#263: Renovation Updates

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Elsie: If you're listening to the Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. It's time for a big renovation update. In this episode, we'll talk about both the things that have gone well and the things that didn't go as planned. I'll also share my tips for renovating a kitchen as a parent of two young kids, and what we're excited to finish next. So, before we jump in, I believe Emma wants to tell us about her new chandelier.

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Emma: Yeah. Speaking of renovating, just kidding. I have no renovation updates. I'm not renovating, but here's my chandelier story. Recently bought a new chandelier. That's the end of the story. Let's back up though. So first years ago, we're moving to our house, so we gutted about 80% of our house. Most of our house we gutted and like we did new floors and knew this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I bought a whole bunch of light fixtures at once and my budget was not crazy.

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Emma: So there's one chandelier in our home that's kind of like the chandelier. You see it when you walk in our entryway. It hangs above like the stairs that go from our entryway into our kitchen, living, dining area. You go up the stairs more and you go into our bedroom and so this is like a chandelier that's like the chandelier of the home. If there's gonna be a a big statement light fixture. This is it. This is the spot. So I really wanted a bubble chandelier. But my budget did not fit a bubble chandelier. So I bought a cheap bubble chandelier off Amazon at the time, and it looked even more cheap in person than it seemed online. But you know, like I said, my budget was what it was. And so I was like, that's fine, I'll just have it for however long, and someday I'll find some other chandelier and it'll be exciting and that's cool. It doesn't matter. And when they hung the chandelier, they broke it immediately. It's that situation where if you've ever renovated, we'll hear a little bit about this from Elsie. When you get towards the end of it, you're kind of like, we've gotta finish this. I just need everything done. I need everyone out of my home. I'm done. You're sick of working here. It's hard for me to even get you to show up. I'm sick of you being here. We've gotta wrap this up and send you your final payment. So when they broke it, it was just like a minor break and I could tell they were kind of like, okay, so we're sorry. You know, they were sorry. So you probably need to buy a new one, so we'll come back. And I was like, no, no, no. Get the ladder back out. Get the ladder back out. We are gonna hang this one. It was fine. I'll replace it later because I, you know, I was like, I have to get this home day.

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Elsie: Was it Hideable?

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Emma: Yeah, it was hideable. So I still had the broken, one of the, the bulbs was broken, but it was like kind of inside a cluster of a whole bunch of bubble looking. You know, you could Google bubble chandelier and you'll see what I'm talking about? So you couldn't really see it. I knew there was a broken one in there, but you couldn't see it. And I already knew I kind of wanted to replace this someday, so I was like, no point in replacing it right now when I still don't have any budget because we just are moving so I'd rather just hang it broken. You can't even see it. And then I'll replace it some other day. So fast forward to now, like two years later, two and a half years later, and there was a stuffy throwing incident. It just, you know, my house is boys. Things get thrown sometimes and it's really not even, we don't really have like a no throwing rule in our house. But anyway, because it was already broken from when it originally got installed, it broke more. So now the chandelier's been broken twice, and I think this second time is the sign from the universe that now it's time to get a new chandelier. So that's how I took it. So I wasn't all upset. We just cleaned up the glass and tried to get every single piece because we have a baby who crawls around and we're like, oh my God. You know? So I was like, okay, I'm gonna get a nice chandelier. Now's the time. I'm excited for this fancy time. And it doesn't even have to, you know, I just like, I'm only buying one light fixture, not a whole bunch. So I can pick something that I'm really excited about. Great. This is great. It's no problem that it got broken again. So I text Elsie because I often like, especially when it comes to home decor stuff, I just don't have a lot of brain power right now in my life. I'm very like at my capacity. So I like to just get some opinions from friends I trust. So I was like, Elsie, pick me a chandelier. I need one for this spot. She sent me like four options. Three of them were like cool and one was weird and I bought the weird one. So it's from West Elm and it comes in later this month, so I need to kind of, kind of a squiggly looking situation. Squiggly like kind of a modern squiggly vibe. I really like it. It's really cool. It's kind of weird. I feel like it's gonna fit in our house. Great. At least online and based on the price, it seemed really nice. It's not a little cheapy like I had bought before because I was on my budget. So I'm very excited to have it hung and I can't wait to have in our house. And I feel like I'll walk in and be like, there's the chandelier. That's what was meant to be here. I think this one's gonna be more substantial too. So I actually think if there is another stuffy throwing incident, I actually think it'll be fine. Whereas the bubble chandelier was just not, it was just a pretty fragile.

