Bonus Episode: Our 2026 Resolutions & Home Decorating Goals

How to Decorate

Caroline McDonald

Arts, Business, Design

4.4 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The ladies are ready to kick off 2026 with some ambitious decorating goals! In this special bonus episode, Caroline, Taryn, and Liz sit down to map out their home and personal resolutions for the year. They are putting their goals on the record now so they can hold themselves accountable in 2027. From tackling "treacherous" basements and organizing chaos closets to navigating the emotional transition of empty nesting, the hosts share the big projects they hope to tackle (and the budget realities holding them back). What You’ll Hear on This Episode: 00:00 Introduction to the How to Decorate Podcast 01:30 Taryn’s Goal #1: Tackling the "treacherous" basement and finishing the gym 06:00 Taryn’s Goal #2: The emotional transition of a nursery into a guest room 08:00 The $100 Facebook Marketplace King Bed find 12:00 Caroline’s Goal #1: The Entryway Dilemma (Wallpaper vs. The Messy Closet) 16:00 Caroline’s Reupholstery List: Needlepoint footstools and worn-out linen 18:00 The universal struggle of organizing "junk drawers" with kids 20:00 Plant Goals: Keeping Fiddle Leaf Figs alive and planting Peonies 25:00 Liz’s Goal #1: Creating a "Home Maintenance" calendar 28:00 Liz’s Goal #2: Raised bed gardening and navigating shade trees 31:00 Liz’s Goal #3: Empty nesting and converting a teen bedroom into a home office Also Mentioned: Plantopia (Book mentioned by Taryn) Skylight Calendar IKEA PAX Systems (for closet hacks) Shop Ballard Designs Please send in your questions so we can answer them on our next episode! And of course, subscribe to the podcast in Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can always check back here to see new episodes, but if you subscribe, it’ll automatically download to your phone. Happy Decorating! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home.
0:09.5	I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz. I head of the creative team.
0:15.2	We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers,
0:22.7	stylists, and other talents in the design world.
0:25.6	Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode.
0:30.6	We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us at podcast at balauredesigns.net.
0:32.0	Now on with the show.
0:38.6	Okay, so we are talking today about our New Year's resolutions.
0:40.6	We've never done an episode like this before.
0:40.9	No.
0:49.4	But we thought that we would discuss goals, resolutions for the upcoming year.
0:53.5	And then at the end of the year, we can hold ourselves accountable.
0:54.2	Yes, they're ourselves accountable. Yes.
0:55.1	They're like goals.
1:13.0	Yes. We are making goals. House goals. Sorry, the dog is visiting today, too. Say hi. Yeah, we have an extra co-host today for those that are listening. So if you hear any yawns, it is not us. He just did the little dog spin and curled up in Terran's lap. So cute. Okay. So we're just going to go through, do we want to start with goals first? It could be house projects or it could be even, you know, habits around the
1:19.2	house that you want to, you know, work on or something. It doesn't have to necessarily be something
1:25.5	huge. Yeah. Who wants to? Maybe we could do each do one and kind of go in. Yeah, let's see. Because I feel like mine are intertwined. Okay. Like most of my resolutions slash goals for the year are things for the house because I'll live better in the house. Okay. Oh, that's good.
1:45.0	Okay, well, then you start.
1:46.1	Okay, I need some inspiration.
1:52.6	So for me, the basement is a treacherous territory.
1:56.4	I've talked about how David started putting down flooring, stopped putting down flooring.
1:58.0	We had reasons.
	...

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