Anna's Guide To Making a House a Home
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You know what? I am going to tell you because it was a shit show. I have recorded in this studio four or five times at this point. And the issue is we sit down to record and the microphone will not show up to record. And when I tell you that we just spent an hour staring at it for me to click record one time and it to just suddenly work, that was the opening scene of this. That's what you thought you heard. You heard correctly. We were like, I just don't even want to touch it anymore. I don't want to do this. So anyway,

That's the start this morning. If I seem out of breath, it's because I'm fuming. But it's fine. It's fine. Emotions are a good thing. And today we're not only going to talk about emotions, we're going to talk about the emotions of your space. And I feel like if I didn't have the tranquility of my home around me, I probably would have lost my marbles even more than I already did. So...

Today's episode is Anna's guide to how to make a house a home. And so that's going to be cute and cozy because I've lived in quite a few different places. A lot of you know I'm from Michigan originally, so I moved to LA from Michigan. I've lived in apartments. I've had roommates. I have roommate horror stories that honestly we don't even want to talk about. Um,

They're still going on and it's been 10 years. No, I'm kidding. But so I've had roommates and I have to say I do love living alone. There's something nice and tranquil about it, but I'm going to tell you all the ins and outs of what it's been like not only going from living with roommates in college and maybe moving back in with my parents for a while. That happened. And I'm so excited to take you guys on this journey with me. Before we get into the nitty gritty, we're going to do our rosebud thorn of the week. Da-da-da-da-da.

Um, Rosebud Thorn is one of my favorite segments. If you're new to the episode, new to this podcast, I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to Anna's Guide. We do this little segment at the beginning of each episode where I give you my Rosebud Thorn. It's a kindergarten game. It's your Rose of the Week, which is your really good thing, your Bud of the Week, which is like something that's sprouting into something wonderful, and then your Thorn.

And my rose of the week this week is very easy because my boyfriend, Brew, got a new car. And I'm going to keep that a secret what car he got. It's not my business to share, but what is my business to share is I finally get to be a passenger princess.

Like I'm a big car girl, but man, do I love to be spoiled and getting to not be the one driving? I'm very excited because you know when you like get a car, you're like, oh my gosh, I want to go everywhere in it. That is him right now. And that means that I do not have to get behind the wheel. And I'm very excited to be a passenger princess. It's a new era I'm unlocking. I'm very much looking forward to that. My bud of this week is, little do you guys know, I don't know if this is too timely, but I'm going to Michigan this week and I'm doing a photo shoot for something called

That might be released by the time you hear this episode. We'll find out if it is. Stay tuned. And my thorn of this week. Honestly, this microphone debacle. Like this could have been the whole segment. I could have talked about this for the whole segment. I should have recorded us struggling with this whole segment. But the good news is that there's always like a lead at the end of the tunnel. And it's the fact that we got the microphone working. And if you can hear me right now in your earlobes, that means that we did it. And did it take five girlies? Yes, it did.

Yeah.

But we did it!

I'm sure you guys can hear us giggling a little bit because we still can't believe that took us that long to figure it out. We had Brew on speed dial trying to like radio engineer us back to normal and he couldn't even figure it out. So I'm not sure, but it was the grace of God and we're going to leave it at that. So let's get into this episode, making your house a home and a little bit of my background. Let's talk about childhood homes. There's something so sweet about them. There's something so sentimental. I moved around when I was a kid a lot. So when I was first born, I was born in Pennsylvania. That's something I don't think...

a bunch of people know I was born near Scranton, like where the office takes place. So I moved from there when I was like three months old, obviously no recollection, no memory. But what I do have is pictures of me living in a yellow house on the street that my little sister went to kindergarten, which I think is very wholesome. Um,

Um, my mom and dad remodeled it. They kind of were doing that at the time to make some extra cash. They were like buying and flipping homes. So we moved to this house in Pennsylvania. They got it. They made it beautiful or moved this house in Michigan. I mean from Pennsylvania. So I lived in Michigan for three years. Then I moved back to Pennsylvania for three more years and then moved back to Michigan when I was like six. And that is why I say I'm from Michigan is because I feel like that

I remember starting kindergarten in Michigan, or I guess finishing kindergarten and starting first grade. I remember a majority of my childhood and my life in Michigan. So I'm Michigan girly at heart. And I lived in my childhood home for 15 years. And truthfully, my home kind of had these vibes, but like maybe a little bit more antique. Like my house was very warm.

