Designed Happy The Podcast

Another surprise episode, which TJ handles with dread. A few days out from Halloween, Katie runs him through the everyday home symptoms that feel like a haunted house and asks when to shrug and when to worry. Howling wind, things that go bump in the walls, flickering lights, dripping faucets, creaky doors, they cover it all. Along the way we get the single greatest story this podcast has produced (you'll never guess where TJ drove a mouse). It ends with TJ's genuinely haunted grievance about a house cleaner who keeps putting his stuff back in the wrong spot. His proposed solution is to sell the house. Kat, if you're listening, he's not kidding.

Friend of the show, Steve Scholl returns to talk through the world of putting an elevator in your house. Steve traces how he got into universal design after a visit home revealed his mother couldn't turn a doorknob, and why the reason people call has shifted from an emergency that needs it today to future-proofing a house they never want to leave. He and TJ get into hoistways, cabs, and multi-directional doors, why the elevator ends up hauling groceries and luggage as much as people, and the real drivers of cost. TJ makes his case for putting the hole in the floor now even if you're 45, Katie appoints herself the most obnoxious elevator co-rider in America, and Steve reveals the truth about the door close button that she refuses to accept.

A twist on the usual Happy Home Story: instead of clients looking back on a finished project, Erin and Henry come on about a third of the way through their design process, still in the thick of it. They talk about the trauma-adjacent bathroom renovation that nearly scared them off doing anything else, the fatalism they kept hearing that these projects are just supposed to be miserable, and what actually shifted when Henry finally picked the book up off the coffee table after a year of dust collecting on it. They get into how the exercises landed differently for two people whose brains work in completely different ways, why leading with your why beat walking in with a finished Pinterest board, and the business card that fell out of the book at exactly the right moment. Benchstone becomes a word, "it doesn't have to suck" becomes a t-shirt, and TJ gets to hear firsthand what he was hoping for while typing alone in his office.

The people spoke, the YouTube numbers came in, and cabinets get a sequel. This time TJ shares his screen and walks through the terminology you'll actually hear in a showroom, from five piece versus slab drawer fronts to raised versus flat panels to why your top drawer might need to be a different style than the ones below it. He gets into which accessories are worth it, why paying the cabinet manufacturer for a knife block is a sucker's move, and a full soapbox on rollout shelves that he genuinely does not understand and would like the audience to explain to him. Before any of that, a banter question about going back for seconds turns into French fries, vegan gluten-free cookies eaten by the dozen, and a real proposal for Katie to rename every door style Jill and Cornelia. Stay for the loose-toe tip...it'll save your back.

The topic pairs nicely with the toilet episode: faucets. Katie thinks she has made it to the victory lap of the design process, then finds out some people touch their faucet 40 times a day and labor over it more than anything else in the house. TJ walks through the decision tree, from pull down versus pull out to single lever versus spread to the bridge faucet to the wall-mounted one that's officially on his bucket list. There's a hard rule about exterior walls that will save your pipes, and a warning about a certain trendy faucet that turns a simple hand-wash into a full shower. Katie opens with a flushable wipe rant she refuses to cut, defends the two-zone faucet TJ cannot picture, and returns from a restaurant bathroom absolutely drenched.

TJ flips the mic on himself and walks through a personal design saga: the rose garden he built for Kat for their 20th anniversary. What starts as a grand romantic gesture turns into a real-world lesson in being on the other side of the table, from why he chose to bring in a professional instead of doing it himself, to the black background website that told him everything he needed to know, to the referral who ignored the one instruction TJ gave him. Along the way there's a nearly-Ron-Burgundied intro, a proposal he couldn't keep secret for three days, and an experiment with a shovel that answered a question TJ didn't really want answered. It's the longest episode they've ever recorded and every homeowner who has ever hired someone will recognize a piece of it. Kat, happy anniversary.

Surprise episode. No outline, no agenda, no idea what the topic is until they're rolling. Once they land on roofs, it turns out there's a lot more to decide than a triangle and some shingles. Katie and TJ get into roof shapes, why the very first question any roof has to answer is where the water goes, why the pitch you choose controls what material you're even allowed to put on top, and what happens where two roofs meet. Along the way there's the raise-the-roof hand gesture, high socks making a comeback, and low-rise jeans that TJ feels very differently about as the father of a daughter than he did as a teenager. There's a pitch for a roof-types TikTok dance, a lobbying effort to rebrand the "stick-built" roof, and an ending that arrives, as it must, at enchiladas.

Marc Cashin, first ever returning guest, is back to talk about what the luxury real estate market looks like this fall. He explains the little-known micro season that shows up a few weeks after school starts, why the interest rate conversation has fundamentally changed, and why waiting to buy might cost you more than you think. He and TJ also get into the real math behind renovating your current home versus buying up, and why it's a different calculus at every price point. Before any of that, there's a mandatory murder basement check-in, a debate over whether everyone present is a fall girly, and a closing argument about garbage can advertising that got heated enough to table for a future episode. Warmest regards.

Katie and TJ welcome DC realtor Jack Shorb to talk about the flip side of the downsizing episode: upsizing, or upgrading, which turns out to mean very different things to different people. Jack and TJ break down the big drivers behind find a house to upsize to, why the house someone really wants is often nearly impossible to find and ends up being built or renovated instead, and what to actually look for in a home you plan to change. They also get into why moving costs can rival the price of an addition, why spending closing cost fees feels different than writing a check even when the numbers match, and why the real move is getting an agent, an architect, and a contractor in the same room before you decide whether to stay or go. Katie coins "bro house" and would like to trademark it.

Katie takes her usual measured approach and TJ, well, does not. This one is a rant with a point. TJ explains why HGTV is entertainment dressed up as education, why those $20,000 kitchen reveals are real numbers that mean nothing for your actual project, and what he found when he inspected two client kitchens that had been done on camera. He also admits his deepest, pettiest grudge. Plus a pitch for a slow, honest remodel show that HGTV will never make.