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Elsie: It's actually like not normal to throw a stuffy and for it to break. You know what I mean?

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Emma: It was just already broken. So that's my chandelier story.

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Elsie: I'm proud of you.

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Emma: Yeah. Doing it, and I feel a fancy, I'm like, oh, you know, I bought this fancy thing. It wasn't even on sale. I just bought it. Look at me. Look at me.

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Elsie: Wow. Yeah.

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Emma: Did I Google around for a discount code? Yeah, I did, but I didn't find one and I still went for it. Anyway, I can usually find a discount code. I actually usually can too. Mm-hmm. So that's why I always just Google right before. Yeah. You come in and buy something. I'm like, I'll just give this a quick Google, you know?

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Elsie: Okay. Well, I'm not gonna lie. Didn't wanna do this episode because I thought it would be boring and sad, but I was reading emails that came in over the summer and a lot of people said they were excited to hear it. So thank you. If you're one of those people, if you're not, I'm sorry. It's like, whatever.

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Emma: We gotta talk about renovating once in a while though. I mean, it's a big part of your life right now. It is. It's definitely though the most difficult renovation we've ever been through because we did our kitchen this time, and a kitchen is hard. We have never done a kitchen since we had kids, so I learned some things there and I'm just gonna kind of give an update on like what we've gotten done so far, how our plans have changed. Because unfortunately I noticed when I was having family vacation, my mother-in-law was like bringing up all these plans that I mentioned on the podcast and I was like, yeah, those have changed. So thought I might give an update there and then I'll give like the exciting updates to try to make it happy and then when we'll be done, wow. To try to be optimistic. And then as always, we'll end with talking about the Tom Hanks classic, the Money Pit. We must mention it because I have to make it a big deal every single time I talk about renovating.

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Emma: So funny that you watch that movie.

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Elsie: It is tradition. You don't skip it. It's a tradition. I haven't watched it yet this year, so it's coming. Oh, it's tradition. You're probably about into the sad parts that's, I might be able to watch it with our kids. Maybe they just watched their first Tom Hanks movie, which was Turner and Hooch. Which is one of my husband's favorite childhood movies. And they loved it. Like they loved it. I want Tom Hanks to be famous to my kids. It'd be cool if we could get there.

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Emma: So, I mean, have they seen Toy Story?

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Elsie: Yeah. But like voice acting is not always a thing.

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Emma: Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I see. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Well, let's tell people, let first, let's talk about, what's gotten done. So what's finished or completed or almost finished or, you know, what's done so far because it's been since April.

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Elsie: Yes. So yeah, we started pretty much as soon as the new year started, we were like do whatever, just get it done. Just we wanna do our whole house. And we had this huge list, and I think I shared it on the podcast in the spring. And so far what has gotten done from that list is we do have a garage that's mostly done. So we now have a garage and it's not, it's not done, but it's close enough. It's pretty big. We actually can't drive into it because we have to get another concrete appointment, but that's okay. It's there. It's there after the concrete appointment to use one day. So upstairs I had this cute little office. So if anyone remembered, I had this cute little office with my roll top desk from Marketplace and I really vibed in that space. But one of the contractors was like, you could make this a bathroom for your daughter. And then I, once I got it into my head because it's right next to Marigold's bedroom and she doesn't have a bathroom. And, well, she kind of does, but it's like in a different part. And we were maybe going to use that one to build a bigger laundry room. And Nova has her own little bathroom. So we kind of wanted to like, make things equal and be preparing for like our tween years, which are really coming up. So anyway, we converted my office. I donated my office. It's so sad but now it's a adorable mermaid bathroom. So it's got a pink toilet. It has a pink toilet. Kohler did the pink toilet. They did it in pink and I was like immediately yes. Like immediately yes. So yeah, I'm planning to, I think this is coming, this episode's going up around the 1st of September. So I'm returning to social media. So if I haven't yet, then this week I will post a video of this bathroom because why not? It's a good time. I definitely wanna show it. It's the most special wallpaper. I can't like, it's so cute. She has her own bathroom now. She has her own little like place for her, like, you know, she already has makeup. She's seven. But you know, she's a kid who wants stuff like that. She wants makeup and perfume and like, that's her kind of things that she's interested in. So anyway, it's pretty cute. So that's done. And let's see, is anything else done? No, it's not. So other than that, the kitchen is kind of close, but I don't know you guys like, I hope that it's done in September.