And maybe it's like a rose-colored lens of it being warm. Like, it's like my childhood remembering it as like this beautiful vintage-y little house. So I lived in the middle of the countryside in a small town called Marshall, Michigan. There's like 7,000 people in the town. My family owned 10 acres of land surrounded by cornfields, so we had no one near us. So I feel like our house kind of had to be a sanctuary for my childhood. And my parents made it really fun as a kid, but...

I also feel like all my stuff in my first house that I ever lived in was antique and then like refurbished by my mom. Like she was really talented, like the painting and the staining and like making everything just look like old but nice again. Kind of interesting. She had a very like, I don't know. Truthfully, if I could say 1800s, I would say 1800s, but it was like all a lot of wood. And like my mom always painted our walls yellow, like a kind of like

rustic mustard yellow. It was very Midwest. All of our kitchen was like the wood kitchen, classic like white kind of countertops.

It's tough to describe my childhood home because I feel like I remember the layout more than I remember the details. Like as a kid, you don't look for that stuff, but there was always something very warm about my childhood home. And I think a lot of it's because my mom made it feel a lot like a home. My mom's a professional quilter. So we had so many quilts around the house, which kind of gave it that all the time antique-y feel. And I feel like there's a few pieces from there that I brought with me. Like I love the idea of the warmness of a house. And stylistically, we had tall ceilings in my living room and that was something that I always really loved having. So I have them in mine now too.

but there weren't a bunch of like crazy elements from my childhood house that I'm like really felt drawn to hang on to, except for like pictures and memories and stuff. Um,

I was never as good as my mom at like remaking old things into looking new again and kind of having the patience to do that I know it would take her like weeks at a time to get like one cabinet to look the way that she wanted so that was something she was very talented at but a weird thing in my house was that we really didn't customize things if that makes sense so even though my mom would like make old things look new again if something was bought new we did not play around with that and I think that's something fun that I've kind of tried to learn in my adulthood is like

There are no rules. And yes, it can look really nice as it is. But I feel like we didn't really paint much in my house. Like my parents were always very like keen on like the white or like light cream or like yellow walls. Like very like warm and neutral. My whole house was warm and neutral. Like

accent colors maybe here and there but nothing that was new was ever touched because my parents are very much like you want to make it last as long as you possibly can so that was something I feel like I wanted to like outgrow a bit when I had my own place like I wanted to be able to like paint my balcony or paint different rooms in my house or not be afraid to play with color

And we're going to get into that later. But I think that there's something really special about different elements of your childhood home coming into your house now. And that it's important to kind of like set free that inner child. Like if you wanted to have your cabinetry covered in stickers as a kid and you want to do that now as an adult or you want to paint it a funky color or like I just painted my outdoor space like neon yellow trims, you should do it. If it's healing your inner child and it makes your house feel like what you would have been proud of as a kid to walk into, yeah.

That's exactly the home that I want to live in. Childhood homes are cutie. And the wild thing is I, this is a little bit, I feel like of my moving story too, not only like making my house a home, but a little bit of what my moving process looked like to getting to where I am now. Parents actually live an hour and a half outside of LA now. So they've lived here for almost 10 years. I've only lived here for five. So when I was graduating high school, my parents moved and they left our childhood home in Michigan for about two years before they sold it.

Um, cause I think that there was a little bit of a grace period where my dad was taking on a new job that he didn't have prior and they were just making sure that all the stars aligned. But in that process, I packed up and I moved to college and I went to my dorm room.

And the truth is my dorm room and my first apartment were whatever were left over from my house that I could take with me. So I feel like those two places, I never really felt like I had a fresh start or got to like emulate this new beginning because I was reusing what we had, which made sense for living in Michigan. Like I knew that those were not my permanent homes.

And my parents were leaving a lot of my stuff in Michigan. So I might as well take what I like and make it work in the spaces that I was using. So my first dorm that I ever had was interesting enough. I actually had a roommate and then I switched from being in a two person like bedroom to having my own bedroom in college.

