But I Have Notes.

The Install: Life & Design with Paloma and Caroline

Paloma and Caroline share their recent professional 'notes,' ranging from the excitement of a Southern Living Idea House opening in Texas to

Key takeaways

• Paloma is showcasing her work at the Southern Living Idea House in Fredericksburg, Texas.
• The hosts debate whether consuming an audiobook constitutes 'reading' a book.
• A critique of a hotel room highlights how design fails when it lacks practical elements like accessible lighting and power outlets.
• Caroline details a massive logistics failure where a manufacturer miscalculated fabric yardage by 18 yards, causing significant project delays.
• Fall fashion trends discussed include tomato red colors, lace layering, and satin-inspired pieces.

Main topics

• Southern Living Idea House
• Audiobooks vs. Reading debate
• Hotel design functionality

Notable quotes

I deplore this type of design that is like all aesthetic and completely impractical.

Conclusion

The episode provides a candid look at the logistical headaches and pra

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:03) Hi, and welcome to The Install. We're Paloma Contreras and Caroline Jadier, and this is where we talk about design, business, and the real life behind creative work. What's inspiring us, what's challenging us, and everything in between. Speaker 1 (0:16) Hey, Paloma. Hi, Caroline. How's it going? Doing great. I see you're in your beautiful room in Fredericksburg. Speaker 2 (0:24) Yes, I am here at the Southern Living Idea House. I'm here this week for the grand opening. So it just, I guess it opens on the 18th. So by the time this comes out, it will be open. And we had the big... reveal party last night with all of the different sponsors. And then there's a friends and family event tonight. So lots going on. And it's been really nice to reveal what we've been working on for the last year. What I've seen looks incredible. Speaker 1 (0:52) Thank you. Incredible. So you've done the master or the primary bedroom, the study and the primary bath. So the house was divided. Okay. So Speaker 2 (1:04) it's Southern Living's 60th anniversary, and they hadn't been back to Texas in a while. So Sid last night gave a speech, and he was like, we had a hard time narrowing it down. And so we decided, Sid Evans, editor-in-chief, and he was like, we just decided if we're in Texas, we'll go big or go home and have three designers. So they divided the house into thirds, and I was responsible for the primary suite, which is comprised of the primary bedroom, bathroom, two closets. And then I also have the study. powder bath and a guest casita that has a living room, a bathroom and a bedroom. So we had quite a bit of the house. Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:44) That's great. Speaker 2 (1:45) It's been really Speaker 1 (1:45) fun. Yeah. Who are the other designers? So Jean Lou from Dallas did the main Speaker 2 (1:49) living spaces. So it's basically like a big great room, a kitchen, dining. She's so good at this. Living. She's wonderful. Big spaces. Yeah. She's got a really great modern sensibility and it just really lends itself to this particular house. And then she also did some outdoor spaces. And then Marcus Mahone from Austin did the guest spaces. Speaker 2 (2:11) What else did he have? Like laundry room and what he called a party garage. He like really decked out the garage. Yeah. Speaker 1 (2:18) Well, where is Frederick? I was trying to tell Stephen and I don't even know where Frederick is. I was like, it's an hour from Houston. No, I know. I was like, where? Speaker 2 (2:27) People in Texas know it. And I feel like anytime I've posted about Fredericksburg over the last year, they assume Virginia. It's Fredericksburg, Texas. It is in the Texas Hill Country. So it's between Austin and San Antonio. It's actually about four hours by car from Houston. So it's quite a haul for me. I don't Speaker 1 (2:44) like Speaker 2 (2:44) being in the car. But it's really beautiful. It was settled by Germans in, I don't know. the 1700s, 1800s. And there's a lot of original historic architecture. Like the main street is really cute. They've done a lot for historic preservation in the town. It's also very near or in the midst of the Texas wine country. In case you didn't know, Texas has a wine country. as well. Speaker 1 (3:08) I've missed out on those Texan wines. Speaker 2 (3:11) I'm not a big fan of Texan wines. They're a little sweet for my taste. Speaker 1 (3:16) Which varietals, if I can pull a word from sideways? I couldn't tell you because I don't drink them, honestly. I kind of avoid them. We don't Speaker 2 (3:24) know, Speaker 1 (3:24) red or white? No, Speaker 2 (3:25) there's both. There's red and white. Primarily red. Speaker 1 (3:28) They Speaker 2 (3:28) just tend to be very sweet. Speaker 1 (3:30) Is it like muscadine? Yeah, I