In honor of Halloween, we’re sharing a spooky occurrence at our beach house that we legitimately couldn’t explain for a few months (even I, the perennial skeptic, was like… “how did that just happen?!”). We’re also chatting with author Miranda Anderson about how her entire family took on a yearlong shopping ban, and how that choice led to more gratitude, patience, and a sense of adventure for the entire family. Plus, an update on how things are getting real (and real messy!) in our master bathroom reno – and a tool we’re using to help keep our sanity throughout the process.
You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.
What’s New
- Here’s a peek at the current state of our master bathroom after all of the demo we took on this week so that the pro plumbers & electricians that we hired could do their thing on Thursday & Friday.
- Things went remarkably smoothly, so now it’s all about building things back up again. Our next step is to prep the floors and shower walls for tile. Woot!
- If you want to learn more about serving as your own General Contractor (which is often abbreviated to “being your own GC “) here’s an article that explains a bit more about what’s entailed versus hiring a contractor to oversee it all.
- Also, if you want to dive into the topic of working with contractors you might want to check out our advice for selecting a contractor in Episode #68, some tips for successful contractor relationships straight from contractors in Episode #104, and how to navigate contractor estimates & bids in Episode #109.
Our Haunted Room?
- Here’s the middle bedroom at the beach house we were talking about – although this was taken midway through our recent makeover, not over the summer when were having the “haunting” issue. You can actually see the attic access door on the ceiling at the top of this photo.
- Oh and we’re sharing more about installing the board and batten treatment in here later this week in a blog post full of photos & info.
Miranda Anderson, More Than Enough
- If you want to find out more from our guest this week, you can check out Miranda’s website, Live Free Creative, or follow her on Instagram: @livefreemiranda
- You can also grab a copy of her book, More Than Enough, from her website or straight from Amazon. It dives deeper into her family’s year of “practical minimalism,” including more details about why they did it, where they struggled, and all of the lessons it taught them in the end.
- You can also check out her weekly podcast, Live Free Creative, wherever you listen to ours. She covers a whole range of topics – from family and money, to marriage and home. If you want to dive deeper on some of the topics we covered in our episode, you might want to check out the following:
- #9: Two Ways To Have Enough Money
- #11: The Advantages Of Optimism
- #27: Beyond Kondo: Ten Way To Declutter
- #36: Home Renovation 101 (lots of tips for managing your expectations)
- #58: Feel Alright When Things Go Wrong
- And #41: More Than Enough Prologue & Introduction, where she previews the first two chapters of the audiobook version of her book.
- We also referenced a couple of our old episodes in our chat with Miranda, like talking to Cait Flanders’ about her Year of Less (Episode #96) and Myquillyn Smith’s concept of turning into “stuff managers” (Episode #116).
We’re Digging
- My wet dry vac is several years old, but I linked the closest model you can buy now. Its size has been great for big jobs like cleaning up the bathroom demo area, but sometimes I’d also like to have a smaller/more portable version (like this well-reviewed model or this one that’s said to be great for cars).
- If you wanna check out that podcast we’re currently listening to, The Clearing, you can actually watch a trailer of it below:
If you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.
And lastly, a big thank you to Social Print Studio for sponsoring this episode. You can take 15% off your next order using the code YHL15!
Thanks for listening, guys!
*This post contains affiliate links*