Cool. I lived in a single. So I got to be all by myself in my dorm room, which I really enjoyed. It was almost like I didn't have a roommate, but we had suite mates. So at Western, how it worked is you had two bedrooms that were hooked together with a bathroom and you had a shower on one side of the bathroom and a toilet on the other side of the bathroom and then like sinks in the middle. So this is a great unlocking story of I lived in my single and

bedroom and the people who I shared a bathroom with lived in a double and coincidentally the people were Katie and another roommate and so this is how Katie and I met is that we were actually suitemates in college we were completely random but we spent so much of our time together because our bathrooms were connected at that point you kind of just always leave your doors open everyone's kind of walking back and forth it's almost like I had two other roommates but at night I was the only one in my room which was really really nice and

And it did allow for me to have a lot more space because they didn't have two beds like most people did or two bunk beds like a lot of people did. It was just me. And truthfully, I don't remember decorating that room at all. I actually look back and regret that I didn't have more fun when I was in college. So if you're moving to college right now, have more fun with your dorm room. A year flies by, but you're going to like, you have to stare at those four walls. And I feel like my mental health was not as good my freshman year because I didn't love where I was coming home to. Also at the time,

I was dating someone who lived an hour north of me. So I was driving up every weekend to where they were living to go hang out with them. And I just feel like I didn't really get that like living in my dorm and truly enjoying what it was like experience. And if you're moving to college soon and you're like, what am I going to do? Take your favorite things that you love so much and put them in your home.

even though it's not a real home it's like your college dorm home like take things that you're proud of um and put them in that space and I think that that was the only way that I really took parts of me that kept me like from Michigan and feeling like my home was that I took all those pieces with me that I really loved like whether it was like my bed frame that was still from my childhood home or I had desks or tables or even like silly things like chairs and like the the

like the cork boards that are filled with like all your memories I feel like as a kid I had that in my like childhood bedroom and it was like random things like little trophies I would trade out the photos that were in there but it was nice to have this like piece of my hometown still with me in every place that I went

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in Kalamazoo. If you guys know where that is, we lived on the Arbs and it was great. They had a pool. We were across the street from our favorite bar, the library. And I feel like that apartment was my first time that I really felt like an adult because it really was my first like apartment. Like if I wasn't on campus, there wasn't like security or like bedtimes or like, and other people living it, like some people were students, but some people were not students.

I loved living there. And I think it was even more fun living with someone that I got along with. I know they say never live with your friends, but Caden, I think, started as roommates. And so it made it very easy to be friends because we kind of knew what to expect from each other. And like we had crossed every possible boundary you could as roommates of like

things and weird conversations you needed to have that like it was very easy to just live with her so I actually ended up living with Katie all four years of college and I loved living with my best friend it was so refreshing just like come home and have someone who like saw the world the same way that I did who wanted to go out the same places that I did I already wasn't drinking in college so we could uber or I would drive us like to and from wherever we were going no one always had someone with a key like it was great so I loved having Romaine College

The place itself, I think that's what made it a home for me was having Katie there and having the right person in the room with me. Our apartment was really cute. It was a two bedroom, one bathroom. So we ended up sharing a bathroom, which is kind of bold, but it just saved us some money our senior year of college to have a smaller space. Katie had a dog at the time too. So we had like a little puppy running around, not a puppy. I say puppy for every small dog, but he was just a small dog. He was older. He honestly, his name is Stan and he's Satan, but like we love him still like,

nonetheless he loved us we were his mother's so it like worked out and then we had a couch that I think Katie's dad got for us I want to say and yeah the spaces itself weren't I don't remember them being like really fancy or anything special it was like now that I'm an adult and I actually have to pick how a space is laid out there's so much thought into these like little bits and pieces but I don't think I've ever been happier than when I had like less stuff in my space

That's a tidbit. I've never been happier than when I had less material items in a house to like fill the corners. Like now it's like, oh my gosh, yeah, you need the tree and you need the shelf. And like, what books do you put on the shelf to make it look aesthetic? And like, what shaped pillows do you have on the couch to make like... So, you want to be a marketer?

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You want to know what I had on my couch? Clothes that I had worn the night before that I got too lazy to put away and a random sock from the laundry that I folded on the couch so I could watch Housewives in the living room with Katie. And our decorations were empty coffee mugs. Like, but never have I been better. You know what I mean? So I think that it's having the right people in the house with you that really make it feel like a home in those scenarios where like we were scraping by but never happier in those moments.

