Make Your Space Special! Superstar Designer Amber Lewis (Pt 2) Shares Insider Tips + Her Deeply Personal, Inspiring Journey to Skyrocketing Success

The Jamie Kern Lima Show

Amber Lewis joins The Jamie Kern Lima Show for a design-focused conversation that moves from practical home styling to deeply personal reflectio

Key takeaways

• Amber Lewis says homes can feel energetically off when everything is too matching, comparing a home to a showroom if finishes, colors, and textures are all identical.
• She recommends warm white paint options such as Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee and Farrow & Ball Wimborne White, while cautioning that exterior paint requires different seasonal light considerations than interior paint.

Main topics

• Interior design principles
• White paint selection

Notable quotes

Get a little funk in there.

Conclusion

The episode offers practical home-design guidance while using Amber Lewis's

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Oh gosh, do you do this? Do you make people cry all the time? I can't believe I'm Speaker 2 (0:04) crying. Coming up in this incredible part two episode with Amber Lewis. It's tough to talk about. MS gave me that perspective of just, I have a different fire under Speaker 1 (0:15) my ass now. Really? Yeah, because tomorrow isn't a guarantee. Yeah, wow. I'm so honored you're here. Thank you. Blessing all of us with your time. Thank you. Right now. Amber Lewis is one of the most talented, buzzed about, and in demand interior designers right now. And she is here in person today with you and me to help us curate our own spaces, make our homes more magical, more livable, and even more us. What would you say makes a home often look energetically off, even if someone spent a lot of money on the stuff in there? Honestly, when things are... Speaker 2 (0:53) Everyone wants to know Speaker 1 (0:54) what's your favorite white paint. I have a few go-to's, but one of my favorites is... The color around us can change how we feel. When it comes to kitchens, what's something that really, really matters and what's something maybe that people get wrong a lot? How do you make a small room look bigger? What is something that often people will DIY, but you're like, oh, no, no, no, it's actually really worth? Even if you're on a tight budget, it's really worth spending the money of actually hiring someone to do it who really, this is what they do. Honestly. Amber Lewis is a seasoned interior designer, founder of a full-service design firm, Amber Interiors. touting clients across the country, the genius behind the brick and mortar and online retail stores, Shop Amber Interiors, and as a result of her remarkable love from her customers and demand for her talents, in recent years, she's expanded her business into successful multi-year furniture, rug, textile, and decor collaborations with companies you love like Anthropologie, Lolloi, Visual Comfort, and more. She's published two best-selling books, Call It Home and Made for Living, and her brand new third book, a new home renovation and interior design book called Interiors, Curated Spaces from Start to Finish, is available everywhere books are sold. And not only is she sharing answers to all of your most pressing design questions, she's also opening up like never before. We all go through things. We're all carrying things that... no one can ever know or imagine unless they're inside our world. It just very clearly just Speaker 2 (2:34) said, yeah, you Speaker 1 (2:35) just have MS. Speaker 2 (2:36) MS is invisible and that is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. It's been a whirlwind. I've... One of the greatest things that's ever happened to me, bizarrely, has been this diagnosis. The perspective shift is something that you only get through a traumatic event. It's not anything I would have ever thought I needed because I was on such a mission to grow and big, big, big, next, next, next. And all of Speaker 1 (3:02) a Speaker 2 (3:02) sudden, you get sick and everything stops. You are just in your body. in your body that is failing you and you no longer are living for anybody else you're just trying to get through the day and that is something that i would have never known had i not been given the perspective of this disease i try to look at ms with a very day-to-day how am i feeling today If I let myself get too far ahead of myself with thinking about the future is when I tend to kind of collapse a little and feel very overwhelmed. I was with my ex from when I'm 22 years old and our life was really his life. We'd built everything together. We were a really, really, really strong team and we still are a very strong team. But marriage is tough. We went through a lot of trauma. Speaker 2 (4:02) life was struggling and it was really hard. It was horrible. It was the hardest thing I think I've ever gone through. Taking those hard looks at your life are some, it's when the most change and evolution happens. Getting sick, my whole rug was taken from underneath me. I had to look at every single thing and the people in my life too. I work with them every single day. He's my best friend. He's your best friend right now. And we love each other Speaker 1 (4:32) so much. Are you dating anyone now? Yeah. Do you think if you had never worked together, you'd still be married? Do you think if you had not been diagnosed with MS that you would still be married? I do Speaker 2 (4:44) actually think that. Really? You have to look back at your partnership as well and think, well... This is why. You Speaker 1 (4:52) have a huge, thriving, avid fan community. I read that people have asked you to sign their chest. Their boobs. Their boobs. Speaker 2 (4:59) Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:01) When people are often successful, usually it's not an accident. And to understand who Amber is, behind Amber, hearing how you've navigated really tough decisions. I mean, you're a badass. You're a badass and you're really tough and you're really ambitious and you're no joke. Speaker 1 (5:20) and seeing that side of you. I'm getting emotional now. Everyone else cries on my show, but I'm like crying right now because I'm just like, I love this. Oh man. It's like a therapy session, ma'am. It's so beautiful. Oh, thank you. I am so excited