the door. There's this weird paradox for distressed Companies where on the one hand customers are furious that it's continuing to operate. But. But if they're ever going to get their money back, the company has to keep operating. I don't know. It's something I've seen a couple times here at boh. Unfortunately.
- [10:29]
Dennis Scully
No. And it's something that we've talked about in the past and I think when I was talking to Lee Meyer from Havenly, she was talking about this sort of CEO mentality that your back's up against the wall, but you're always believing that tomorrow that funding is going to come in or you're going to find some solution. And whether or not you're deluding yourself or you're thinking that this is what I'm supposed to do, I'm supposed to fight to the very end and believe that it's always going to turn the corner. It's certainly understandable from that perspective. But at the same time, as you say, there was clearly a moment where it started to really go south and more could have been communicated and more sort of good faith actions could have been taken in this case.
- [11:17]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, it gets messy at the end. It's just the reality. I will say, just to close this up, this is sort of. I do feel like Burke Decor shutting down. Maybe somebody will buy the assets and relaunch the company. I kind of doubt it given all the troubles that it's had, but you never know. I do think one thing about it is that it was a very specific era of E commerce, like dropshipping E commerce in the home world that launched a lot of these businesses and some of them are successful and some of them are not. But I think that I don't know that anyone will start a business like burk decor in 2025. It was a very. It took advantage of the dynamics of the moment. It probably got a boost during COVID and then as the cost of advertising on Google and Meta went way up through the roof and as the home market overall went down, I think there's a lot of pressure on businesses like Brick Decor and I think you have to try a bunch of different things to make it work. As a mid sized E commerce player, everyone I know who's in that world is trying a bunch of different things to see what works. So I do. Even though Berk Decor is a specific company with a specific story, I think it's representative of a lot of the broader trends in E commerce in our.
- [12:23]
Dennis Scully
Neck of the woods and therefore represents a moment in time that perhaps has passed.
- [12:27]
Fred Nicholaus
It sounds Like, I think so. I think if you started berk decor in 2025, you'd start it as a TikTok account. I don't think. I think it would look very different.
- [12:36]
Dennis Scully
Understood. Okay, moving on. Guess what, Fred? We're gonna talk about tariffs. Good news. The home world is continuing to reckon with Trump's trade policy, and different corners of the industry are expecting different results. For antique dealers, tariffs could mean a boom in demand for smaller home goods shops. They're an existential threat. So which is it, Fred? Is it good news? Is it bad news? And frankly, today it seems like the news has changed and maybe it's all good for the moment. I don't know.
- [13:06]
Fred Nicholaus
Let's do one of our exciting timestamps. We're recording this on Wednesday, April 23rd at 1:48pm at the moment, it does seem like there's a little buzz coming out of the White House that we're gonna peel back the tariffs on China. I don't know how much. The reality is that even if they peel it back to 80% or 50%, that's still a game changer for everyone involved. But it does seem like there's at least a little bit of optimism that some of these numbers are gonna get rolled back. But I don't know, it's really day by day, hour by hour. Do you have a. Do you have a read on the latest communication?
- [13:40]
Dennis Scully
It is interesting how it is hour by hour. The market was way up in the morning. Then the White House started to talk back some of the talk about China. Well, we're not going to make a deal right away, or we're not going to make a deal that's just going to be unilateral. And then the market started to fade back. So, I mean, people are hanging on every tariff word. And then if you throw in possibly firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve at the same time, it's our hour by hour, as you say. It's good that we're providing the timestamp because this does change literally every hour.
- [14:14]
Fred Nicholaus
Absolutely. It's hour by hour. It's minute by minute. And it is really just the talk of the industry. Pretty much everywhere I go at the first dibs dinner last night, everyone's talking about tariffs. Everyone's trying to figure out what's going on. We're writing a lot about it. Of course, last week, Hayley Chouinard, our managing editor here at Business of Home, wrote a great piece on the one category that maybe is unequivocally benefiting from Tariffs, which is US Vintage. As we talked last week, even American manufacturers have sort of a complicated relationship with tariffs because their own input costs go up. Whereas if you have a big warehouse full of antiques and vintage furniture, presumably there's more demand for it because you can actually tell people what the price is and know what the price is going to be. So Haley talked to a bunch of dealers about the impact there. It's funny you want that unbridled optimism. Didn't exactly get that from these people. But Cherish is putting out ads saying, US Vintage is tariff free, shop now. So. So people clearly see an opportunity here, if nothing else.
- [15:11]
Dennis Scully
So many people wrote to me and said, is this going to be brown furniture's moment? Is this gonna be the time that it makes the big comeback? Because it's all gonna be tariff free. But it was interesting, as you say, even in Haley's piece, some of the dealers pointed to the fact that, well, they'll often recover things with European fabrics or there'll be other things that they need. So it doesn't really escape by fully tariff free. And again, we find ourselves having this conversation in the same way that we were in the conversation about the American manufacturers, and was this huge order wave about to overtake them. And sure, you'd love to think that's going to happen, but can you really plan for that? And can these antique dealers really count on all of the business shifting this way? We still have the same issues of the soft housing market and the high interest rates and everything else. So it's hard to believe that this is really just going to be a shining moment for anybody in this industry. But again, hope springs eternal, I suppose. Fred?