haven't Speaker 2 (3:32) had them. I haven't tried a Texas wine in a long time. In fact, when I'm here and if I order a glass of wine at the bar, I'll be like, is that Texas or California? Do you have anything from France? Speaker 1 (3:43) What is that? The peach flavored wine that they drink on a, oh God, my favorite show. Like a Bellini? Laura Rose, when she had to do the commercial for. Speaker 1 (4:01) Oh Speaker 2 (4:01) my gosh. Speaker 1 (4:02) Hold Speaker 2 (4:02) on. Peach? I can't think of it. Like, I mean, there's like peach schnapps, a peach bellini. No, she did. Have you not? I've watched Schitt's Creek. I just don't remember that. Okay. I don't remember exactly what it was for. Speaker 1 (4:15) The wine commercial? So you raised a fruity glass. Speaker 1 (4:22) Well, I'm trying to remember the name of the vineyard, but it's like this. I feel like if you get away from the California vineyards and you're not in France or Italy, you're talking about a sweet wine that's made from like a stone fruit or some weird. Oh, my gosh. Too funny. That is one of my favorite. That and then towards the end where she takes David with her. Speaker 1 (4:51) When they go back and they get so wasted from the... Speaker 2 (4:55) I mean, God, how long has it been since that aired? Like 10 years, probably? I don't remember all of these details, but God bless Catherine O'Hara. She was so funny. I need to go back and do a rewatch. Oh, Speaker 1 (5:07) gosh. Yeah. I'd love to pull it up sometimes when it's when, you know, like I just need comfort. I want to watch something that I've already always already seen before. So I watch like Seinfeld or Schitt's Creek every now and then. Herb Erlinger. That's what it is. Herb Erlinger's Stone Fruit Winery. And she's, you know, she trips over trying to say it and the drunker she gets drinking the wine, the harder the time she's saying it. Anyway. Okay. Well, yeah, I'm not a huge fan when we get beyond like our classic vineyard locations. And I just don't do sweet wine. I agree. Yeah. I had a ranch water last night. Not a... Speaker 2 (5:50) Texas wine. Oh, Speaker 1 (5:51) there you go. Yeah. I mean, that is what Texas, we ought to be making in Texas. If we need a beverage, it needs to be tequila. Speaker 2 (5:59) I Speaker 1 (5:59) agree. Okay. Well, I thought we would do a mini little book review and give our thoughts on The Calamity Club because we both read that recently. Oh, Speaker 2 (6:10) yeah. Speaker 1 (6:11) Yes. Speaker 2 (6:12) I finished reading it, gosh, probably a month ago. Yeah, a good while ago, probably early August, I finished reading it, but I really enjoyed it. And what's interesting is I am very much a lover of tangible things to read. So I will read a hardcover paperback book. I'm not reading on a device. And I love, you know, paper magazine. I love to hold those things in my hand and flip through them. I love a bookmark. And I bought them. You have a bookmark collection, don't you? Uh, not quite a collection. I think you suggested I should have, I should collect them. I just said I buy, I tend to buy them when I'm traveling. Like if I find them in a museum gift shop. Um, I bought the hardcover copy of it and it's, you know, it's a long book. It's this big, it's heavy. And this was around the time that I'd had surgery. So I wasn't supposed to like, it was just like very awkward trying to read it. And so I decided to listen to the audio on Audible. which I've never done. I've never listened to a book on audio. And it was fabulous. I don't know if you've listened to it, but Alex Kaler, a designer from Chicago that I'm friends with, she is a voracious reader and will read like four novels in a week. Speaker 1 (7:24) And Speaker 2 (7:24) she listened to the audio of this one and was like, I was like, are most, are they all like this? Do Speaker 1 (7:31) I Speaker 2 (7:31) need to be listening to books? And she's like, no, no, this is, this was next level. The actress who does it is so good and really captures. all of the subtleties between the characters. I mean, it was like theater. It came to life for me. And I was at some point while I was reading it, I think I was also driving here. So on my four hour drive here and four hour drive back home, I got to, you know, listen to a good chunk of the book. So actually devoured it that way instead of reading it the traditional way. And I really enjoyed it. Speaker 1 (8:01) It's interesting. A couple of points on that. One, listening versus reading. Can you say that you've read the book? What's your opinion? Speaker 2 (8:09) Okay. I mean, that's an interesting question. I feel like technically, no, I didn't read the words on the pages, but I have the same. Speaker 1 (8:19) knowledge in your brain? The book that Speaker 2 (8:21) you do from having read it. This is Speaker 1 (8:22) a huge, you have hit on a huge bone of contention between me and my