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Emma: It looks like it could be done in September.

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Elsie: That's what I'm hoping for. I'll post another update just to show. It has come far since the last update that I posted. I think at the beginning of the summer I put a video where it was like kind of gutted and stuff.

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Emma: It was like a campground for a little bit. There was like no walls at all.

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Elsie: No, we had a huge fly problem, a huge spider problem. We had a lot of problems. Just from my own, so I know I said it. I know that I'm like a rich white lady who shouldn't complain publicly. Like I do. I do acknowledge it. Like, so yeah.

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Emma: But this is our podcast.

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Elsie: Well, but I do wanna say like I get it. It's true. That's true. But also it's all like, it's also hard to live through renovation if you're like, if you have money or if you don't.

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Emma: Spiders are still spiders, man.

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Elsie: Yeah. So I don't know. There's a part of me that feels like I should never, ever, ever complain, but like it's kind of impossible to do that on the podcast. I think I can get there on other social media, but on the podcast it's like I wanna share the stories. So anyway.

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Emma: I don't see the point. I mean, if I heard someone who never complained, ever, I would know they were full of sh*t. And I'd be like, oh, you're just waiting for me to vote for you or something. I don't know.

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Elsie: okay. Yeah. Well, I'm not running for any office. I'm just running for those five star reviews. Okay. I'm proud of myself. I think I got the five star review into every episode. It's said every episode, every single episode now. So we're done with, we're done with our begging. Okay, so plans that have changed, let's talk about that. Yeah, so the good thing about our contractor is that his quality level is excellent and his prices are reasonable. And the bad thing about him is that it is extremely slow. So if you've ever heard people say there's like this renovating sort of like myth or maybe it's legend, maybe it's fact. I don't know what to put, what to classify this, but it says like, it can be fast or it can be cheap, or it can be good, but you can't have all three. And I found that to be true. I've never had an instance where I felt like I got all three.

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Emma: That makes sense.