- [16:21]
Fred Nicholaus
Well, and it's also maybe a little bit less about seeing a huge boom and more about getting a little bit more market share, gobbling up a bigger slice of the pie. Because vintage is, if nothing else, you know what the stock is and you know what the price is. And I think that's, you know, there's a value in that. The flip side of it, which was kind of under reported or not understood clearly, was that, you know, the tariffs do apply to imported antiques, which has historically not been the case. Tariffs in the past didn't apply to vintage and antiques, but now they do. So if you're bringing in stuff from Europe, which is where a lot of Americans buy antiques from, the tariffs there will come into place. So, you know, it is a mixed bag, as you were saying, in a variety of different ways. But I do think at the very least, these people are hoping, if not counting on, they're hoping for a bit of a resurgence. And I think there's reason to believe that there might be some hope for them in the margins. Very different story in the New York Times, however. That was a very different one.
- [17:14]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, a very different story about all of these companies that are importing from China and what the heck do you do? And Fred, I didn't have a story from my trainer for you this week, but I will tell you about my shirt maker. So I popped in to ask a Chang. Obviously, they're all coming in from Hong Kong, and you wouldn't believe the number of phone calls from everybody calling to see how much of a price increase there was and then deciding they were going to hold off because Aska Chang has already announced a 40% price increase as a result of the tariffs. So another reminder that everybody steps back in a moment like this.
- [17:54]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, I love that we're tapping the Scully network person by person. What does your cobbler think about international trade policy? Anyway, there was a story in the New York Times where Rhonda Kazin spoke to this great store here in New York, the Pearl River Mart, which I've gone to many a time, which imports a ton of home goods from China, and there's stores from all around the country that are in a similar position. And it's just tricky because 145% tariffs, it's like you just can't do that. No one can do that. No one is actually placing orders right now. It's freezing. These people, they just really can't do anything. And I think one of the complicated parts of this, too, is that the market for holiday goods starts now. People are already buying for November and December. For some of these people, that's their year. That's where they make their money. And they have to place the orders now in order to make sure that the goods come in. Pearl River Mart Dennis SHIRTMAKER Everybody's a little bit of the same boat. There was a surge, I think, in orders from other countries, but China is frozen.
- [18:53]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. I think that it's interesting that we're seeing all of these stories now about what really changed the White House's language around tariffs with China. Was the head of these three big retailers, Walmart and Home Depot and Target, coming in and saying, Mr. President, in a few weeks you're gonna see some empty shelves, because it's just gonna create all of this supply chain anxiety, and we're gonna have the very same issues that we had during COVID And you certainly don't want that again. And that seemed to really be a tipping point in the discussions. And when the White House came out and began to suggest that they are gonna try and ease up with with China because it's pretty serious. And I think people finally saw that if things aren't coming from China, there's just too many categories that that impacts.
- [19:44]
Fred Nicholaus
And I do think next week I'm sure we'll have some new numbers to talk about, but we should also talk about there's a big rush of people placing in orders in Vietnam and India to try and get ahead of this 90 day pause which may or may not go off. So that's a whole other story. We could talk about tariffs for an hour. We're not going to. But suffice it to say the entire industry is talking about this, looking at this and trying to understand it from different angle, as are we indeed.
- [20:06]
Dennis Scully
And we're going to hear a lot about it in High Point. So look forward to that High Point recap show next week when we all get back. Moving on, we're going to talk about getting published. Fred?
- [20:16]
Fred Nicholaus
Yes. In boh's new spring issue, which just hit mailboxes, there's a great and lengthy article by Caroline Burke giving me a run for my money in the long articles category about how designers should think about getting their work out there in today's media landscape. It just went up on the site yesterday. I thought it was a good opportunity to chat all things design media because Caroline's piece, just a Quick Plug is really kind of a great how to for designers thinking about how do I really get my work out there today. But it also kind of got at some of the it really has changed over the past even five years the way design media works. It feels very, very different to me. I don't know if it does to you.
- [20:53]
Dennis Scully
Well, it does in many ways and I think it's so much more challenging. I mean, as I think this article points out, you know, it used to be there was just a very specific goal. You wanted to get your project in print. That was the holy grail and you figured out the course to help make that happen. And as this article points out today, there are so many different ways to get yourself out there and a real shift in perception about being published online, being published digitally, things that you can do yourself versus having to wait for that big project that might make it imprint. Yes.
- [21:35]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah. It's funny, this article might have been like 300 words 10 years ago. You get to know the editors, you Send them your pitch and that's it. But now there's this confusing maze of decisions to make. I guess just to ask a potentially provocative question here on the Thursday show, Dennis, do you think being in print for a designer is still worth all the hullabaloo and the hoopla that you have to go through to get it? Because as I think Caroline quotes a PR person in the article saying, print is the thing that we all kind of want, really. But when I talk to designers, a designer last night was showing me like, oh, look, this Instagram post went up on ad. The project actually hasn't been published yet, but I've already gotten a lot of inquiries about this. It's just the Instagram post, that's what really is generating the excitement and generating the new business for them. Having it show up in print is just like, oh, it's great. It's like a marker of success that doesn't really generate business. Is it worth it to go through all you have to go through to get there?
- [22:30]
Dennis Scully
You know, it is a provocative question, Fred. And interestingly, just before we sat down to record the latest issue of Veranda arrived at my house and I looked at the COVID and I thought, you know what? That is still such an incredibly powerful vehicle. So to see that project on the COVID of Veranda, and if you're the designer and you get to have this thing that you can hold in your hand or you can have a copy of in your office, or people just see this. And I think for all of the talk that we have had about the decline of media and the shifting values or what's important today, I'm still of the camp that there is something about seeing your project in, particularly if you get a cover story. I still think there's little for a designer that's more exciting than that.