for this conversation and I'm so happy that you are here. Thank you so much for being part of the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast family. And if you haven't done this yet, can you take two seconds and hit the subscribe button on the app that you're listening or watching on? That way you're going to be the very first to get every inspirational episode. Plus you can get weekly inspiration into your inbox from me for free. Just join my newsletter at jamiekernlima.com. And thank you for sharing this episode with every single person that you you know, who might need some inspiration and hope today because we are all in this life together. Speaker 3 (6:09) Welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show. Speaker 1 (6:13) Oprah, how have you defied the odds? Her show Speaker 3 (6:17) is unlike any I've ever done. A revelation. When you listen, it feels like a hug. First Lady Michelle Obama. Jamie, you are going so deep. I have never had this in-depth conversation. I've actually never said that out loud to anybody in an interview before. You know how to get there. Your brain and your spirit and your heart is like, wow, Melinda French Gates. When I look into Jamie's eyes, I feel like I am on some other cosmic level with her. Megan, Duchess of Sussex. Speaker 1 (6:53) I wasn't expecting that one. Speaker 2 (6:55) I could see the light around her. Speaker 1 (6:57) She's infused with light. Maria Shriver. I never made that mistake again. Imagine overcoming self-doubt, learning to believe in yourself and trust yourself and know you are enough. Welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show. Jamie Speaker 3 (7:14) Kern Lima is her name. Everybody needs Jamie Kern Lima in their life. Speaker 2 (7:18) Jamie Kern Speaker 3 (7:19) Lima. Jamie, you're so inspiring. Jamie Kern Lima. Speaker 1 (7:28) What would you say makes a home often look energetically off, even if someone spent a lot of money on the stuff in there? Honestly, when things Speaker 2 (7:37) are too matching. I think when someone says they bought the nightstand to match the dresser that matches that and everything is the same finish and everything is the same color, I say get a little funk in there. Get a little bit of a different finish or texture or color Speaker 1 (7:53) because Speaker 2 (7:55) it does. That energetically feels too much like a showroom. And you want, Speaker 1 (7:58) you know, we want to live Speaker 2 (7:59) in our spaces. Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:01) And know the people who live in the spaces. Right. Yeah. Right. Do you have a favorite? So when you're picking a white paint for a wall or a white paint for a ceiling, do you have like... a couple go-tos that are your favorite whites? Yeah. In my first two Speaker 2 (8:17) books and even in this one, I just go through like the gamut of my white because I get that ask all the time. Everyone wants to know what's your favorite white paint? I have a few go-tos, but one of my favorites is just honestly Benjamin Moore Swiss coffee. Speaker 1 (8:34) It's a Speaker 2 (8:35) tried and true. It's warm. I paint it on a lot of ceilings. I paint it on a lot of trim and I paint it on a lot of walls. It's a good color, but there's so many whites out there. Speaker 1 (8:45) There's so many. One of my close friends, Victoria Jackson, who's done a number of houses, that's her favorite color, Swiss coffee. Speaker 2 (8:51) It's Swiss coffee. It's just straight if you add, and every brand does it a little bit different. Speaker 1 (8:57) So Speaker 2 (8:57) Dunn-Edwards Swiss coffee is a little different than Benjamin Moore Swiss coffee, which is a little different than like Bayer Swiss coffee. So it's ridiculous, but every one is a little bit different. I like Dunn-Edwards and Benjamin Moore. Speaker 1 (9:09) Do you like, and the Swiss coffee, Benjamin Moore, it's almost like. It's white, but it's something like a cream. Yeah. It's creamy. Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:16) Which is beautiful because you don't want something to feel so white that you're in an operating room. It's the same with lighting. You have to be very specific about really honing in on a warm tone light. And so you don't want your paint to feel cold and you don't want your lighting to feel cold. It's a little creamy. Have you heard of Windborne White? Yeah, it's great. It's fantastic by Farrow and Ball. And Speaker 1 (9:38) that one is, and then a lot of the... more accessible companies have sort of been inspired Speaker 2 (9:42) by Wimborne White and made a match. Yes. Okay. And that one's a little more white, white. Wimborne is white, but it has a lot of yellow in it too. It has a lot of yellow, but like a good yellow. I've done a bunch of homes in the Wimborne. Oh, Farrow and Ball is another incredibly beautiful. Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:58) Yeah. I could go on and on. I could write a whole, another whole book Speaker 2 (10:02) about just white paint. About white paint. Speaker 1 (10:04) Oh my gosh. Has anyone ever done that? I wonder. I'm sure. I'm sure. That's a good, I mean, that's important. I never understood why your white paint color matters because this is not my world and I totally get it because the color around us can change how we feel. Well, and Speaker 2 (10:19) here's what's another really wild thing to think about is that some people will say, well, oh, okay, I did. This white on the interior and then they'll go paint it on the exterior. Wrong. You have to think about the exterior in a totally different way than you do the interior because the exterior light is going to change seasonally and it's going to be different every single time of the day. Speaker 1 (10:41) And you Speaker 2 (10:42) can't just do a one size fits all. So that's a whole other kind of thought process and theory. Speaker 1 (10:48) I think about it all the time. What's so cool about this conversation is to be so granular about things. I think this is fascinating because when a regular person like me hops onto your Instagram and looks at something and I'm like, why does this look so good? Speaker 2 (11:05) But Speaker 1 (11:06) then you hear the thought behind all the things and also just the reps you've put in over the years of figuring out why a white paint matters