husband. Okay. And it started back in law school when we were at a cocktail party and somebody said something about Barbarians at the Gate. It was a book that I had listened to on tape. And that was when you had to go like. check them Speaker 2 (8:45) out of the library. Yeah, the tape on the tape recorder. The Speaker 1 (8:48) actual tape. Anyway, he was, and he called me out in front of everybody. He was like, what are you saying? You've not read that book. You listened to it. And I was like, well, what's the difference? I'm like, I can have a conversation with this person about it because I have the same information in my brain. He was like, it's not the same thing. And don't ever say that you've read a book when you've listened to it. I was like, I don't agree with you. Okay. cut to a book group that I joined last year and went once. Because I just like, I wasn't interested in the books that they were, they kept recommending. Sure. But there was a conversation because we were going to read Theo of Golden. Have you ever read that book? Speaker 2 (9:30) I Speaker 1 (9:30) haven't read it. Okay. I'm Speaker 2 (9:31) going Speaker 1 (9:31) to send it to you. It's Speaker 2 (9:32) one of my favorite books of all time. You will absolutely Speaker 1 (9:34) love it. Speaker 2 (9:35) Okay. Speaker 1 (9:36) They were like, we need to do that, but it's not on book on tape. And if it's not on book on tape, well, like, we're not going to read it as a book club. And I was like, do we get to say that we've read it if we just listen to it? And they were like, that's all we ever did. All of us ever did. Speaker 2 (9:50) Oh, Speaker 1 (9:50) interesting. I was like, and then we're old people. Very educated. It was like a broad spectrum through like my country, young, old. It wasn't like a particular demographic. And I came home and I was like, these people out here all agree with me that you could say that you've read a book if you have listened to every word of it. You don't have to get into all the weeds of how I consumed this information. Yeah, you've consumed it regardless. I feel like the Speaker 2 (10:18) information Speaker 1 (10:18) has traveled through Speaker 2 (10:20) your brain. You've digested it. You have come away with the same. if not maybe a deeper comprehension because you have the added benefit of the reader's inflection and, you know, like maybe they can lend more color to the text than you might if you're reading it as you're falling asleep in bed. Well, Speaker 1 (10:38) that's my second point on that. Catherine Stockett, and she's talking about Oxford, Mississippi, all the locations here are literally a stone's throw from where I grew up in Speaker 2 (10:49) the Speaker 1 (10:49) way the... the dialogue is written, I read it so quickly because I hear, I know those sentences, the way she's saying things, what she's referring to, what everybody, I'm like, I hear it in my brain. Like I probably would be one of those annoying people, one in 200,000 that doesn't like this actress reading it because I'm too familiar with it, right? How do you Speaker 2 (11:16) say Coca-Cola in Florence? Coca Speaker 1 (11:19) -Cola. Speaker 2 (11:19) Coca-Cola. Yeah, that's how the reader said it. Coca-Cola. And Speaker 1 (11:23) I Speaker 2 (11:23) thought that was amusing because I've never heard it like that. Coca-Cola. Yeah. I Speaker 1 (11:26) didn't know that it had two syllables for a long time. That's kind of like, there are a lot of words like that, like tennis shoes. I didn't know that it was tennis shoes for a long time. They were tennis shoes. They're pennies. Speaker 2 (11:35) Yeah. Yeah, tenny. Tenny. Tenny bops. Speaker 1 (11:38) Tenny shoes. Just stuff like that. It is so close to Florence, like literally just a couple of miles down the road that, and I, I was telling my older sister who lives in New Orleans, I was like, you ought to get it and read it. She was like, I don't know. I was like, it sounds so familiar. It just sounds like my grandmother talking and all of the, just, just voraciously consumed the dialogue in particular. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:04) But I Speaker 1 (12:04) thought it was such a great story, except for there's a lot of darkness in it. There's a lot of Speaker 2 (12:09) darkness. It's a sad story. There's a lot of. It's a story of loss and heartbreak, redemption at the end. But there's so much heartbreak, so much devastation. The main protagonists are faced with one trial after the next. You know, like it's not an easy time to be living in the South and it's not. an easy time to be a woman. You know, they're faced with so many different challenges and judgments and it's really a story of survival. Yeah, it Speaker 1 (12:40) really is. It was, there was a point at which I asked myself if I was going to continue to read it because I was like, I just, this is so dark and this woman is so