- [23:25]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, I mean, I think two things on that. One, like, there's no doubt that being on the COVID of a major magazine is gonna be exciting and is gonna make a difference. I think it's just tough. Cause, like, there's only one cover and there's only five magazines. So it's, you know, that's a very limited window to try and squeeze through. And then you said, you know, you said something interesting, which is, there's just something. What is that something? Is that like, I'm gonna get new clients or is it simply. It feels good. And I think that both are valid. It' important to get these demarcators of success. But should we all be honest about the reality that appearing in print in one of these glossy shelter magazines is as much about industry validation and as much about kind of marking your success more than it is about generating new business or new opportunities. Is that a fair, slightly less provocative question?
- [24:11]
Dennis Scully
Within your question is what we were talking about earlier, which is what used to be dismissed. Oh, we're gonna put the story up online. Sorry, there wasn't room for it in the issue. Souls were crushed, tears were shed, and then, right, you tried to carry on with your life as best you could. Now many people don't even know where the article originally appeared. And so nowadays you can say, oh, I was in Architectural Digest, even though you only may have been online in ad. And does that matter as much? The real question is, and I think this article talks about a lot of this, is all of that as important as it once was, or is there so much more that you can drive yourself today? And should we be excited about the fact that so much of this power is now in your own hands? Particularly, as it turns out, if you can make a darn good video.
- [25:06]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, Yeah. I really have seen so many more designers get into video. I mean, people have very much gotten the memo. My Instagram feed is like. Like a good 50, 60% video. Now, that may just be the algorithm showing me what it wants to show me, but I do think that that's a thing, and that's really the story of media in general is just democratization. More people have individual power just to linger a little bit longer on the print thing. I think one other interesting. Sorry, I have to. One of the interesting things about it is another change that has happened is how much more designers are expected to front the cost of the photo shoot. Because if you look at AD in the 90s, it wasn't the designer paying the photo cost. That was Paige Rents signing that ch. And that has really changed. But the funny thing is that we've all just sort of internalized, okay, designers have to pay for the photo shoot, but it's huge shifting of the responsibility for who pays for what. And it really changes the dynamic in a lot of ways that I feel like haven't even really fully played out yet. So it really just has changed a lot. And I do still think print is worth it. But increasingly, I wonder, is there an element of nostalgia that we're hanging onto that in 20 years is going to look kind of quaint?
- [26:12]
Dennis Scully
It's funny, Fred, because I just finished listening to the audiobook of when the Going Was Good, Graven Carter's book about his time at Conde Nast, a book I highly recommend. And you think back to when magazines had these huge budgets, to your point, and some of the greatest photographers in the world would be sent to photograph your projects. You were just in a different pantheon, if you will. That whole dynamic has changed. There's a certain melancholy in all of that. We can. We can cry about that, and I often do, but we can celebrate the fact that you've got a phone, you've got the ability to perhaps get yourself in front of some editor that might run your project just based on some shots you can take yourself, or you might just be able to put them up on your own social media and drive it for yourself. And how empowering.
- [27:11]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah, no, I think that's probably the right take, if depressing for people in our line of work. I do love 80s AD. You know, it's like Jonathan Franzen wrote the article, Ansel Adams took the photos. It is crazy extravagance. And those days are gone. But we have to look forward to the new. And there's so many more different ways to get published. Caroline's article has international publications. What about video? In this way and that way. So there's lots more ways to do it. And I think we should try and celebrate that through tears and move on with our lives. But it's a great article, so we'll certainly link it in the show.
- [27:44]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, absolutely. And another reason to pick up the issue of boh. Speaking of print publications that you don't want to be without moving on, Fred, we're going to talk about the panic industry boom.
- [27:56]
Fred Nicholaus
Yes. For the New York Times, Coralie Kraft wrote about how doomsday preppers are quickly becoming a growing market for home renovators. But it's not just doomsday preppers. Some of these panic rooms and bunkers are pretty luxurious.
- [28:08]
Dennis Scully
Seems like quite a bit of money is being spent on some panic rooms. And it turns out it's not just the 1%. They're the. They're the everyman panic rooms that you can have.
- [28:19]
Fred Nicholaus
Now, I know it's kind of like, you know, there was this survey in 2023 that said a third of American adults were prepping for a doomsday scenario, spending a collective 11 billion over 12 months. I think I maybe bought some canned food during COVID That's probably still good. So I'm a very small part of that. 11 billion. Yeah. I don't know. This is an interesting story because obviously, like, you know, there's a whole industry that's not unrelated to Our own of people who build these very elaborate bunkers and panic rooms. And the New York story published a lot of really frankly impressive feats of engineering. There was one home that had a moat that could light on fire, which I frankly found a little terrifying. We talked about this before we were recording, but in 2009 at the Kips Bay in New York here, William T. Gorgas designed a safe room or a panic room. And I remember going to that room and thinking, like, ha, ha, ha, this is funny. Isn't it sort of ironic, like, to have a luxurious panic room. And now I feel like, you know, 15 years later, it's not so funny anymore. It really is. It really is a thing.
- [29:22]
Dennis Scully
Well, what's interesting about it is that the conversation at first sounds kind of nutty about, oh, all these people who are preparing for the end of the world and building these spaces. But it turns out there were actually a lot of different, very reasonable uses. Many people in California had a special safe room, or what they hoped was going to be a fireproof room where they had stored a lot of their art. And luckily some of that survived. Different people who live in tornado areas, it turns out, can benefit from having an underground space where they can go at the time of a big storm or a big tornado. And also, it might also increase the resale value of your home if this nice amenity. Yes, it used to be swimming pools, but now it's a safe room or of a bit of a bunker add on. So, I mean, turns out there's lots of reasons to have this and it's not just the doomsday scenario.