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Elsie: S this one is definitely good. I would say the best thing about it is the quality. The second best thing about it, the price is fine and the speed is poor. So we have been behind kind of at like every single step of the entire year. I would still recommend him just not to someone who was like, I need my kitchen done in one month. For that person I would be like, no. But yeah, so. I didn't know when we gutted our kitchen, how many months it would be, and it was like twice as long as it should have been, I think. But anyway, we made it through, we had a big chicken nugget summer and it's almost over now, I guess. I'm just excited to like have a stove. The stove is definitely the thing I miss the most. I didn't know how much, like I thought I could get pretty far with like just an air fryer. The other thing was the sink. We did wash our dishes in this tiny, like, whatever's like the smallest little pedestal sink you can put in a bathroom is what we washed our dishes in the entire four months. And we just got a sink in our pantry like three days ago and that was like the most exciting moment of my summer. It was really up there. Anyway, I'm like derailing so hard. Okay, so plans that have changed. So we're not building on, we're not doing the addition. The reason why we're not doing it is because, this is kind of sad, but like my husband, just like, he hates renovating so much that it's like a value to him. It's like a problem for our marriage and it's like the number one priority is that it has to be done this year. So even though he is no longer going to get like a brand new fancy studio, he doesn't even care. He's like, I'll keep my basement studio forever. I don't care. I just don't wanna do any more time. Once we saw how slow they were going, we had to cut a bunch of things off our list to make it possible to finish it this year. And we still aren't even gonna get all of those done. But the addition was the first thing that we knew we were losing. So what we lost from that is the basement studio, and then the big dining room, and then just a bigger art studio. But I'll still have a small one. And the closet with air conditioning is gone. So that's all the things that are gone for now, and I'm going to try to just like do the best I can, like the closet with air conditioning.
I think it might still be kind of a solvable problem. I'm gonna just try to have the HVAC people just have them come in and be like, what's the best you can do? You know what I mean? And it'll still probably be a little better than nothing, but I'm not going to like build it out. I'm not gonna do anything right now besides like seal all the windows hardcore and call it a day just because we're like so emotionally exhausted and like you guys know, I have like a lot of energy for renovating. Well, I used to love renovating, but I even like, I can't even think of doing more right now. Like we're all extremely burned out and my kids like, sadly, they are just, they're older. They're seven and 10 right now, so it's just different from the last time we had a bigger renovation. They were probably like seven and five or something like that. And at this age, they were way more able to be just like, I hate this. I want them to leave. I like that. I don't like our home when it sounds like this. You know, just the presence of like men in the home at all times wasn't and is like, you know, just difficult for them. So yeah, we made it way smaller. Then at the last minute we were like, we can't even do our bathroom. So we're just leaving our bathroom, we're leaving the weird laundry room. It's like we're just leaving it and we're like maybe we'll do those another year. That was like our last minute compromise because it's definitely not gonna be in the next few years, but we were like, maybe in five years we'll feel completely differently. Or we'll be at a place where my husband's willing to move out, which he wasn't this time. I don't know, I feel like I'm throwing him under the bus a little bit.

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Emma: It's not like he's a bad person because I mean, no one's saying that.

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Elsie: Yeah. No, he's the best. He hates renovating in a way that is like devastating. Yeah. So yeah, the plans that have changed is we're not even doing half as much. We're just trying to like finish our kitchen, finish this tiny little bathroom, Marigold's bathroom's already done. And then after that we are going to be moving to the outside. We're building a porch in the back, which will be great. Then we're gonna build the pool house and the pool. So we're still doing that, and we've had a lot of time to really think about it, and we do feel like it is worth it for our family, and it's like the right choice and stuff. So there will still be work next year, but it'll all be in the outdoors and we are all okay with that. And it won't be every day. And pools are like, they don't show up every day. So, yeah. Yeah, I feel good about that.

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Emma: So out of everything you're still doing, what is the most exciting update? It's the thing you're most excited about.

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Elsie: For sure, I just am so excited to have the kitchen done. It really is like a dream for me.

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Emma: It's the tile in the kitchen. I'm so excited for them to put the tile in.

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Elsie: Yeah. Can't wait to see it. Yeah, I've seen the tile in a box, but like excited to see it on the floor. Yeah, this week we're supposed to get counters and maybe we'll maybe get the range and we still have probably like more than a month of work to do because they haven't put in the upper cabinet and they have to build the nook that goes around the range hood and like things like that. But I am definitely most excited to get that done. And then second to that, I'm really actually excited about the back porch. I think we're gonna do like a screened part where it's like kind of a room with like a TV and a fireplace. And then like a long part that kind of goes across the rest. That's just like a deck. And I think that'll be exciting. I really wanna do our front porch, like get our front porch fixed up too. I love porches. You know, porches are always like, it's fun to be outside. And it's almost fall, like, we've been already like, spending a ton of time on the front porch again. So I always felt like the house is like so pretty from the front and it's so ugly from the back. So if we can make the back into something, I think that'll feel like really exciting. But yeah, other than that, I think I'm honestly just excited to be done. We also built some shelves in, we call it the puzzle room. There's like this little room off of the living room. And it has like a table there. And we built some shelves so that we could have like our record player and records and stuff in there, but they're like almost done. And then we have to, you know, get them painted and stuff and then we'll be able to use them. Then we're building some library shelves in the dining room, which we did that in our last house. I just think the dining room is a great place to take those unused walls.