Once I finished college, I thought that I was going to actually move to a house and start working at the company that I'd been working at before, Striker. I didn't know if I was going to be in Dallas or Kalamazoo, but I ended up accepting a job in Kalamazoo knowing that I thought I wanted to move to Texas. I wanted somewhere warmer. I knew I didn't want to be in Michigan as much anymore. So I was like, I'm looking for something fresh, something new. This would get me closer to my parents' house. I kind of thrown on this idea of moving to Texas. And at that point, I started looking at houses fresh out of college, thinking that like maybe...

I could swing. I saved from a lot of my summers. I really wanted to live on a lake. I was like in my brain mentally, like I'm in my settle down era, but then I chose to go back to school for my master's. So I scraped the idea of getting a house and I moved back into off-campus housing when I moved to LA because I did not know anybody, didn't know where to live. I'd been to LA like

four or five times but all of the times I'd been there I was there for like an hour or two because my parents lived an hour and a half outside of the city so I would go to LA and I'd land at LAX and then drive my parents would come and pick me up and then drive me out to like more of the country there's no countryside outside of LA but you know what I mean like for LA countryside they live in like a little beach town

just north of Malibu and so we would drive all the way out there and I would spend my like Christmases or Thanksgivings there and then I'd get dropped off at LAX and I'd go home so I never really experienced LA I didn't know where to live I didn't know what to do what do I do on campus housing so expensive in LA but it made sense at the time because that's all they paired you with random roommates if there was enough people to get paired with a random roommate and um

it kind of took care of any of that concern. Like, I just felt safer going through the school and I was like, it's a private school, they're going to protect me. I lived at a place called Playa del Oro is what it was called and it was right by the airport. And when I say right by the airport, I mean like, I could watch the airplanes take off from my balcony. Like,

the loudest place I could have lived. I was there very short. I actually moved in and had no random roommate at first. So I lived by myself in a two bed, two bath, but I did not move into the other half because they said any day someone could show up and just tell you that it's their turn to move in. So I really had to furnish the place by myself and

And I ended up getting a roommate and she was so cool and so nice. I miss you. I hope you're doing well. And we lived together for about like two to three months, but she was an undergrad and I was a grad student. So we had a very different schedule. And also we were two very different ages. We still got along great though. Honestly, like I've lived, I've had roommates for a while. And as like someone older, I feel like you kind of know to like,

do your dishes and clean up and like whatever, you know, like it's pretty easy. And I feel like in LA we were going out a lot for food because we were getting to know all these new students that I don't really remember having any bad experiences. It was fine.

But within about six months of living in LA, COVID hit and we got a call. This is like a crazy, crazy story. I don't know if this is like supposed to be how this happened, but I don't think there was anything that was supposed to happen with how COVID worked is that we were all on spring break and everyone's like, be careful. COVID's going around and we're all like, okay. But they're like, but you're still good to travel. Like it's not in the States yet.

I go on spring break. They extend our spring break another week. So my family extends our vacation another week. And then I get a call that they are kicking everybody out of their on-campus housing or off-campus housing. And you must move out by Tuesday or like they're pitching all your stuff. And we were like, oh, I'm not even home right now, but okay. And we got on the next flight, flew home, masks, everything emptied. I remember that like that flight home was so...

eerie there's not even a better word for it like everyone was like had no idea what was going on thankfully at the time there hadn't been any I was I was in Hawaii when it happened so there had been no positive cases at the time so I feel like we all kind of felt like well guys we're like all in this plane together but we landed back in LA my parents came with me we emptied everything no one would come to your room to check it you just left your keys on the table and left and I was 20

two, at the time about to turn 23 when this happened. And I was about to move back in with my mom and dad for the first time after not living at home for five years since I was like 18 years old. And I remember just being like, okay, first off, the pandemic already feels weird. That could be a whole story within itself. But then the other element is like, man, I'm

I don't know. I don't not be a person like I don't spend that much time with my mom and dad You guys see my relationship online now with my parents was Nothing when I tell you nothing like that at this time in my life. Holy cow. It was unbelievable that like

I don't know. It was really scary to be like, I'm giving up all my independence. My parents lived 2,000 miles away from me for college. They weren't showing up. They didn't really need to come and visit me. They knew that I was kind of doing my own thing. I saw them for maybe a total of two weeks every year when I was in college. So like very small doses. And suddenly like my whole life changed.

was going back to living at home and i know that's a very like it could have been so much worse like we got really lucky that like my parents had room for me to move back in and be like a part of their life my parents worked pretty flexible schedules because they own their own businesses that like there was room for me and that's what i'm really thankful for is that my parents could afford to let me come back home but there's also an element of this that's like me being the maturity of my 22 year old self being like oh my gosh i'm like

Moving back in, that was terrifying. But truth be told, was there a crazy, like, grace period of really awkwardness, really difficult conversations, a lot of, like, disalignment between my parents and I? A hundred percent. I don't think I've ever, mom and dad, I'm sorry to say this, never fought more with you or, like, thought that I disagreed more with you in life than in those, like, first six months.