- [30:21]
Fred Nicholaus
I don't know. I gotta be honest, I found this story a little bit disheartening. I feel like we had an item a few months ago or maybe last year about how people don't build porches in America. And there's lots of reasons why, but I sort of felt like part of it is sort of the death of this sort of social experience of living in a neighborhood and sitting on your porch and waving as people, they go by. And this is just the flip side of that. You're not building a porch anymore. You're hiding from your neighbors in a fortified bunker. And I do think it is a little bit indicative of all kinds of depressing things about the breakdowns in society and our divisions in this country. So I'm gonna flip it back to you to turn this into a funny end to our podcast here. But I did feel like while we can sort of marvel and laugh at some of the clever things that people do and some of the interesting engineering. I do feel like there's something a little bit dark in the story. And I'm hope. No offense to the people in the panic room industry, but I do hope that these numbers go down in the years ahead.
- [31:17]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, well, I totally understand where you're coming, Fred, and it's not that I disagree, but when one designer wrote to me and told me that they had multiple projects going on building out these spaces, I thought, good for you. Designers. If that's what the client wants, darn it, you come up with it. But I think that designers are expert at stepping up to a challenge, and this sounds like a real design. And that's my positive spin, Fred, and I'm gonna stick with it. Okay.
- [31:46]
Fred Nicholaus
How many pocket squares are there in the Scully bunker? That's what I want to know.
- [31:50]
Dennis Scully
Well, that's the thing. Should I be moving my wardrobe in there now? I don't know. I might. I might have to. All right, that's it for the news, but there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com including May's Can't Miss design events and the best debuts from Milan Design Week. We'll be back in a minute, but first, a quick break. Jaipor Living's award winning art and sustainability initiative, Manchaha empowers rural Indian artisans to craft one of a kind rugs from leftover yarn, reducing waste and celebrating true artisanry. Each vibrant rug tells a story inspired by history, culture and environment, embodying creativity. Learn more about this collection and shop the one of a kind pieces at Jaipur Living. For the newly expanded Chelsea House lighting line, designer Jamie Merida drew on decades of experience as a successful retailer and interior Designer to create 80 new products that strike a perfect balance of elegance and functionality. See Jamie's brightest new ideas in the Chelsea house showroom at 200 N. Hamilton St. April 24 through the 30th. All available at designer friendly prices with no minimums required. And we're back. I'm joined now by Kelly Lamb, the editorial director of Rue magazine. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me.
- [33:23]
Kelly Lamb
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you.
- [33:25]
Dennis Scully
Let's talk a little bit about your lengthy career, it seems like, at Rue magazine and how you got there. And we'll talk a little bit about. About what Rue is in general. So take it away.
- [33:37]
Kelly Lamb
Sure. I believe I've been with Rue since 2012, which seems inaccurate because that seems like it was so long ago, but.
- [33:45]
Dennis Scully
I Couldn't possibly have been that long, but there you are.
- [33:49]
Kelly Lamb
And Rue was founded in 2010 by a great team of design bloggers. Crystal Palacek sort of led the helm and I started working for her when I first moved to San Francisco. It had previously been online only and then it kind of naturally shifted to a daily content site which we still have today. And when Crystal was ready to become an interior designer full time and step away, it was sort of natural that I was there ready to carry the torch into the new chapter of it. So we had that for a few years and then in 2020 everything went nuts. Perhaps you heard tales.
- [34:29]
Dennis Scully
I heard there was a lot going.
- [34:30]
Kelly Lamb
On at that time, but it was an excellent opportun to to pivot and take a really big swing. I've been close friends with Danny SEO for many years. He is our now publisher. So he purchased the company from the previous publisher and then gave me the opportunity to either work for him or be business partners. And I love him, but I decided part a partnership was probably better. So I invested my own money and we launched it as a print publication in 2021. So we've been doing that for a few years and it's been wonderful and really well received.
- [35:09]
Dennis Scully
Well, and remind us who Danny is, was what his background is because he's a pretty big name in the industry.
- [35:16]
Kelly Lamb
Yeah. So Danny, I always joke, I call him the Green Guru. He's been an eco living specialist for years and years. He's had his own TV show on NBC called Naturally Danny SEO, a print publication that is of the same name and it's all eco friendly design, vegetarian and vegan recipes. So that's kind of his market and he does it really well. Currently he's part of Drew's crew on the Drew Barrymore Show. So he's in everyone's households a few times a week, it seems. But he's an expert in publishing. We have a third partner, Barry Rosenbloom. He handles the printing and distribution. Danny is our publisher and head of sales. And then I cover all of the editorial and make all of the decisions on what content we're putting out, what it looks like, kind of the look and feel of the magazine.
- [36:11]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely. And I wonder in the context of what to bringing this print publication to life at a time where a lot of print publications were going away in the home space. And perhaps that was the opportunity because you talk to a lot of people, designers especially, who talked about missing so many shelter related publications. Oh, there used to be so Many. And now there aren't nearly as many. And so we prize the ones that are still around, perhaps even more.