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Emma: It makes it a little bit nicer too when you're in a dining room and you're talking oh, yeah, the acoustics. It actually like, kind of makes a little difference that way too. So it's nice.

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Elsie: Yeah bdecause we've had Thanksgiving in that room and it was like, not that, not that vibey. Like it needs like a richer, warmer vibe. So yeah, I'm excited. I really think it actually helps a lot. Yeah. For a couple reasons, but yeah. So that's what I'm the most excited about, honestly, is just styling bookshelves. At the end of the day, it's like I just wanna like buy books from thrift books and put them on shelves. Well, you talked a little bit about, in a previous episode with our bucket list about having a whole week to organize the kitchen. Why don't you just tell us like a little bit about that, because like your kitchen is a big thing that's getting renovated. So tell us like what's exciting about it that's different, you know, like, or like.
What do you mean you're gonna organize for a whole week other than just move stuff in? Like what do you mean? Like yeah, tell us some things.

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Elsie: Okay, so when we bought this home, the way that the kitchen was like kind of weird. Like it is a big room. But it was like one little corner of it was the kitchen and then the rest of it was like a living room and it was set up, you know, there's the fireplace in there and the tv, which I always talk about because I wanna like, you know, watch Twilight while I'm cooking.
There was that, which is really cool, but it was like not a kitchen all the way and it was like, you have all this extra space. So I always knew that like one day I wanna renovate this room and make it be like just a big giant kitchen instead of like two because I don't need another living room in my kitchen.
Yeah.

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Emma: For how big the room was, it did feel like anytime I was cooking in there, like when we do pasta for Christmas Eve, stuff like that, it was small. You feel kind of like the cooking area, like the area where you can be is like pretty, pretty condensed for how big of a room it is.

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Elsie: So what we did to like kind of just change the layout. I mean we obviously we loved the fireplace. We kept that there will still be a TV there and there will still be room for two little chairs in front of it, but the island is kind of like the center of the room and it. It kind of ties it together a little bit more and then now the cabinetry goes all the way around.
So that's the biggest change is that there's just like way more cabinetry. It's like very American kitchen if you like, have ever studied like English kitchens versus American kitchen. Americans And then to make it okay to make it a perfect rectangle. We had to move a wall and it was kind of like when you give a mouse a cookie type of situation, because when we moved that wall, we were like, well, if we're gonna already have to change the exterior wall, then we could bump this out and have a big pantry here. And we had like before, like a very little narrow like hallway pantry. And now it's a pretty good sized square room pantry.

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Emma: No, your pantry's great. It's huge. It's nice. So that's exciting. It's got a drink fridge, like a full-sized drink fridge, not like a mini drink fridge. It's nice.

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Elsie: The drink fridge is my most special purchase. That was our thing from our last home in Tennessee that we liked. There was two things we missed so much, and the only one that we could reintegrate was the drink fridge. So we did so. The movie room was like, goodbye. It's just not gonna happen in this house. It doesn't fit here. So the kitchen, kind of like a funny thing that happened, if you wanna call it funny, so when we first moved in, we built this island in, its perfect. We knew we wanted to keep it, and we did it like dark wood and I was like, okay, well I'll do the cabinetry either like light or a color. So I got the type of countertop on there that I planned to get for the whole kitchen. And it was quartz, quartzite, sorry. But I had it honed.
And so I guess the, like people at the countertop place like really didn't enjoy honing it.

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Emma: What does honed mean?

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Elsie: It just means matte instead of shiny. So they have to sand it down to make it matte, So it's just a different finish and like, it's kind of what most people want. Well, I shouldn't say most people because probably not. Everyone's gonna be like, I have shiny and I love it. And that's totally fine. I wish I would've because like this was but we already had the island top and it's perfect. And we used it for two whole years and we loved it. It cleans great. No stains. Like no problems. It's perfect. So then we go to say we want the rest around, it to be like matching and they say no, you know? So for like six months we had to go back and forth and basically beg until we were like, okay, well I think we're gonna just get butcher block counters. And then they were like, okay, fine we'll do it at the very last minute. So we did actually get our counters to match. Which I'm so thankful for because I could have done a contrast, like a dark one but I just really didn't want to. I really don't like dark counters and I looked at them, I thought about it. And like I really just didn't, so anyway. So we actually had to get a different countertop in the pantry because that was like the hard limit. It was like, but we're at least not gonna do the pantry. So in the pantry we got marble, which I guess is easy to hone and not a problem. Yeah, it's super soft. I probably could hone it myself with a sander. So that was fun. That was a journey. And yeah, we just are trying. I mean, I'm like so thankful but also so tired. I guess that's probably what's coming through.