Even though there was something great about like, I think people romanticize it now, what COVID was like. I think it was a horrible experience not to get even into that, but like,

it's like oh my gosh we miss our our walks and like oh my sister and her husband moved in with my mom and dad too because they were living alone in San Francisco at the time so for the first time in my life in four years all the kids were back at home so it was my mom my dad me my sister her now husband he was I think still her boyfriend at the time or maybe fiance um and my little brother all lived in my under my mom's and dad's roof for like three months

Fantastic. The kids were kids again. My mom was like cooking dinner every night. I feel like my mom had just gotten over empty nesting. She got to re-nest again. She was thriving. But there were definitely like difficulties in us becoming it. So in that moment, it's like, it didn't feel like my home either because there's another deeper rooted element to this. And it's that it felt like my home because my family was there, but I had never lived in the house that my parents were now living in. Because like I said, I stayed in Michigan. So the only times I ever spent time in this house was

were when I came home for a holiday and that's like what one or two weeks every year it like felt like a little vacation house to me I was I was living in Michigan I was like oh I am home this is my home

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Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342. So, how do I make my parents' house a home? And not only that, how do I enter a space that's not even mine? I'm under my mom's and dad's roof. I'm under their rules. What do I do? Well, the good news is I went through a breakup and my mom and dad felt very sad for me. So, we redid my bedroom.

which is a huge perk and that definitely helped not redid as in like fully scrapped and like made it brand new but more of just like they're like you could use a desk in here and like the bedroom was initially catered toward being a guest room for like my sister and I coming home so there were two beds kind of like when we were like when we were kids we had like two twin beds in the room I think we might have had like two full size whatever for like us two growing up and sleeping in the same room as each other every time we came to visit we'd share a bedroom my sister and I would so

My parents were like, okay, we're gonna get rid of the other bed. We're gonna make it feel like your space. You're gonna be here for a while. We all know we're kind of settling back in. I got a desk. I got a set of shelves and I got plants. And I was like, this is now my room. And somehow it made it the most perfect little sanctuary where I didn't have a lot of space in that house. I mean, technically the whole house is mine, but like,

It's really not. I'm like entering someone's space that I haven't been in before. So when I moved back home, the greatest blessing was even if the space was small, making it somewhat my own and being able to take the little elements that I really enjoyed, like having a space to be creative. I had great natural lighting where I was at this time just starting to make my TikToks, just starting to make my videos. I had a great spot that I could film in.

Somewhere that felt familiar to me. My parents have the most beautiful home. So they made it very easy to make my videos look nice. But...

I kind of found like my three to four favorite spots in the house that I could film in for my content. And that's what made it a home is that it had such purpose to me. Like I knew my areas that I really enjoyed and that I looked like myself and felt like myself and they felt true to me. It's even funny sometimes when I go back home, I'll film like it feels nostalgic to be in my house because it feels like that era of my life when I was just starting my career. And I didn't even know I was starting my career, but it was such a

a cozy place that felt like home in the areas that did feel like mine, which is great.

So the one thing that I want to say is I know, I think even me at that time had this ego about moving back in with my parents and was really nervous and scared and unsure of what that meant for me. It felt at the time too, like quite a few steps backwards because I had just spent five years being really independent, living by myself. I knew how to make my own food. Not really, but like I like to pretend that I knew how to make my little mac and cheese and I had my cereal and like

I felt like moving back home was steps backwards. And I had to give up the house that I really wanted to be in, which was like my apartments in LA that made me feel very youthful and very much like a kid. But the truth is that sometimes you need that to incubate and to have a trajectory and use it as the trampoline to leap forward into what your next step is. Because that's exactly what my parents' house feels like for me at times. Even though I ended up living with my mom and dad for almost two years from like 23 to 25 almost. Oh my gosh, that's crazy to think about.