- [36:43]
Kelly Lamb
I think that it was good timing or maybe ignorance that we thought we could do it, but it more so came from. And I know I speak for Danny as well. We both. And he has a long history and publishing going back various publications throughout his career, but we both just have such a love of magazines. I would say my entire youth, teenage years, college years, was just curled up with magazines. So it kind of was driven from that of not letting this beloved pastime. Like, for me, there's just nothing better than having a magazine that you haven't cracked open yet. Like what? Oh, getting to enjoy that experience. And so it was. Was really important that we bring that feeling to every issue.
- [37:27]
Dennis Scully
Well, when you think about who you're writing for and to. Do you have a very specific image in your head.
- [37:36]
Kelly Lamb
I think that yes. One of the ways that I approach editorial, and it's coming from a long history of just loving magazines, is I want it to feel really welcoming. I want a variety of styles, a variety of locations. So our focus is North America. But when I'm putting together an issue, I'm really dialed in that it's not too California heavy even. That's my personal network. But I know our readers are all across North America. So are we making sure that it's well represented by region, that there's a great diversity of people featured? So it's always this lens of it being for everyone. And the Voice is also very welcoming. I don't know if you've ever read an article about a home tour and felt like, like bullied by it, like, oh, they're fancy or oh, they're really. I always think of that of like, I. You can read things and think, oh, I. I couldn't see myself living there, or this isn't for me. I want everyone who buys a copy of the magazine to see themselves reflected there. Whether it's their personal taste or it reminds them of a place that they knew once, or it's just very, very welcoming, joyful, friendly is really important to me when creating it as a product.
- [38:46]
Dennis Scully
Okay, well, so perfect segue then. So I guess a couple of years ago now, you actually opened up your own home to people and shared your Spanish Revival home in Southern California and talked about both the process of buying the home and then thinking about. Right. How to put it together. Tell me a little bit about that and what you shared with people.
- [39:13]
Kelly Lamb
Sure. Well, my husband and I bought our first home in 2021. It was a very long, long process. We'd been saving for many years. He had been saving since he started his professional career. Because Los Angeles is a famously affordable place.
- [39:30]
Dennis Scully
You have to wait a while to be able to get a home there.
- [39:33]
Kelly Lamb
So we waited. We were really patient. We were really careful, and we looked. I think we toured over 70 houses and made offers on 12 before we got this one. And it was our dream home, more than we ever imagined. A Spanish revival in Altadena. I'm not a huge fan of change, so I thought of it. This is our forever home. We didn't have an interest in buying a starter home or flipping something. It was my love of home and my love of the story of home applied to my own life, too. So we worked with Patrick Maziarski, and he was just this incredible rising talent that I felt could translate my husband's style on my own. And it was a lot of fun. I shared quite a bit on social media, but I reserved a lot of it for the magazine. And sharing the process and sharing. It's very intimate. It's kind of awkward, you know, when everyone can see your bedroom or your kitchen. So it was a vulnerable thing to share our own space, but one we were really proud of and one that I thought kind of embodied my approach to the magazine of designing for yourself. The kitchen was pretty controversial. It was all black with really bold tile. Some people really loved it and some less so. But that was a message of. It shouldn't be defined by trends. It should be defined by the way you live. It was really a really big privilege to be able to renovate the home and then also share it with everyone. It was a nice way to connect with our audience.
- [41:01]
Dennis Scully
Well, and I think you said to that point you were just making that you didn't want to think about resale. You didn't want to think about the next owner. This is your forever home. We're going to make this as we as we wish. And to heck with all those people who are gonna write in and say they don't like the choices we made in the kitchen, which sounds like some people did, right?
- [41:20]
Kelly Lamb
I mean, I think the funniest critique is someone said with the dark countertops and the really dark millwork that you wouldn't be able to see a spider in there. And I did take that to heart. It's possible that they were.
- [41:33]
Dennis Scully
And you thought, hey, good tip.
- [41:35]
Kelly Lamb
Good tip. Yeah, yeah. We never thought of resale. I've warned you that I have dark Humor. I always used to joke that we would never move and I would be buried in the backyard, but now I'm quite grateful I wasn't. So, yeah, it's a shift in perspective for that.
- [41:52]
Dennis Scully
I don't know if you knew from the start that you would share it on the pages of the magazine at one point. I don't know if while you were going through the renovation process and making your design choices, if you were thinking in the back of your mind, am I going to open this up? Am I going to share this with our readers?
- [42:11]
Kelly Lamb
Yeah, it was hard. My husband, Tim, is much more private than I am, and he works with a huge team. He works in animation, and so he's in lots of meetings. And in the past, when we had shared a past apartment in San Francisco, there was some discomfort with people at work saying, oh, I saw your apartment online. So there was some hesitation. And then as it came together, it was a really unique ability to be able to offer my own editorial insight and connect with both designers that I would feature in the future, as well as our readers, just to know that I was going through the same thing and sharing my perspective in hopes that it would translate to the other homes that we're featuring as well.
- [42:56]
Dennis Scully
It sounded like you really wanted to help people feel comfortable in making their own choices. Yes. About their home and. Right. And about how they lived. And it sounds like something that you felt very personally connected to that.
- [43:10]
Kelly Lamb
Yeah. I think I've been doing it for so long, and I'm sure you can relate the trends as they cycle through. You start to see a lot of identical spaces that feel. If I'm going through a lot of submissions, sometimes I'll think I was just looking at this and then discovered, no, everyone is just using the same beautiful light fixture. Right. And there's a reason why so many people are using it. But I wanted my. My husband, as an artist and me with strong opinions to choose what we really love and kind of prove the point that that is what makes the most interesting, beautiful design is the personality. The. The items that tell a story or like I had chosen in the dining room, this really beautiful orange glass chandelier from soho Home, and it matched one of the stained glass windows that was original to the house. And so tying those in of it felt kind of funky, a little bit 70s, not the expected choice. And yet for me, it made so much sense. This will be tie in the color story through the home and tie to the original architecture and just things that were a nod that maybe only we knew or we admired. And being able to share that, because that's what I think makes the home is in your own space. When you can look and you know the story or you know the place you were when you bought it, or the these little elements. It's fun to be able to finally tell that real personal edge in my writing as well.
