Your House Is Talking to You With Myquillyn Smith  🔗 **Source:** [Your House Is Talking to You With Myquillyn Smith](https://share.snipd.com/episode/ee2f7189-b40d-4c24-ab10-84753caa83bf) ## Highlights - **Your Stuff Creates An Invisible To-Do List** - Everyday objects create an invisible to-do list by constantly requesting attention. - A coffee table item may silently say “water me,” “read me,” “dust me,” or “put me away.” Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Hey everybody, welcome to the For the Love podcast. All right, I've got a little assignment for you. For those of you who are listening inside your home. Okay, before we get started, just look around you, look around, pick, look around in the room you're in. Pick one surface in that room. So the coffee table or the dining room table or the kitchen island, the nightstand, the dresser, whatever, and just simply count the things on it. However beautiful, I'm not saying they're not, but just count the things that are on that surface. And I want you to hold on to that number because here's the idea we're circling on today's episode that you're going to love. Every single one of those objects is talking to you. Everyone, not metaphorically, they are handing you an assignment. They are saying things like, water me, fix me, read me, dust me, put me away, arrange me, you paid good money for me. They've got a lot of messages. But what they are, what they create collectively is a to-do list that you didn't necessarily write, but you cannot quit reading. And it's just running, running, running in the background of your life. Okay. If that feels at all familiar. Guest today has a name for what to do about this. And it is the gentlest, least shame-soaked idea about your stuff that I have ever come across. And I have been reading her, following her, and obeying her for years. Because she calls it house hushing. This is her like, she came up with this. It's gotten big enough, the house hushing, that the Guardian is calling it a trend, and the Telegraph is calling it Decluttering 2.0. And so here's why this fits into this series. This whole series is about saying the quiet thing out loud. But your house has been saying a quiet thing out loud to you for years. Your house is speaking to you. Your house has a message and it is giving it to you and you are receiving it one way or another, for better or for worse. ([Time 0:01:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/83f1e53a-4358-4eed-aaec-3b53eff1b9f9)) - **Beautiful Collections Made Her House Feel Loud** - Myquillyn Smith moved into a Victorian house and discovered her beautiful collections made the rooms feel noisy. - Built-ins, molding, and displayed tchotchkes assigned her more small jobs despite being meaningful. Transcript: Myquillyn Smith Well, I'll tell you, honestly, it was moving into this Victorian house. Was it? I thought I had all my decorating figured out. I wrote a book like on step by step how to decorate cozy minimalist home, like how to decorate with the most amount of style and the least amount of stuff. Let me boss you and tell you and it works yeah it did not work as well in this house because i had never lived in a house that um when the other people moved out you know and then you bring your Stuff in you're like i have a blank slate the slate was not blank the slate was full of bay windows built-ins weird like utter like pieces of molding that look like you could milk them in The hallway, just all kinds of detail work that I had never, I think I had always dreamed about like, wouldn't that be nice to have? Wouldn't it be nice to have built-in shelves? Well, here's the thing. When you have built-in shelves, you put stuff on it. And when you're me and you have these collections, I think all my stuff is beautiful. We all probably think it's beautiful. Like I'm not like, this is clutter. No, it's my beautiful stuff. Of course. So we moved in and I put my stuff on display and everything felt like it was yelling at me. It was too much. And I knew I was working through my steps. I had my seating, my surfaces, my storage. I waited till I put my tchotchkes out. And I really had to figure out what in the world was wrong. And I knew that, you know, if you go to the decorating world, they're going to say, you got to have the right stuff. If you go to the minimalist world, they're going to say, you need to get rid of some of your crap. And they're probably both right. But I had worked really hard at both of those things. And I'm like, it's still not, it's still not working for a girl like me who wants a simple home, but wants it to be soulful and meaningful and pretty and cozy. What tools do I have besides just getting rid of it all to make my home not feel like it's yelling at me not feel like it's, excuse me, ma'am, you know, put me away, look at me, look at me, you Know, everything kind of trying to get my attention. ([Time 0:09:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9067d73d-be0e-446d-8778-38caf77fc5c9)) - **Household Friction Is Useful Information** - A room crosses your personal threshold when ordinary activities require moving decorations or clutter first. - That friction is information about misplaced or excessive stuff, not evidence of personal failure. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Like, can accuse you of being like well you don't know because you didn't ever have to move a lot or you know what you do know and you have experienced it so you write about a threshold um Where you're like there's a point where whatever's in the room, the amount of it, the whatever, it stops being fine and it tips into too much, but we don't necessarily all have the same Thresholds. Like you say yours is lower than your mom's for example. Most of ours are lower than our mom's to be honest. That feels very generationally true. Myquillyn Smith I think it just naturally happens when your mom's threshold is high. It's just, she's going to have a daughter whose threshold is low. Jen Hatmaker Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. So how do you know when you've crossed your threshold? Myquillyn Smith You know, when you cross your threshold, when you come home from the grocery store and you're carrying in your groceries and you look to put them down on the counter and there is no cleared Off space. It's covered with mail. It's got your calendar. It's got stuff from last night's dinner. It might have cute styling things, the latest target face and flowers from your yard. It might look beautiful, but in order to live your everyday life, you have to move something out of the way. You have to go to trouble just to act out the normal things that happen in an everyday home. And I think whenever you feel friction happening in your home or whenever you're like, that is your house actually talking to you. And it's not shaming you. I think we always are like, we take it so personal, like, oh, I am so bad at this. No, no. All it is is just letting you know about your stuff, probably telling you the stuff is in the wrong place or you have too much of it. ([Time 0:12:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/82f7cc69-fb5a-4e18-897c-5efa26c9ee8a)) - **A Welcoming Home Can Still Hold Meaning** - Many women frame home struggles as either decorating uncertainty or decluttering overwhelm. - Meaningful possessions and a peaceful home are compatible when the house intentionally welcomes rather than attacks its occupants. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker We want you to solve it. So in all your years of doing this, what's the confession that you hear most? The one that women kind of like, you know, they lower their voice a little bit. They're like, okay, look, you know, what are the people saying to you about their homes and what their homes are saying to them? Myquillyn Smith Yeah, it's twofold. One, I think half the people are not even giving themselves permission to let their home say something. They have not put it into words. They have not even thought the thoughts because it feels like I just, that's like a whole shameful thing. I'm supposed to be decorating, supposed to be easy. I'm not good at that. Also, I need to declutter. Dear Lord, where do we start with that? I already have decision fatigue. This feels like too much work and I already have a full-time job. I'm taking care of people. It affects women, not the men at all. Just us, just us girls. But the other half are saying, it depends if we have two problems. It's usually either a decluttering problem or a decorating problem. It's a decorating problem. They're like, my husband and I, we have a budget and I don't even know how to spend. Like I don't know where to begin. It's either that or we're overwhelmed with stuff. And we say, I can't declutter because I love beautiful things. Because I love all these pictures of my family. My stuff is important to me. And it's almost, I know they don't mean it this way, but it almost kind of feels like, if you simplify, that's because you don't love stuff or beauty or your family or you don't have meaningful Things like I do. I love the meaningful things. And I think we all love the meaningful things. But there comes a time in probably all our lives where we really crave and need to have a home that is quieter, that is more peaceful. It is the place that we come back to. And of all the places in the world, wouldn't it be nice if we created a home that quietly welcomed us? If what Nate Barkus told us on the Oprah show all those years ago, let your home rise up to greet you. And for a lot of us, our home is rising up and like slapping us in the face. ([Time 0:15:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0abc404e-0cce-4758-a5e3-d918ecd0bee9)) - **A Blank Room Revealed The Sofa Problem** - After her honeymoon, Myquillyn Smith moved her husband’s visible belongings into a spare room to view their living room clearly. - The cleared space revealed that their sofa looked poor, leading them to discuss and buy a replacement. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker This, your new book is called House Hushing. And you're the first person that ever said that, that I ever heard. And the whole concept of quieting a room, you kind of made up 30 some odd years ago in your pajamas in your first apartment when almost everything that you had in the place was Chad's. And you came in with like a plate or two to add to the mix. And so let me just how can I say this? I have a boyfriend and he has his own place. And I got back from there last night and we're not the same on the hushing. The hushing. We have different thresholds is my point. So you, I'm guessing, were not the same. And so can you bring us back to house hushing when it was its tiny little baby idea and your tiny little baby heart? Yeah. Myquillyn Smith It was the day we got back from our honeymoon. I couldn't wait to get home from our honeymoon and start playing in the house. Like, let's get this out of the way. I got some decorating to do. He went to work. Thank the Lord. I was in the house for the first time by myself, a little townhouse, and it happened to have two bedrooms. And, you know, I walk in the living room. I did not come with a, like anything. I came with luggage and whatever our wedding gifts were. And so it was dude stuff. It was the hand-me So grateful for stuff people who had given him. But it was like high top sneakers, DVDs, stacks of books, nothing like decorative really at all. And I couldn't wait to get started. But I also did not want to hurt my husband's feelings. So I thought, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take that guest room that has like not even an extra bed in it. I'm just going to put all the stuff from the living room. I'm going to put it all in there. And I did. So I took out like everything on the surfaces. If it was behind doors, I didn't worry about it. It was just like this visual. I needed a visual exhale. Whatever was on the sofa. I think he had a dog at the time, like the dog stuff, the shoes, the stacks of randomness, the backpacks, just all his odds and ends. Yeah, put it in the other room. And it was just this blank slate sofa. I don't even think we had drapes or anything, just the blinds TV thing, coffee table. That's it. And when he came home, you know, I'm like, okay, just let you know we have it all. Yeah, it's in the guest room. No big deal. Like I'm not getting rid of any of it. I just wanted to experiment and see what this is like. And what that did was it freed us both to like, talk openly about our family room. And he was like, Oh my gosh, that sofa looks so bad. You don't realize that you, you become house blind in your own house. Yeah, when nothing else was in there, he suddenly saw how bad the sofa was. Guess what? End of the week, I had a sofa budget. We were buying a new sofa. That's not why I did it. But we both instantly were able to see these things that we hadn't seen before. And he was like, Oh, we should, we need to do this. We need to get a sofa. But it allowed me to kind of see like the shape of the room. And so the first time I ever did it was just like a way to kind of talk about the family room without feeling like I told my husband, all this stuff was ugly. And it wasn't even stuff. It was just like dude crap. But it really helped us move forward. ([Time 0:20:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/502b85e3-f071-4368-a398-b811d6bcd5aa)) - **Try Backwards Decluttering For 48 Hours** - Try backwards decluttering by removing loose surface items from one room without deciding their fate. - Stash them elsewhere for 24–48 hours, then notice what the calmer room proves you can live without. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker This is so good. Like I want everybody to hear that. So Michael is not saying immediately decide what goes to Goodwill and what you want. You don't even have to do that. And so this is no, you're attaching no value to any of this. You're just saying, I'm going to empty these out. And you, you suggest that people live with it for what? Two days? Myquillyn Smith Yep. It's, I call it backwards decluttering. You work one room at a time. You tell everyone in your house it's happening so they're not discombobulated about what in the world is going on. And you pick, let's say you're going to do your family room. Okay, I'm going to hush. I'm going to backwards declutter the family room. I want you to pick another room in your house where you can just temporarily stash that stuff. So you're going to have two rooms that look a little off for 48 hours. This is an experiment. Okay. This is a way, especially if you're a girl like me who loves beauty, but can't find the scissors