But I lived with my parents for quite a long time once COVID hit. And I cannot imagine doing it any differently. Like in looking back, it was such a blessing to have that time where like, truthfully, a lot of the responsibility was lifted. My mom like retook on her motherly role. I mean, she's always a mother, but you know what I mean? Like she was like, oh my gosh, you tell me when your laundry is. Like she was cooking dinner every night. I was eating the best food I've ever had because it was my mom's home cooked meals every night. Like

I had people watching out for me. At the time I was growing on social media, I had my dad to like travel with me or protect me when I needed it, things like that. Those things might be a niche experience, but the idea of using that time to really recenter with myself, figure out who I was and be able to spend that time to work on me and work on where I wanted my life to get to or what my next step was going to be, greatest blessing, truly.

So like if you ever feel intimidated by the fact that like you might have to move back home or maybe life isn't working out the way that you need it and you might have to take a couple steps back, guys, it's only so we can get a running start to leap forward. Do not worry. All right. Now I know what you're thinking.

We're in a new space. And yes, we are. We are in my living room. And we're going to look at one more spot too before I go anywhere else. But now we're really going to talk about the nitty gritty of what makes my house a home. And there's a few things that I think are key elements to the reasons why I love this place. Number one, it heals the inner child, which was the first lessons of today's episode. And number two, it heals the inner child.

And the second is that I actually lived somewhere else before this and learned a lot of mistakes from living there. The first place that I owned was this cute little condo right in Miracle Mile. If you live in LA, you probably know where that area is, but it's right by the La Brea Tar Pits. Stunning. I love that area itself. It has the Grove close by. We have coffee shops that are local. And I thought that that was what was really going to make or break the area that I live in. Truthfully, I was like, oh my gosh,

My house doesn't need to be big. It doesn't need to have space for me. I know that I film at home all day, but I'm going to be doing so many activities. I don't need to worry about where I'm living. I was really catering it to my job. And truthfully, I thought like having somewhere just to sleep was all I needed. Now, looking back, I was very incorrect. I ended up realizing how much time I spend at home, how much time I spend working.

editing at my house, sleeping here. I watch TV here. I take my meetings here. And the one thing that my last place did not have that I realized was like the major missing element was lighting.

And that might seem so silly, but baby girl moved out of Michigan for a reason. I wanted that Los Angeles sunshine. And I lived in a place that had only one big window on one wall. And then it was kind of like a tube space. If you ever watch my old TikToks, that place is about 400 square feet. It's a pretty cozy area. It was a studio condo. So I had my bedroom in my living room, in my kitchen, in my office.

and it was exactly what I needed for that moment in life, but I outgrew it very quickly, and so planning ahead, I was like, I want to pick a space that I'm not going to outgrow too fast. Now, that being said, this place is already filled, and I'm one person. I live alone still. Brew and I don't live together yet, which I think some people think we do. We do not, and so it's crazy because I've kind of already filled this place too, but I wouldn't say I've outgrown it because still every day that I walk in here, I just get so excited to be home. Now,

That was a huge lesson that I learned. It's just like, you're going to outgrow your spaces. But what made that place feel like a home...

I think, too, was that I just had this emotional connection to the area. Now, that wasn't, I would say, now my major thing that I look at. I do like living in, like, a nice area. Like, I love that right now I can walk to my grocery store. I can walk to coffee shops. There is a good walking area here. But it's not as, I would say, lively as the last place that I lived. The last place was, like, much more on busy streets.

That's just more of your cup of tea. I don't know if that made that feel more like a home or if it scared me more because more people like walked by my home, which kind of scared me. But at the time, I think when I'm like young, I'm like, oh my gosh, no, I want to live right around where all the people are. Looking back,

That might not be the people I do want in my home is having a home that's big enough to host That was a huge missing element that I definitely learned about this place My favorite thing about the place I live right now is that I get so excited that friends can come over That I have enough of a couch I got four other girls in this house right now who are chilling with me watching me record this episode and it's so nice to just have enough seats for everyone and like

a dining room table, and a kitchen that I can cook in. And all of those little things make such a big difference for my place feeling like my home. Another element that I think I'm just now learning is colorful stuff makes me really happy. And I thought that I was going to be a clean girl. Like when I first was designing the space, I was like, neutrals and greens only. Those are all I want. It's going to give serenity. It's going to give clarity.

clean girl. It's going to look clean all the time. Yeah. That as of three weeks ago, literally as of three weeks ago, I was so on that ride or die train that I was like, I just want to have a very clean house. And then I got one yellow couch that's sitting in my living room. And I was like, oh my gosh, my whole place is boring. I need to add some more color to it. And then I got yellow pillows and I was like, oh my gosh, I could do better. Then I got a yellow blanket and

Or a pink blanket. Then I started to get more frames on the walls that were like more fun and playful and happy and feel good colors. Guys, it makes the biggest difference on your mental health to be surrounded by things that make you happy. Literally...