- [44:36]
Dennis Scully
So poignantly, I guess we finally have to share with people that might not already know Kelly, what happened. So as I say, you wrote about this in April of 23, shared your home and brought everyone in. And then sadly, in January of this year, well, you can pick it up.
- [44:56]
Kelly Lamb
Yeah. So if you didn't catch earlier, the home was in Altadena and on the night of the seventh is when the Eaton fire broke out, which was a few miles from our home. And I always feel this sense of. I don't know if it's a sense of feeling maybe a bit defensive, but we were really far from the hills. We were in a very urban area. Neighbors directly to the north and south of us both moved there to be somewhere that was more fire safe. So that shows kind of how unexpected or unprepared we were for this as a reality. And there's always fire. It's part of living in California. But we really thought we were just far enough away. We could see the glow of the hillside from our front porch and decided to. We'd obviously need to go to a hotel. And so I grabbed the things that they tell you to grab, which are like your passport or your tax documents. And that's kind of had been drilled into my head of when you have a go bag ready, that's what you're taking. And that's not correct. You should be thinking of the items that you can't live without, the artwork or family photos. And it just wasn't in our minds that we would never return home. So we took a few pieces of art, a few small heirlooms, but most of the stuff we really believed would be safer in our home. So I have a lot of memories of looking at everything and saying, well, I don't want that to get stolen from the car in the hotel parking lot. That was where my head was at. So we just left it and we left and we got a call I think at about 5:30 or 6 in the morning from our next door neighbor. He called and just said, I'm so sorry. I never thought this would happen to anyone, but it's all gone. And so he was there kind of as the fire went into our eaves and took the whole house. So the next time we went was on that Thursday. And we, quite frankly, should not have been there. The gas was still spewing out of the gas line. It was too soon to be there. It was probably not very safe, but it was this need that we had to see for ourselves, to believe that it all had been gone and our whole street. I mean, the footage of you see on the news, there's no comparing to seeing that with your own eyes and seeing our whole street gone and remembering the flowers that bloomed in this front yard or the dog that lived at this house. You know, all these little details. And there was a point as we were driving through where I had no idea where we were. And I realized that it was a street I had walked every day, but with no landmarks. You can't even tell where you are. So it's really quite shocking what happened and the level that it happened to. To the community of Altadena and, of course, the Palisades experiencing the same thing to the west. It's really shocking. Even though you prepare for fire, you don't prepare for a whole town to be gone. I'm a very sensitive person, a very empathetic person at the same time, and. And I can't help but think of the loss that, you know, everything that we lost, it really weighs at you. Like, my husband lost all of his artwork he'd created since art school, sketchbooks that were kind of his journal of everywhere he'd traveled. He's always sketching the people and the places, and it all was just gone. But my mind immediately goes to every single family that how could so many people be experiencing a loss of that magnitude at the same time and wondering what was their morning routine or what did they miss the most about their homes? Because that's what we're really. The hardest part has been building those new routines and remembering how good we had it. Everyone must be feeling that way or missing, you know, the flower. Well, I received a text from our neighbor. Our flowers are blooming, but there's no one there to enjoy them. So, like, the rose bushes are coming back, and the wildflowers flowers I planted in the backyard have sprouted up. But normally I'd be admiring them from my office window, and now it's just there among destruction. It's a really hard thing to wrap your head around.
- [49:07]
Dennis Scully
It is such a hard thing to wrap your head around, and I wonder how you even thought about moving forward and what you wanted to do in the immediate aftermath. Of all of this and honestly finding the strength.
- [49:26]
Kelly Lamb
Well, as humans, you're not given a choice. You just move forward. So that was the only option was to get a plan in place. I mean, we packed so sparsely, so we were suddenly faced, and we were luckier than most. Our former landlord from our place in Silverlake called and said, our Airbnb is empty. You can go there now. So we had a place to land while we figured out out what would be next in a larger picture of where we would go. But it was so strange. I packed an overnight bag, thinking we were just going to a hotel. And so it's funny now, but the only T shirt I packed was a Spice Girls T shirt. There's, like, something really dark about. Like, this is, like, how I'm gonna have to go to High Point soon.
- [50:16]
Dennis Scully
I'm gonna have to go to Martin Market in just my Spice Girls T shirt.