and you want to declutter, but you're afraid that all of those, all that work you put into Making your house look pretty and soulful and welcoming, that that's all going to go down the drain if you declutter. So here's a backwards way to kind of prove to yourself. So what we're going to do is we're going to walk through that family room, get all that loose stuff, get a basket, get a whatever, take it out into minus the dining room table, just out of Where you can see it. I've put it on the back porch before somewhere it's going to be safe. You make your pile, it literally takes like 12 minutes, you're just getting it out of there. And then you get to experience that backwards decluttered room simplified. And at first, it's going to feel really weird. And the kids are going to be like, what's happening? But within, it could be minutes, it could be hours, it could take up to 48 hours. It's going to go from feeling weird to feeling luxurious. And it's going to be something that you don't want to mess up. You're going to start loving that feeling. And that is how, especially for us, you know, if you're looking for a new way to declutter, this is a great method to just try because you don't have to make any decisions first. There's no decision fatigue. First, you're proving to yourself that this room is going to look amazing. It's going to feel amazing. It's going to function amazing. You don't need as much stuff. And of course, it's not a practice and like, it's not a punishment. Don't be miserable. If you need something, go get it from the cat needs her bed, go get it. If you need your book light, go get your book light, get your pillow, whatever. But we have, we all have so much more stuff than that that we've become house blind to after gifts, after seasons, after the kids and the animals, and just all of our little things that We do to just first get it out of there is actually extremely freeing and refreshing. And then after that 24, 48 hours, you become really protective of that piece that you have created. And you're like, I don't want to mess this up. And that's when it's time to say what actually needs to come back in. And it's such a great way to convince yourself with actual facts. I'm like a fact girl. I want to know, is this going to work? I don't want to get rid of something that I thrifted and found at a great price and love unless I have to. But if I see my room, that convinces me like, oh, we can live without it. ([Time 0:24:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ce2f5465-7511-4101-a5a4-d839b3a63990)) - **Quiet Does Not Mean Soulless** - Quiet rooms do not need to be empty; they need intentional signs of humanity, imperfection, history, and personality. - A model home can look polished yet feel soulless because nothing reveals who lives there. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker You are real firm that this is not like, this is not just minimalism. That's not your deal. That's not, that's a different category. You are very protective of like soul and warmth and beauty. And you, so you've watched people strip a room so far down, right. That they end up with like, like a dentist waiting room. It just, it's, of life. So what would you say is the difference between a room that is simply quiet and a room that is empty? Yeah. Myquillyn Smith Or a room that doesn't have soul. Or a room that is soulless. Okay. Well, if you've ever been in a model home, that does not have soul. Jen Hatmaker That's good. Myquillyn Smith It is simple. It is beautiful. It is trendy. It is new. It is clean. It is tidy. But it does not have soul. There's no touch of humanity. There's no touch of imperfection. There is nothing that you can come away from that house. Now the stagers try to do that like this person likes Chinese checkers. Like really, you're not to get a sense of like what this person's goals are, who they are, who lives here. When you walk in your house or my house, someone is going to know what we love, what we're about, you know, a little bit about our past, our present and our future, how many people live there. We get a sense of that. That is the soul and the essence of our home. And we don't want to lose that. ([Time 0:32:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ba35d32b-d3ad-49dc-9ebd-a93a6491d1a5)) - **Turn Down A Room’s Visual Volume** - Adjust visual volume through pattern and contrast, not only by removing possessions. - Lower contrast with color-drenched walls, or add restrained pattern when a sparse room feels sterile. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Yes, I love that. The difference is very, very visceral. You have also said that a room's volume is not just about how much is in it. Yeah, sometimes it is, but the volume can come from different places. So if someone has sort of minimalized a little bit and it still feels bad, where do you tell them to look next? Myquillyn Smith It depends on if, okay, if they say it feels bad, I'm like, how does it feel bad? If they say, well, now it feels, it still feels like full of stuff. Like it's still bugging me. Or they might say it feels too empty. So there are more tools. And this is what is so great, because the minimalist will say, the only tool, the only tool we have to offer, if your house feels too loud, is you need to get rid of more stuff, you must not Have gotten rid of more stuff, because less stuff leads to peace. But I would say intentionality leads to peace. And so if you have maybe decluttered and you're like, oh my gosh, it feels, it, you know, it feels still like it's too loud. Well, maybe you need to quiet decorate. That's another part that I talk about, which is controlling the visual volume of the room by the stuff, the everyday stuff you're going to have in there anyway, a sofa. Well, let's say, let's say you have a totally decluttered room, but you have a red plaid sofa and you have a flowered blue rug and you have polka dot drapes. I mean, we all know where this is going and you have a floral wallpaper. That room is loud. It's loud because of pattern. So obviously, we all know this, but like really applying it to our life pattern is a dial that we have, where if a room doesn't feel cozy enough, we can turn up the pattern, we can add a couple Layers of pattern. And that is what is going to add coziness without adding more stuff to our surfaces. But it works both ways. If you have decluttered and like, Oh, this still feels too full. I live in a tiny house. I can't get rid of more. Well, you can turn down the volume by maybe the, maybe the pillows on your sofa are too loud of a pattern. Maybe you need to neutralize those and get them to look more like the colors or the pattern they're surrounding. It doesn't, you know, I think of minimalists, this is maybe the difference too, is when we stereotype them, we think, oh, it's a white walls, you know, black sofa, blah, blah, blah. But when you start thinking about quiet decorating, pattern is one thing. Contrast is something else that really makes, think about in a room with high contrast, what that means is there's a lot of things asking for our attention. Look at me, look at me, look at this big stripes. And so a room with low contrast naturally is going to ask for less attention. All white walls? Yeah. If all the walls are white, that's one way. But also color drenching is another wonderful way, which is super on trend, to have a room with low contrast, paint your ceiling, paint your trim, paint your doors, paint your walls. I have one room that's all this really beautiful pewter green. And it's the quietest room in our house. It's a really strong color, but it feels like a hug. It feels like a hush when you go in there because the contrast is low. So we have a lot more tools besides just have less stuff. ([Time 0:34:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1ec559df-a178-4970-b471-3474cadd0fda)) - **Own Seasonally Instead Of Owning Less** - Own seasonally by rotating accessories and clothing that match recurring preferences instead of permanently accumulating more. - Myquillyn Smith stores her desire for spring color in books, flowers, and small accents rather than a pink sofa. Transcript: Myquillyn Smith So good. Jen Hatmaker I think another incredible tip that you offer is that you say sometimes we don't just need to own less, but we need to own seasonally. And I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I like this. I like this. This also takes away some of that like clenchy feeling that sometimes people feel like when they're struggling to not want to part with their things. Yeah. Myquillyn Smith Yeah. So for three years, I did the same thing and it took me a couple of years to figure out every spring. I'm kind of a neutral girl in my clothes. But every spring, I'm like, I want to wear some color. I want some pink. I want some blue. I want color in my life. And so I'll go to Target or wherever and buy a colorful shirt and maybe a hat or some pink lipstick. And then every year, what would happen is like December or January, I'm going through my clothes. I'm like, why in the world do I have this bright pink? Who was I? I'm getting rid of this bright pink shirt. Then March comes around and I'm like, where's my color? Where's that pink hat? I bought a pink hat. And so I had to like, kind of pay attention to what I like seasonally. And it's not always just decor, like just kind of knowing yourself and knowing like, I know every spring I'm going to want color. So if I'm buying a sofa in the spring, I have to be careful that I don't buy a pink sofa, but like just maybe pull out the pink books, you know, buy some pink flowers. Just kind of be aware of what seasonally you crave is a really helpful tool. ([Time 0:37:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/16ad9945-18fe-4120-94fc-8b862aebeccd)) - **A Dead Butterfly Can Give A Home Soul** - Myquillyn Smith hot-glued a dead butterfly, rocks, feathers, shells, and sea glass into a gallery wall. - These imperfect objects carry family stories that staged rooms typically lack. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Another thing that you talk about in the book is the things that we only carry meaning, which to your earlier point, this is where the life comes in in our homes. And you, well, I won't tell the story. I'll have you tell it. But you do talk about a dead butterfly. Can you, do you mind explaining that? Myquillyn Smith Yeah, I just came across a dead butterfly. There's not a real great story behind it. But I had a place that I wanted to make a gallery wall. Yeah. And I learned a long time ago, you don't, you think a gallery wall is the solution for not having big art. You're like, Oh, don't worry. I've got lots of small things. I'll just make a gallery wall. Don't do it. That no gallery walls are like the PhD in decorating is the last thing you're allowed to do. But I was planning. I was collecting my frames. You want everything to have like something in common or a couple of commonalities. You're creating this little family. And I was doing a corner gallery wall. So I had two walls. So anyway, I had my frames. But I knew I wanted some dimensional items to go in there. Um, we found, we found a little butterfly and I hot glued them in the frame and there he stands right in there. And it's, we have little rocks that we've picked up along the way. When we go on vacation, my kids, when they go on vacation, they know, bring me a feather bring me a shell bring me a sea glass we have like a and my kids are all in their 20s and they still do It this is not little toddlers we're talking about grown men and it's the best i don't want diamonds i want sea glass please and it's wonderful and we frame it and we're it's all out but Um yeah those those little things that's the kind of thing you're not going to see in a model home. Yeah, kind of thing with like a little story behind it, or maybe not, but it meant something to you. And I think that's the decorating should be fun. You know, it's not just an empty house. But the things that we do use, let's just let's have the stuff that's out be really intentional and meaningful. Jen Hatmaker I love this. And let's not take it all too seriously. Like if you want to glue a dead butterfly inside a frame, you can do that. ([Time 0:39:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d46fe5a5-374b-4930-9576-7bb76b4cfc83)) - **Clear One Surface In Ten Minutes** - If your house is yelling, clear one high-use surface completely for ten minutes. - A naked coffee table becomes ready for pizza, crafts, puzzles, or naps—and less clutter tends to invite less clutter. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker I'm about to wrap it up here. So somebody listening is like in their room and the room is screaming and screaming at them. So they've got, they've got 10 minutes. They have 10 minutes. They're listening to this as their AirPods are in, they're zipping around their house. They have 10 minutes. Um, don't they're overwhelmed. What do you tell her to do? Myquillyn Smith I got it. Okay. First of all, let me ask you, do you hear my cat meowing? Do you want me to put her out? Yeah, that's great. Jen Hatmaker Oh, no, no, no. We, this is a real life. This podcast is real life. She's very talkative. Myquillyn Smith You have a cat. I have a train. Okay. No big deal. Okay. So what I'm going to tell her is if it's your family room, clear off your coffee table and let it run around naked. Okay. I don't care if it's styled with the latest McGee& Co. And it's beautiful. And you're like, it's the one place I styled. I don't care if it's covered with the most important things you can bring. It's not, you're not clearing it off so you never put anything on you don't have to stand guard over it you're clearing it off so it's ready for your life and then when you're done doing Whatever you need to do eating pizza doing your craft doing your puzzle letting the cat take her nap it's cleared off again and it's waiting for the next step one of the things i think a Lot of us know is that more begets more, the more stuff we have, the more stuff we put a spoon in the sink. And the next thing you know, there's like 20 dishes in there. But the opposite is also true, which is so hopeful for us, which is less leads to less. That's good. We start with a little bit less, we just clear off that coffee table. What happens is you're like, well, maybe I'll just clear off the mantle because that coffee table makes me feel like a new woman. I feel like a million bucks. Something wonderful happens when we have a little bit of a cleared surface and it's risk free. ([Time 0:41:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c429275-8d95-4816-b46a-0095e1b77752))