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Emma: It's going to be beautiful.

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Elsie: Pretty soon we're gonna food blog. We're gonna cook Thanksgiving there. We're gonna make videos. We're gonna be like the happiest sisters in the whole world. Oh, I can't wait.

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Emma: I can't wait to cook over here and swim in the pool. Just everything you're going through. I'm like, that sounds rough. Can't wait till I can come over, use everything.

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Elsie: It's true. Okay, so when will we be done? I think we will be done, well, we have to be done this year because that's kind of our thing. But I've told the contractors like, we have to be done at the end of September because I'm just like trying to have a Halloween party. And I still have to get a painting appointment before I can do that. So we'll see. We'll see.

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Emma: We'll see. Did you try like, look He's gonna divorce me if it's not done by the end of September.

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Elsie: I mean, I put something in there about how my family couldn't do anymore. Like we're on a hard cutoff. It's like a mental health cutoff. Anyway, that is my renovation update. So, yeah, like we got it. We did the best we could. And it's not perfect and we don't care, and we're happy. It's almost over.

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Emma: Nothing's ever perfect.

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Elsie: Yeah. I do think the kitchen is going to be my dream kitchen. And even with all the compromises, I don't care. It's all great. I think we'll enjoy it forever. I'll watch Twilight in there a million times. I'm gonna bake like every single kind of brownies. It'll be amazing. Thanksgiving will be happy, you know? Everything is magical and so, yeah. I don't know. I feel like it's like the kind of thing, I should probably just like post some videos on Instagram and call it a day, because I feel like people probably just wanna see it. But yeah, thank you for coming on the journey with us. I am planning now to retire from renovating. We're not renovating people.

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Emma: That's how I am anymore. I'm in retirement for now. Which is why I am like, I'm getting a chandelier. This is a big deal because I don't do anything ever.

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Elsie: I look forward to that. I was like, maybe one year I'll be like, I just wanna like get this little tiny wallpaper or like change a lamp or something. I think that looks like a good life because yeah, like balancing your family's happiness and health on top of like having no running water and things like that. Anyway, I am sorry for complaining. Please, please don't leave a one star review.

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Emma: She complained a lot. Five stars. Inspire review.

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Elsie: To finish, I do just wanna say the medicine and cure for all things as always is Tom Hanks. So if we watch The Money Pit, maybe I'll just tell Jeremy we're gonna watch The Money Pit, like the day that our kitchen is done or something like that. You know what I mean? The day that the last person leaves would that be a good time. And then just like, laugh it out. Cleanse yourself. Like the part where he falls through the floor.

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Emma: I take a little fourth in edible, you know?

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Elsie: It's a very, very, very joyful movie.

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Emma: And they're always like, it'll be two weeks. It'll be two weeks.

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Elsie: I know.

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Emma: It's so funny.

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Elsie: Like why? I feel like there's not enough movies like Tom Hanks movies anymore. Like just in the spirit of it.

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Emma: Oh, in the spirit of it movies in the like who's the current Tom Hanks? Like that kind of thing?

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Elsie: Yeah, someone who like falls down the stairs as their joke. Like who's that person because falling down the stairs is very funny. It's hilarious.

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Emma: It's a classic.

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Elsie: On that note, it's book report time. Okay. You go because I feel like I just talked for an hour.

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Emma: No, no, you're good. Okay. So my book report is one I just read a few months ago, and it is a Emily Henry. I finally got around to reading, Funny Story.

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Elsie: Woo.