- [50:21]
Kelly Lamb
So you start to kind of grapple with that reality. And so I posted on Instagram, and people were really gracious, and I said, please just put a pause in the work emails for a moment and stepped away. I gave myself, I think, two weeks of just sorting out what our next plans would be. And then the nature of the magazine is we have deadlines and we have people counting on us. And so Danny, my business partner, gave me the option option to either cancel our spring issue and just pick up again in the summer or delay it. And I chose to delay it because my work is part of my identity. And so it kind of felt like it wasn't an option to have that taken, too. Even though it would just be a pause, it was really, you know, we had already had everything lined up. I didn't want to disappoint designers or my team. So I gave it a couple weeks and then just. Just got to work, I guess. But it's. It's clear I had a lot of people step up and just kind of carry the weight for me. And in a way, it was a nice distraction because everything was different. And so to have something the same still there felt really grounding for me, I think, to be able to, you know, the magazine was still running the same, the people were the same. So even though my life was thrown to the wind, we could at least kind of ground in that. And at some point, I'm fairly certain we made this choice while we were still in a state of shock. But we relocated to McCall, Idaho, which is closer to my family, closer to my husband's. I don't actually remember making the choice but at some point, and that is a great way to describe kind of that post fire reality. There's this term fire brain, where your decisions are either really complicated or paralyzing. Like, I went to buy a second pair of shoes because I had only worn the ones I had. And I just stared at this wall of New Balance shoes and I thought, I don't know who I am, or should they be green? Should they be pink? And I left without a pair of shoes because it was so paralyzing to even make a single choice in those early days. And yet somehow we made the decision to just drive to Idaho and land here. And I think there were a few factors of, you know, the air quality was so awful, we felt like we couldn't. We felt like we couldn't breathe. We had pretty bad ptsd and we just needed a place where we could hunker and not feel the chaos of Los Angeles for a little bit. So we landed here. The snow is finally starting to melt, and so I like it a little bit more. It was hard. We don't ski. I used to snowboard. So living in a ski town during ski season with. And you don't is not great. So now that the snow is melting and we're able to walk and hike, it feels kind of like a comfortable place for this chapter. So it's very slow and quiet, and we can kind of sort through next steps. I think we'll be here a few more months before finding something temporary in Los Angeles, and we will be rebuilding. So we're working with Patrick again. He has a great new design build company called Council Design, and his partner Waleed also lost his home in the fires. So he's not only driving a handful of rebuilds in the Altadena area, but he's doing it for his own family. And so there's some comfort there in that. We know we've worked with them before, we know their skills, and we also know that there's some empathy or some shared experience. So we'll work with them and rebuild. Hopefully, if the tariffs, the tariffs of it all might complicate that for not just us, but all of Altadena, all of the Palisades. It will be really interesting to see how we navigate that reality, given the current reality as well.
- [54:19]
Dennis Scully
Well, and has anyone. Has anyone informed you of such. I mean, has anybody said, well, gee, with the tariffs, a lot more of the lumber or what's necessary to rebuild is just going to be more expensive than it was?
- [54:33]
Kelly Lamb
Yes. Yeah, I think that's the General consensus is just to expect that it will be more. The insurance has been so confusing, which I think they do by design. They make it very, very confusing. But there's some. So there's some confusion as far as our like being the limits that will be paid out. Will it be enough and will the short of it, it won't be for most people. The insurance will not cover the full rebuild for most people, especially with rising costs. And at the same time, all we can do is the same as what I said earlier. You just have to keep moving forward. So we're just moving forward with the belief that we are able to rebuild and we'll be able to have our home again. And that is also a privilege to have immediately known a great design team that could get to work with us on that. A lot of our neighbors aren't sure where to even begin, and that has been really hard. There's so many amazing resources that are coming together and building plans for people to select from. But it feels very much like there's no information coming. We're just all having to figure it out as it goes each day and.
- [55:45]
Dennis Scully
Week and now months that we're into it in thinking. So here you are at the editorial helm of this home publication and having spent so many years thinking and writing so deeply and personally about the meaning of home and all that it represents, I wonder if you can speak a little bit to how your perspective or your perhaps even deeper understanding has been shaped by this terrible tragedy.
- [56:22]
Kelly Lamb
It will take a lot of work to not let it harden us or change my personality or change my values. There's a lot of anger that something like this could happen. It's every negative emotion, loss and grief, anger, sadness, fear. I felt for the first few weeks after I thought I could never live in California at all again. Even though that Altadena was where home most was and we were kind of on the same page of maybe we just have to leave altogether. And as time has gone on, that has of course softened and we want to be part of rebuilding the community and getting it back to what it was. I had some concerns about being able to do the magazine. Would it be painful to look at thousands of images of really beautiful homes and knowing what went into them? With maybe this pessimistic thought, nagging that goes, well, it could all disappear. Because that had never occurred to me that our house could just completely disappear. We thought maybe a tree would fall on it and that would be the worst. So there's this new element of. Of having to Clutch onto hope and the meaning of home even further and hold onto that in both my work, but also my personal life. And when I say I will take work to not change my personality. Everything I processed was always done from home. When I traveled for work, I would change my background on my phone to a photo of something from home. I'm a really big homebody. And so there's a cruelty in now having to process the biggest loss in my life from somewhere strange. There's something about that that feels unfair. And then this perspective that that's just what happened. There's no changing it. There's no. I can't become resentful. I can't become a very angry person. I have to hold onto that optimism and hold on to what I love about home and know that I can create it again and that our home specifically was the story of us. And we're still here. So it'll just be new items and new art. We lost some really good art from friends, so that's tough. But one of the artists we lost a few pieces from is this amazing painter, Woodrow White, and he's a friend of ours. And you have this strange thing when you lose everything. We felt like we failed the art. We didn't take it. We left it behind and we weren't good stewards of it. And he laughed it off and said, there will always be more art. And so we've been kind of using that as what would carry us through is there will be more art, there will be another home. There will be. We'll toil over window covering decisions once again. But it will be there and the feeling will be there. And I hope I can continue to convey that through the magazine too, despite my own perspective of that perhaps sometimes these places are temporary.
