Friday Q&A: Ultimate Interior Design Tips with Jojo Barr

Made by Mammas: The Podcast

In this episode of Made by Mamas, hosts Zoe Hardman and Georgia Dayton sit down with interior designer Jojo Barr to discuss practical home d

Key takeaways

• Jojo Barr advises prioritizing functionality and storage over aesthetics when designing 'box rooms' for teenagers.
• For rugs, the episode recommends high-quality brands such as Oka, Anthropologie, Nordic Knots, and Lara Duke.

Main topics

• Interior design for small spaces
• Home renovation challenges

Notable quotes

Don't design your kid's bedroom... It's their room.

Conclusion

The episode provides actionable, expert-backed advice for homeowners l

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This week on Help, I sexted my boss. I'll go back to not giving feedback. Are Speaker 2 (0:04) you OK? Who's put 50p in you? It's more like f***ing two quid, excuse the Speaker 3 (0:09) language. Speaker 2 (0:10) How do I convince him to lock me up for the full 31 days of October? Like a budgie in a cage. What happened to budgies? Speaker 3 (0:16) Excuse me, I have an electric car. It's very, very stressful, you know. Speaker 2 (0:20) Range anxiety. There's an anxiety. Jordan will have it. Speaker 1 (0:24) Listen Speaker 2 (0:24) and watch wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:32) Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas, the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman. And I'm Georgia Dayton. And this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits. With five kids between G and I, we have seen a lot. We really have. Each week, we'll be joined by some Speaker 5 (0:47) famous faces and experts. And we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way. In short, we're the parenting podcast for you. Before Speaker 4 (0:55) we get started, hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands. And they're on Tuesdays and Fridays. And it really helps if you leave a rating and a review. You can also find us on Instagram. We're on at Made by Mamas. But for now, George, should we get into it? Hello and welcome to Friday's episode of the podcast. We have died and gone to interior heaven. We have. Speaker 4 (1:17) We really wanted to open up the conversation to you guys today about your homes, your, I guess you're kind of like, obviously, Georgia and I have been through two renovations. Well, you've probably done more than that, haven't Speaker 5 (1:28) you? Well, I'm about Speaker 4 (1:28) to do Speaker 5 (1:29) another one. Speaker 4 (1:30) Hopefully. It's a minefield, even though we might be able to put ourselves together in a fairly respectable manner. When it comes to our home, Georgia and I really don't have much of a clue. So we wanted to throw it out to an expert today. He's had over two decades of experience. She set up House 9 Design Studio and she's an all round bloody legend. It's Jojo Barr, everyone! Speaker 5 (1:49) Jojo, for anyone who doesn't know. Speaker 5 (1:53) Give us like a little insight into what you've been up to. You've obviously got a new book out. You did Sophie Haboo and Jamie Lang's house. You do lots of stuff. Just give a little insight. Gosh, yeah. Well, I set the studio up Speaker 1 (2:05) 10 years ago and it's sort of just never, never really intending it to become what it has with carrying a big old bag of imposter syndrome. But over the years, I guess it's just sort of grown and grown. And now we're at the point where we've got a studio of about 10. So it's still a fairly small team, but we're doing quite big things. So I've now released the book, which is kind of celebrating 10 years of House 9, really. I've got a podcast with Pollyanna Wilkinson, which is all about, it's called The Ins and Outs, which I hope is going to be kicking off again soon. Gosh, it feels like it's a lot going on. I can't even, my head's slightly spinning at the moment. As you can tell, it's been a bit Speaker 4 (2:46) of Speaker 1 (2:46) a whirlwind. My Speaker 5 (2:47) husband Speaker 1 (2:47) watches your YouTube. I Speaker 5 (2:49) mean, you would not think he'd be the demographic, but he absolutely, in fact, he was watching it last night and he was like, can you ask her when the next episode of Ham House? Is that right? Ham House is Speaker 1 (2:59) coming out. Talk to me about the YouTube. What's the YouTube? We've got a YouTube channel called Behind the Design and it's about, I wanted to take people on. a journey of what it really takes to be an interior designer because I can't tell you how often I hear people say I'd love to be an interior designer without really I think understanding what goes on you know in taking a project from start to finish does that end with you Jojo? Speaker 4 (3:21) A little bit I'll Speaker 1 (3:23) be honest I'm like don't do it actually a girl came up to me at an event the other day and she's like I just want to quit my job you know and be an interior designer I'm like don't don't don't do that don't do Speaker 2 (3:32) that why Speaker 1 (3:32) would Speaker 2 (3:32) you do that Speaker 1 (3:33) why would you do that to yourself it's really hard work But it's, so it takes you on a journey of like a project from start to finish. It shows behind the scenes and I did a week in the life once of what my life's actually like. But the Ham House project is literally the first opportunity we've had to film a project from when we first were instructed from like the client brief all the way through to a fully dressed house, which is a real, yeah, a