Whoever told us that clean girl aesthetic was the way to go. I mean, maybe if like your house being clean makes your brain feel clean. I totally get it. Trust me. I love clean homes. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying just like only decorating with like really neutral colors. I mean, I think that I liked it, but my house just personally, not against anyone who loves this style, just felt very sterile. It felt very like cold. And I think that that's something that I realized for my childhood home was like,

It wasn't the use of too much color, but it was a sense of warmth from like the way that my mom colored our furniture, from the way that the browns and the woods and the yellow walls made the whole place feel like a little, like a little oven. That's what I want my house to feel like. And so I started introducing colors. I've started having more playful plants. I have strawberry shaped vases. I'm home making my mugs that sit out because these are just like the little elements that make such a difference that make my house feel like it's

It's not just like, I don't know, I want my house to feel like it's lived in. That's what makes it a home. It's that you're enjoying it. It's that you put on the walls what you really love. It's that your passions are on display. And like when someone walks in your door, they know who you are as a person just in the way that your house looks.

I think that that's really important. And I think that's something that kind of got lost in translation a bit, that there's these aesthetics and styles and ways that we're supposed to like fit into a cookie cutter box and like the modern home and like, you know, the clean girl aesthetic and all that stuff. But the truth is that having a little bit of your personality sprinkled in reminds me of who I am when I'm sitting in my house. So clean girl aesthetic out, happiness homes are in.

So when I made the decision to move from that first studio space to this space, I did tour so many places. And truthfully, I put in so many offers on different houses. And a lot of them, crazy enough, were way more stylized than the place that I have now. And I thought that I really wanted that. I was like looking at these houses that had like really Spanish influenced tiles and like very like

kind of like somewhere really more French new wave this place was pretty modern when I was looking at it it has all black accents so a lot of like black countertop black tiles all of my like tiles in my bathrooms like this charcoal gray ceramic almost looks like concrete and

Um, but there was something about it that still felt very soft and playful to me. And that's what I really liked. The other thing that you might be able to see, I don't know if you can see it better from this one is that my walls on this whole side of the house are windows. And that was like,

I had not seen another house in LA that looked like that at all. There was not a single other place that had the ceilings that I have in here. It's of course, because I have a lofted space. So I have 18 foot ceilings in my main space and that's guys, I can fit a 12 foot tree and doesn't even touch the roof.

The best part of the house. But when I was browsing, I think my brain was thinking sanctuary. Truthfully, everywhere that I looked had a lot of greenery. This still blows my mind that a few years ago, I was living at home with my mom and dad, dreaming of the next place that I lived. And I took this photo in Hawaii, sitting in a tree. And I literally captioned the photo on Instagram. I've got 99 problems, but buying a tree house would solve 95 of them or something. And when I walked into this place...

They showed me the listing offer and they were like, yeah, we joke. It's called the tree house.

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It was literally a sign. It was meant to be. And you can tell because you cannot see into my place. It's all trees. And also like I'm on a, I'm not in a house, like a physical house. I'm not on the ground. I'm in a condominium building. So like, I don't know if that's too revealing or not to say to you guys, but either way, just so you know, context is like,

I'm several stories above the ground and I still have all trees on my window, which is the coolest thing. And that means I never have to cover my windows because like, I mean, don't be creepy about that. But like I'm saying like they can just chill because they are covered by the foliage. What are the chances? It's a dream come true for me.

I love, love, love living here. And a lot of the places I looked at were very garden. Some of them, some of them were houses that had like hedges all the way around and they were nice, but similar to my experience with college, when I walked into the right place, I knew there was nothing that was going to stop me from living there. I did feel that about the first place that I lived, but it didn't have the same, like truthfully just the same amount of space.