awful. Like, Speaker 1 (12:56) Like, I need, you know, something uplifting to come along. I'm like, how long can I invest before, you know, things start to break? But I'm so glad that I stuck with it. It was so good. But I almost felt, and I cannot wait for the movie. I know it's going to be incredible. I Speaker 2 (13:11) know Speaker 1 (13:11) there has to be Speaker 2 (13:11) a movie. Yeah, for sure. Speaker 1 (13:13) But I felt about it like I did I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. And that is, I'll just be. straight up with you, that's the only Tom Wolfe book I've ever read. And it was like 800 pages, like this one, like huge, like huge investment. Speaker 2 (13:31) Okay. Speaker 1 (13:32) Incredible character development. You're along for the ride. Like you really feel like, you know, these characters, you look forward to picking it up, like picking back up in their lives and seeing what's happening, how this is going along. But he, that book, like this one was like, you can't wrap this up in one chapter. Like what? Like, I need more on the backside of this, like exultation, like excitement, like processing, like what are we doing now? And like an epilogue or whatever. Like, you can't take me 700 pages and wrap this thing up in 20. You know what I'm saying? That was my only complaint about the book. Otherwise, it was, it really was. Speaker 1 (14:16) I don't know when I've read a book that's that long that I've just wished it was longer. You know what I'm saying? Like that I had more of it to read that I enjoyed it so much. Speaker 2 (14:27) Interesting. I was ready to be done with it. It was very long. But I was glad to finally see the resolution. But I agree, there was a lot of buildup to it. So the climax, I feel like, could have been longer. You know, like we could have... known more and maybe they're leaving it open to a sequel where we we know we we learn what happens to these characters after they've gone through the trials and tribulations and have come out on the other side Speaker 1 (14:55) maybe so it's interesting because because i was reading the book and the pages right you're listening to it so you don't know really how much more you have left to consume I'm assuming unless you're like, no, it's broken down by chapters. Speaker 2 (15:09) Yeah. Speaker 1 (15:09) But yeah, I mean, you don't know if that last, how long that last chapter is or what have you, like, as you're reading the book and you're getting down and it's like, I mean, how are we going to resolve this in these teeny like number of pages that I'm holding together? And this is still not resolved. Right. This whole book. And now we've got this little amount that it's going to resolve in. you know, I kept looking at like kind of flipping forward, like, did I count this page? Do I only have 19 pages left? And I still don't know, you know, exactly how this is going to end. But anyway, well, but it was a delight. It was good. Speaker 2 (15:48) I look forward to seeing who plays the different characters in the movie. Yeah. Speaker 1 (15:53) Yeah, I know. The casting. Because the help. Speaker 2 (15:55) I mean, Catherine Stockett's first book, The Help, was so incredible. And the movie, it's rare where a movie is as good, if not better, than a book. And I feel like that movie was really amazing. With Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. And who was the main, the redhead girl, the primary character? Emma. Stone was a protagonist as well. And it was just such a great cast. So good. Who was the other girl that was the sort of bimbo housewife out in the boonies? What is her name? And she's a great actress. Can't think of it. She's Speaker 1 (16:32) like Speaker 2 (16:32) a strawberry blonde buxom. But that was sort of like a star-making turn for her, too. Speaker 1 (16:36) Yeah. I really love, I am that annoying person that, like, if you're going to turn it into a movie and it's a book that I've read, I really, the fidelity to the text, you know, I know you have to make accommodations because it's a two-hour movie and it takes you, you know, weeks to read the book and the pages and all that kind of stuff. They can't. But usually when they have the author contribute or on set to advise, like I believe Catherine did, you get just a much better product. And they did such a great job with that. Jessica Speaker 2 (17:11) Chastain. I just looked it up. I mean, Star started to cast Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson. I mean, it was so good. So I'm excited to see. I'm sure. this movie will be adapted in the same type of quality that that one was. Speaker 1 (17:28) Meg, it's going to take somebody special to Speaker 2 (17:31) play Meg. Really special. Speaker 1 (17:32) I know. She's so tender. Speaker 2 (17:34) So cute. Speaker 1 (17:35) And so funny. Just so, so funny. Yeah. God. Oh, so sweet. So precious. Okay. Loved that. All