real treat. So it's Speaker 4 (3:57) a Speaker 1 (3:57) two year project. So it's essentially three episodes, two years squeezed into three episodes. Wow. Yeah, which is Speaker 4 (4:02) really exciting. How many tabs have you currently got open in your brain? Oh my God, I can't, I can't tell Speaker 1 (4:07) you. I'm also, I only last year was diagnosed as having ADD. So I'm not the hyper bit. So I managed to contain that, which is good. Otherwise I'd be bouncing off the walls like a pinball machine. But therefore I'm not very good at sort of closing tabs. I have hundreds open in my head all the time. What skills do you need to be able to make it as an interior designer? I think this is where I think people don't realise quite how many. And I say there's a lot of strings to your bow that are needed to be a designer because you have to be. First of all, creative, obviously. You have to be very organized, very organized. You have to be technical because a lot of technical drawing and everything comes into this now. You have to be very front-facing, so you've got to be client-facing, very confident, friendly. Able to take challenges on time because there are so many challenges every day, like hundreds of challenges. We call ourselves firefighters because we're constantly putting out fires. And just, yeah, take it all with a bit of a smile because you've just got to grow quite thick skin. I was going to say Speaker 5 (5:00) because a lot of it, especially like in somebody's home, must be so personal to them as well. So they might have an idea that you're like, oh, no, that is not going to work. But you've got to navigate how you tell them that. Speaker 1 (5:11) Absolutely. You're renovating your homes, right? You've renovated. it's nothing like renovating your own house because you're doing it with someone else's money and it's their life savings you know it's the most expensive thing you're ever going to pay for and therefore any little decision has to go through them and everything is costs money and everything costs way more money than I'd ever used to yeah Speaker 5 (5:29) you know it's Speaker 1 (5:29) it's just and we're having to manage those difficult conversations on the regular and things can go you know awry with so many different suppliers and contractors and so it's kind of trying to hold it all in and you know give the clients the best experience and the best journey. Sounds like Speaker 5 (5:45) a really chill job when you've got kids. Super chill. Speaker 1 (5:47) A chill job to have when you've Speaker 5 (5:49) got Speaker 1 (5:49) kids. And yeah, all that comes along with it. Speaker 4 (5:53) Nothing can prepare you though from the utter disappointment when you decide to take your own interiors into your own hands and then you order something that you think is going to be absolutely amazing and then you open the box and you're like, hang the fucking chandelier and then you look at it and go, it looks like a brothel now at the top of my stairs. I'm just talking like a friend. This happened to a friend. It's not in my house. Yeah, the pink feather chandelier that I currently have hanging at the top. Did you? Yeah, I sort of went for it. A friend was like, go for it. It's really fun. And when I pulled it out of the box, I was like, what have I done? Fun in like a slap. But you were like, but I won't send Speaker 1 (6:28) it back. I'll hang it up anyway. Speaker 4 (6:30) Yeah, because also sending Speaker 5 (6:31) anything from the house back is really difficult. And you sort of look and you think, it's too much effort to send that back. That will just stay. There'll Speaker 4 (6:39) be somebody into burlesque that wants it. And I'm going to send it Speaker 5 (6:42) to you. You can Speaker 4 (6:42) sell it on Facebook Marketplace. Speaker 5 (6:44) George, should we get into the questions because we've got loads? Let's do it. Let's start with, there's some really specific ones. So maybe we'll do a few of those. Any ideas on how to lay out a box room for our teen daughter to maximize space? Speaker 1 (7:01) A box room. I mean, a teen daughter, she's going to need storage. Yeah. So the first thing I think, always think functionally. So you can make it look nice. You can think colour, but that's kind of got to come later, how she's going to use the room first. So if she needs storage, you're going to need like hooks all over the wall. You're going to need storage. You're going to need maximum place for her clothes. Like, you know. makeup she's into that age where she's going to want to do sit and do makeup have a little makeup station she is right she's a teenager yeah teenager so a boxed room yeah it's it's small it's got to work hard it's got to work really hard so and it's also got to be a room that if you if you make a room too busy so the busier you make it the more like you know wallpaper and busy patterns and the smaller you're going to make it feel so if you want it to feel big and spacious you're going to have to keep it quite light Speaker 5 (7:49) Okay. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:50) Thoughts on mirrors Speaker 4 (7:52) on the wardrobe doors? I just don't like them. I don't either. I can't stand them. I like them on the back of the door. I open the wardrobe and have them inside. Yeah, Speaker 1 (8:00) yeah, yeah. Speaker 4 (8:00) But not on the front, no. They try and tell you that that's a way of kind of creating extra space in a room, don't they? Speaker 1 (8:05) Mirrors are a fantastic way of creating space because they're going to reflect