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Emma: Yeah, I've had it on my shelf for a while, and I should say I'm a huge Emily Henry fan.

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Elsie: That's the sad one, right?

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Emma: No, no, it's not the sad one. I mean, I guess it starts off sad. No, I think the sad one is A Happy Place though. I feel like people say that's a sad one.

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Elsie: So funny story is actually funny.

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Emma: No, it's more like, you know, when people are say, oh, like, how'd you meet? Oh, it's a funny story. That's kinda like how it starts.So that's sort of where the title comes from, I guess. It has funny parts, but no, it's kind of about two breakups and then two people from the breakup, the two people who got dumped, become roommates Bbecause their partners have left them and then they fall in love. And this is not really a spoiler. If you don't know this genre, then get with it people. So anyway, that's why it's a comfort because there are no spoilers. You're just on a journey. Anyway, so I love Emily Henry. That's like one famous person that I would love to meet in real life and like get a book signed from her someday or something like that. If there's a book signing near me. I don't think she really does that many like tour things, but I would totally meet her. And act awkward around her because I'm a huge fan. She's really sweet and cool. So anyway, so I think I've read all her books now, except for her most recent, which is called Big Beautiful Life. Yes, I haven't read that one yet, but I have it on my shelf. So this one I just finished though, and I loved it. One thing I love about her contemporary romances is I feel like this is fairly often in her books, her main character who's a male, the love interest, or however you wanna look at it, tends to be like, not a lot of them, they're always like tall, dark, and brooding. Like that kind of thing. Bordering into a bit of an a**whole, that kind of vibe like that. There's a lot of that in that genre, which is cool and I like that. But I feel like she does this thing where she'll tow the line and make them much more diverse and modern, but still very sexy. And I feel like this, I think his name is Miles in it, he's like that. Like at first I actually didn't even, I was like, oh, I don't know how she's gonna make him attractive. This isn't really vibing love interest to me. But I knew he was gonna be the love interest and by the end of the book I'd fallen in love with him. He's very fun. Oh, that like, makes you wanna read it. She does a lot of like atmospheric writing. Like lots of things with like food and drinks and pretty places you feel like you're on a vacation when you read one of her books. So I loved it. It was very fun. Yeah.
Five stars.

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Elsie: Yeah, I can't wait to read that one. So for my book report this time, I recently read Patty Smith's memoir, Just Kids. And I think I actually did recommend this already on the podcast, but it's too late now. Okay. I'm in. So this memoir is, this is like, now it's like my new top, top, top celebrity memoir. I do like, love the category celebrity memoir. They're all either good or great to me. This one was great. So yeah, the most of the story centers around her relationship with this artist named Robert. And so he kind of starts off as her boyfriend, and then by the end of their story, he's like her gay best friend. And it's like, I love that kind of story. I just think, yeah, it's so beautiful and so like intimate and interesting and he has like a big Warhol phase. I really like that part of art history. Yeah, and then obviously like, I actually feel like they didn't really even get into. Maybe she has more than one memoir, but I feel like she didn't even really get much into like her career. She was mostly like doing sketches and poetry. She wasn't really like writing songs in this book. It was like kind of about her like early, kind of like a coming at eight of age story. So she was like very young, very poor, and they were living in New York and they lived in the Chelsea Hotel and there was like a lot of stuff about Dylan Thomas.
It was really fun. Like just the vibes were like at every point through the book, like a 12 out of 10, just like on another level. Love it. So, yeah, I thought it was beautiful and I ordered like all her books after that, so I haven't read more yet, but I'm looking forward to them and she had a lot, so that's exciting.

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Emma: I do feel like it's fun to see like the, before they were famous because it's fun to like hear the story of like, wow, they're famous and the journey there, but like everything before is really interesting too. And it's always like colored a certain way because you know what happens to them later. Everybody has an origin story and like a time when they were just a kid and like figuring some things out or kind of just around too and enjoying life, you know?