And like, I didn't feel like I had enough room for my self-expression. And I think I felt naive to like,

putting things in there as if I was still living in college and not thinking about the place. I definitely thought about my first place as a transitional place for where I wanted to go next. And the other element of it is that I actually bought the place and then fully gutted it and remade it to be what I wanted to be. And I remade it to what I wanted to be thinking about the next person that would buy it. I did not make it thinking what I liked in a house or what I would have done to my dream home.

because there was always this little feeling of like, you're going to find your future home. This is not the one. I think that's something that's really important to think about too, is like when I was in college, I knew they weren't my forever homes. When I was in grad school, I knew I wasn't going to be there forever with this place. It was a transitional place to where like, I was still going to grad school. I wanted to be in the area that I really loved. I ended up super close to living next to my boyfriend. Now my brew, which we love dearly. And it was great that I had a place that was so, it was literally walking distance from where he lives. And yeah,

That was unintentional at all. So it fit its needs for the time. I always say I would never do it again, like buying a place and gutting it and remaking it because, oh my gosh, was that so much work. My dad and I did together. The only time we hired someone was to help with the tiling because like, I don't know how to do that. And I feel like that takes an art form. Like that's unbelievable skill. As I'm saying that, I would love to buy like a cute little place that I just like can go willy nilly and like fly.

freely change however I want and fully got it and make it mine again because I think I'd be going in with more of the forever home mentality I definitely saw that places like I want the wood floor to be something that someone would want to buy I'm not going to paint my walls because I want to be something that someone would buy and I think that's a a huge mentality for like people nowadays is you're looking at stuff with this idea of like how is this going to make me money later versus thing like how am I going to maximize and enjoy what I have in this moment

And I feel that way about this place. That like, I'm here to enjoy it. I'm here to love the home that I'm in. The last place, I wish that I would have given her a little bit more love. I wish I would have like really thought about what brought me joy and not what would bring the person who was going to buy it from me joy. It's really nice that like,

You can find a place and see it as something for forever and you don't need to rush that process. I think I rushed it to find my first place that I lived in. So I was like, I'm going back to school and I have a boyfriend now and I don't want to live at home anymore. And I want my boyfriend to be able to come over and spend the night and I want to have a space that I feel like, oh my gosh, it's mine. And I rushed the process and in doing that.

I gave up my peace a little bit. I gave up the place that I thought was going to be a sanctuary for me. And I also think that I just overlooked it. And I know that's easy to say that like, oh my gosh, don't be thinking about the people are going to buy it after when like this is a major investment. Of course, you want to think about the people. But paint is paint, y'all.

paint is paint every scratch on the wood floor I feel like I just saw this video of like the girl talking about her dog like sitting on the step and why they don't fix that one step and it's because it reminds me of the dog like loved laying on that one step that is me I am in that era where it's like each scratch is like I was so paranoid about like oh my gosh the resale value

Think about the memory that has. Think about what you were doing when that happened. How wonderful it is that, like, you had so many people over that, like, somebody dropped a glass or something happened. And, like, it's such a good... It might feel like a negative. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying, like, go throw glasses on the ground and make memories. But, like, I think it's great to have little dents in the walls every once in a while that remind you of what put them there. And the wonderful memory that came before any of that stuff happening. And, like...

take care of what you love but not everything has to be so like perfect and clean and cookie cutter it can just be a little piece of you and that's what makes it perfect

Does that make sense? Okay, good. Okay, y'all, we're in a new space. This is my kitchen. It's actually my favorite part of my house, even though it's the space that I use the least because I can't cook. It's funny. I actually guess I do use it the most because I think I film in here the most. I love the charcoal cabinetry and I feel like it makes me stand out against it. I mean, you can kind of see in this close-up shot, like I have a little built-in bookshelf. I kind of want to remove everything from it and actually only put books in it and make it like really...

I don't even have a word for it, but pretty. Well, guys, that's a wrap on this episode of Anna's Guide to Making Your House a Home. I'm so happy that you're here and welcome to our little home, our little family, our community. If you want to stay a part of it, don't forget to follow along on Instagram and TikTok at at the

the Anna guide. And you can follow me on my personal account, which is at Anna X Sitar. Also, you can watch the video footage of this episode over on YouTube. And don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe over there at Anna's Guide Podcast. And you can listen every Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time to everywhere you get your podcasts. I love you guys so dearly. I'm so happy that you're here and I'll see you next Thursday.