- [59:23]
Dennis Scully
Well, I wonder to that point, does it. And maybe you don't know yet because you haven't got right. But I'm wondering if it's changing how different stories resonate for you that you want to share with readers. In looking through all these different projects, is there something that you want stories going forward to tell, to talk about, to share, to somehow be perhaps even more meaningful than they were before?
- [59:55]
Kelly Lamb
I think my. My eye has always been drawn to the spaces that make you curious about who lives there. And so we always look for one weird thing in a room. Is there something that you go, well, that's. That's different or that's not expected? It definitely is kind of making me dig my heels in on that concept a little bit more of the spaces that are really personal versus just showrooms, I guess. And, you know, that can be really beautiful. And it doesn't necessarily take away if something is really impeccably designed, but it's always that curiosity. And, you know, when you're flipping through a magazine, you do latch onto these different. Oh, that art piece reminds me of something I had in my childhood home, or look at their record collection or they probably have really great parties in the summer. So those elements that are truly more personal and you can tell that there's just beautiful lives being lived in these spaces. That is more what I'm interested in sharing versus just these really on trend, beautifully designed spaces. But things with soul and things with personality, I think will continue to drive my editorial decisions.
- [61:03]
Dennis Scully
And it sounds as if you are going to be at the center of a lot of all of this and perhaps can be a powerful voice and someone who can perhaps help a lot of people get through this in the way that you're trying to get through it yourself with your good sense of humor that you're gonna bring to it. Right. And maybe help make it easier for some other people, too.
- [61:27]
Kelly Lamb
Yeah, it will be interesting. There's still so much to discover as far as any regulations or requirements that the LA county will put in place. For now, our very first step is we're just making the structure. It's the same square footage, but narrower, so it won't be close. It'll go back further on the lot so that it gives distance between the houses. And that's step one of what will be many, many decisions. I'm sure that consider urban firestorms as they are now, as they are now called, because it was not. You always hear California wildfires, and even that has been a change of. It was definitely more of an urban firestorm than a wildfire. But for now, I'll continue to. I still know my. My wheelhouse is the writing and with words. And so it'll be our great team that is really helping with a lot of that. And as I've always done with Rue, kind of highlighting that talent versus tooting my own horn, I guess.
- [62:29]
Dennis Scully
Well, I understand completely. And as I say, whether you necessarily want to take all of this on, it is something that I think many will be looking to you for. So I wish you all of the best with that and I thank you for making the time to talk with me about all of it.
- [62:49]
Kelly Lamb
Yes. Thank you, Dennis.
- [62:56]
Dennis Scully
And we're back. We're getting to the end of the show here, but before we go, we'd like to take a second to highlight anything going on in the industry that might have caught our eye. Fred, what caught your eye?
- [63:04]
Fred Nicholaus
Substack caught my eye, as it seemingly always does. And this is, this is my part of the show where I talk about substack. I, first of all, I just. Kelly Wearstler launched a substack a few months ago. And, you know, I. At the time, I was thinking, like, is this going to be a permanent thing? Is this just a little bit of an experiment? But it's been really cool to see how she's really sticking with it. She's talking about rebuilding, you know, the home that she lost in the Malibu fire. She's talking about that on her substack, which is called Wurstler World. So it's been just cool to see that, you know, be a consistent thing. At the same time, I've noticed that this other substacker, Laura Riley, who has a fashion publication called Magazine, I think it's pronounced M A G A S I N or Magasin, has done, is doing a lot more home content. And I saw that, like, Roman Williams Guild is like, doing a sale and they're exclusively launching it with her. So they're like, choosing to go through substack a little bit. I feel like every day there's a substack that has a new ad deal in the home. So this is my Rah Rah substack segment and I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with it, but I do feel like it's continuing to gain traction. So check it out if you're not already.
- [64:04]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. So many good substacks out there. I'm an increasingly big consumer of, of substack information. Thanks to you, Fred.
- [64:12]
Fred Nicholaus
Well, there you go. You're welcome. What caught your eye this week, Dennis?
- [64:15]
Dennis Scully
A couple things caught my eye. One was, you know, I. I got word that the. Some of the tickets had already sold out for the main May 3rd ticking tent event, which woke me up to having to buy a ticket for myself. I thought, oh, my gosh, I've already missed the 11 o'clock time slot, which is absolutely when I was planning to be there. But I quickly ran to the computer and bought my ticket. And it sounds like it's going to be a crowded affair out there in New Preston, Connecticut on May 3rd. So I look forward to seeing many listeners and design community community members there at the Ticking Tent. Good. Good for them that, that they're doing so well with the, with the ticket sales.
- [64:54]
Fred Nicholaus
Cheers to that.
- [64:55]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, absolutely. Another person who is talking candidly about rebuilding from the California fires. Who's going to be one of the panelists in my High Point panel is friend of the show, Mikel Welsh, who is actually graciously agreed to do a little video series with Veranda magazine. You can see it on their social site. And Mikel is sort of taking you through. Poor Mikel moves from New York to California and then. Ay.
- [65:22]
Fred Nicholaus
Yeah.
- [65:23]
Dennis Scully
So, I mean, and one of the nicest guys in the world wish him all of the best. And he is trying to put a positive spin on it and, and sharing with everyone the choices that he's making about rebuilding. So we wish him and, and so many of our community that suffered as a result of the fires all of the best. All right, that's all the time we have today. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to keep up with the latest news, browse job listings or take a workshop, visit us online@businessofhome.com if you want to get in touch with the show, write to us@podcastbusinessofhome.com this episode was produced by Fred Nicholas and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend and we'll be back with you on Monday.