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Elsie: Yeah. It's a lot of like sensory details about like the crazy clothes they were wearing and like the really cheap food that they shared, like just things like that. And yeah, it was definitely like a journey I wanted to go on, so I recommended it to everyone. If you love the celebrity memoir category, I'll just tell you my top three. I do like stand up for Prince Harry's memoir. It's way up there for me. The criticism it got, I get it. I think most, most like really good books, it's like the criticism is true and like people who like worship. It is also true. You know.

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Emma: If there's no criticism, I can almost guarantee it's boring.

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Elsie: Yeah. It is not boring. So yeah, I loved that one. And then besides that, I think I would still have to put in third place Jessica Simpson's. But it's really between, I love Jessica Simpson's and I also loved Paris Hilton's. Those were both excellent. So all four of those. Just like bam, bam, bam. Maybe not in a row. But yeah, I love it. Very fun. I'm excited to read Cher's. That's the next one I'm gonna read sometime before the end of the year. I'll definitely start my share journey.

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Emma: Oh yeah. Cher is super interesting. Yeah. I've been wanting to read now I'm trying to think, Patrick Stewarts. I'm a huge Star Trek fan, next Generation and X-Men. I'm really kind of like maybe his biggest fan, like I love him. So he has a celebrity memoir I think came out a couple years ago and I'd be pretty interested to read it. I feel like too, that's a category where if they read it, it's so fun to listen to it as opposed to they pretty much always do it.

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Elsie: They pretty much all do except for Britney Spears. Can't or won't for whatever, you know? So I think that's fun too because then you feel like you're kind of spending time with them and it's fun. It's just a really enjoyable thing. So anyway, it's fun to be a fan. I love it. Alright, we're gonna pass it over to Nova now. Hey Nova. What do you have for us this week?

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Nova: A joke and a fact.

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Elsie: A joke and a fact?

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Nova: Yes.

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Elsie: Okay. What do you wanna do first?

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Nova: Whichever you want.

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Elsie: Let's do the joke first.

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Nova: Okay. The joke. Oh, but first text my mom, if you think of something I should do next time. Any joke or fact or meditations or questions or whatever.

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Elsie: They do sometimes email us meditation requests, we would love a meditation request.

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Nova: But now I'm saying that anyone can request anything. Okay. Basically, except for me doing flips or something. Which I can't do. So first the joke.

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Elsie: I'm ready.

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Nova: What's the best time to go to the dentist?

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Elsie: What's the best time to go to the dentist? I don't know.

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Nova: At tooth hurty.

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Elsie: I love it. Okay, and then what's the fact.

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Nova: Did you know, and I'm dedicating this one to my cousin Oscar who really is interested in sharks, okay? Right now he has an orca and a great white shark, okay? Right now, and he's collecting them. Did you know that the goblin sharks go all the way to like the depths, all the way to the blackness of the sea? And I think that's why they're probably called goblin sharks because no one knows about them or anything. I think it's best they have like a longer nose like that or something.

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Elsie: They have a scary nose. Very cool. Very cool fact. Okay, we'll see you next week.
Wanna say bye.

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Nova: Bye. And I hope you have a good week. Oh, and I hope your kids are enjoying school.

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Elsie: Okay. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving us a five star review, not a one star. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can leave reviews at that place and we would appreciate it. Obviously, you don't have to, but it would be so nice if you would.

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Emma: We will enforce this. Just kidding.

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Elsie: It would mean the most. Then this is my our last reminder. Please send us your ghost stories. You can email us at podcast@abeautifulmess.com. And what we hope for in ghost stories are stories that either happened to you or happen to like your mom or your best friend, like someone close to you. So you've heard the story, it's either your firsthand story or you're telling one that was told to you firsthand. So we don't want like a far off, we want like a first encounter, right? We obviously like the crazy ones the best, but a lot of ghost stories are just like weird and random. So, we'll also include the full spectrum usually every year. So send us those. And if you're nervous about writing it, like honestly, like, just like a couple paragraphs, just tell us what happened. It's good, I promise.

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Emma: No, yeah. You'll be fine.

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Elsie: And then join us next week for a rewatch episode. We are rewatching the 2003 masterpiece, Mona Lisa Smile. I'm super excited about this one. It's a good one. Like the vibes are perfect for fall.