Designed Happy The Podcast

If you polled 100 people and asked them: "what is the most important word in architecture?", how many of them do you think would say: Buildable? Probably not that many. In this week's episode Katie and TJ discuss why it actually is. Katie also offers us one of her patented, Duh's.

For years and years and years we've all talked about our home as our biggest asset. And sure, it is. But we're approaching a tipping point where people are starting to realize that the Return on Enjoyment might be just as, if not more important than, Return on Investment. Katie and TJ take a deeper dive on ROI vs ROE. They also talk about a board game from the 70s, and do their best to define the word Fungibility.

Do you hold your luckiest lucky charm as you sign on the dotted line with a contractor? Should it all be up to luck? Of course not. Katie and TJ discuss a step-by-step strategy to remove luck from the process and help you to choose a contractor that is the right fir for your project. But can they get through the whole episode without doing Irish accents?

When you're at the Fit Score step, you can find it here:

https://www.designedhappy.com/fitscore.html

Does a hair cut have anything to do with home remodeling? Actually, yes, a whole lot! Katie and TJ discuss Katie's new style, her process for getting there, what it felt like before the first snip, and how all of that is exactly what this podcast has been about from the beginning.

Can Katie and TJ making discussing different contract types fun? Will this episode be more like eating your vegetable, or the cool teacher putting on a movie in class? Either way, we're talking about different types of remodeling contracts and when they make sense.

This week, Katie and TJ take you behind the scenes of how we create our monthly comic strip, Nailed It. They review of few of their faves, share the stories that led to their creation, and discuss how they collaborate with local artists.

You can find all of our comic strips here:

https://www.designedhappy.com/blog/category/nailed-it

And if you want to see the comic before everyone else, subscribe to the Designed Happy newsletter here:

https://www.designedhappy.com/subscribe.html

Happy Valentine's Day! We hope you had a wonderful day celebrating. This week Katie and TJ talk about trust - how to earn it, when it's at its most fragile, and if you can regain it. They also discuss how they each celebrate Valentine's day, and TJ shares a balsamic glaze story gone wrong.

Katie and TJ think back to when Kat had TJ design a kitchen around a sink. Katie wants to know what kinds of other things clients have designed around, and well, things got a bit weird by the end. And to give credit to the comic TJ couldn't remember, here is the clip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xqcSILeOwhA

In this week's episode, Katie and TJ discuss how words change over time, and how a word like Custom, used to mean something different than it does today. They talk about why that's important, a word to use instead, and pecan pies for people with silk scarves.

In this episode Katie and TJ review the 2026 trend predictions made by HOUZZ. Do we love them all? No. But do we love most of them? Also no. We'll give them this - we have our finger's crossed for a couple of them. Also, Katie's about to have a great year, and TJ explains door doors (not a typo). Check out the HOUZZ predictions here:

https://pro.houzz.com/pro-learn/blog/sneak-peek-houzz-reveals-11-of-the-top-home-design-predictions-for-2026