Scrubbing In with Becca Tilley & Tanya RadInterior Design expert Bobby Berk is here to throw a fresh coat of paint on the O.R.!
Becca and Tanya go deep with Bobby, who opens up about his early life and getting started in the design industry.
Plus, Bobby shares a few simple design tips that will precondition your brain for a successful day!
And it all starts with making your bed!
Scrubbing In with Beccatilly and Tanya red An iHeartRadio podcast.
Hello Everybody, we are scrubbing In, Yes.
We are, and today's guest is best known for his role as the interior design expert on the Netflix series Queer I.
He grew up in Missouri in the middle of Amish farm country, where he experienced a difficult childhood being gay, facing external and internal homophobia. He left home at the age of fifteen and landed in Springfield, Missouri, where he got a job at Applebee's and slept in his car.
Having worked many jobs across the country, including at Restoration, Hardware, Bed Bath and Beyond, and then Portico Home and Spa, he eventually launched his online home store in two thousand and six, opening his first store in Soho a year later.
He went on to appear on television networks such as HGTV, NBCCBS and Bravo, and has been on Queer Eye since twenty eighteen.
He is promoting his new book Right at Home, How Good Design Is Good for the Mind, and It's available September twelfth.
Please welcome Bobby Burke.
Wait.
I think in the intro we should add before we say please we should say, and we just want to heads up. We can't ask him anything about Queerie because I feel we should say.
At the very top.
He is promoting his new book right at Home, How Good Design Is Good for the Mind, that's available September twelfth, and we just wanted a disclaimer because of the sag after strikes, we cannot ask Bobby anything about Queer Eye. He can't even talk about it. So spoiler alert.
You won't be hearing anything about queer Ie because he cannot speak on it.
Yes, so please welcome Bobby Bird. Bobby, We're so happy to have you here.
Thank you.
You were just talking about your podcast voice. It's very TV voice.
It was a regular voice.
I think some we're in the middle.
This is the podcast Boyture giving us right now?
It is it the podcast? I don't know. I don't know.
It's not your Yah, I don't know.
I can't tell myself.
So many different mediums.
I'm not allowed to do that right now, So I'll stop.
I can't talk anything about that. We already gave the people a warning. Yes, but we are so excited. You know, we have kind of a connection that you might.
Not know about.
Wow.
Wow, this is you took a twenty three and me and we are.
Just kidding. So my girlfriend is Haley Kyoko, and y'all were in a Taylor Switch music video together. I don't know if y'all filmed at the same time.
When you were, like y'all were in what I was like, I was in something with her and didn't see her.
I love her. No.
So the funny thing is like that video looks like we're all there together, but we're not. Like even Tan So Tan was actually filming the finale of Next and Fashion Season one that day, so he wasn't even there. His little teacup thing was like green screen in a studio. It looked like he was walking by us, but he wasn't there at all.
Wow.
So there's so many amazing people in that video that they're like, oh my god, blah blah blah blah, And I was like, no, yeah, no, we didn't if you were filming like that day together, like we were all in one big tent, so we like we got to meet some people. But yeah, no, there's a lot of people that just did their little parts from a green screen wherever they were in the world at the time.
That's wild.
And we're in the video.
Yeah, yeah, was she out.
On the ranch filming and really oh nice? Yeah, must have been another I think it was like a four day shoot.
Wow.
Yeah, it was quite the video.
It was. Yeah, it's quit the video.
But we're so excited to have you here because I feel like I resonated. So I've resonated so much with a lot of your story that you've talked about growing up been a very like conservative Christian background, and I'm from Louisiana. I grew up in the same you know, same background, and.
There was a family like all my twenty three and meter it could because literally all my family's from Louisiana.
Oh it could be. You could be.
It could be like Lance and Brittany and we find out where cousins like, yeah, well they're Alabama.
But it's not much okay, you know what.
We could be brothers. We could be brothers.
You never know. But I remember you talking about like there was a moment where you walked into a church and you were kind of like, this is a lot for me because I was.
I wouldn't walk into the church.
I think, oh, yeah, you want to walk into the church.
Yeah, I actually got a lot of trouble for that that day. Really.
Yeah, I won't say who, but somebody high up was very angry at me. They thought I was being very disrespectful. They thought I just wasn't doing my job. Joke on them. It became one of the most iconic moments of the whole series. Yeah, but yeah, they were mad at me for not just playing along and doing it. Even though that person when we had our first lunch before we ever started filming, was like, all right, you know, is there anything Is there anything in the world like you won't do? And I'm like, I mean within reason, No, I mean I'm down for anything. I'm like, except just don't ask me to go on a church And so I was like, yeah, I'm like, I told you. The funny thing is, well, that episode was actually not supposed to be filmed. So there was somebody else in that little town of Gay, Georgia who was supposed to be the hero that week, and they had a medical emergency and so Mam and Tammy they had talked to her a little Actually, no, they hadn't talked to her. She was like a last minute edition. And that was actually the last episode we were filming of that entire season, and so they kind of like threw it on. They tried to hide it. They told me I was doing a community center what which it was a community center but out of church. And it was my art director who like pulled me aside and.
He was like, get the church.
Don't believe them. And so it took a few days.
Of kind of twisting my arm and honestly forcing me to do it because I was like, I'm not doing this episode.
I'm like, this is the one thing I told you guys.
I would something they do on The Bachelor where they're like, what's your biggest fear that you would never want to do? And they're like, skydive and then their date is going skydiving.
Dark.
But I did, I really I not. I haven't you know. I don't know that I have experienced the trauma that you have in terms of not wanting to go to a church. But just like once I met my girlfriend and it was like navigating my belief system when I believe in my background and how I grew up, and it was I just remember watching that being like, oh my gosh, this is so powerful to see someone having this experience and talking about it. Because it's very vulnerable, it's very emotional, it's very heavy and sorry that they tricked you. But it was impact TV.
Thank you, thank you in the end. It in the end, it was a great moment, you know, in the end it. I think that moment kind of really helped a lot of people be kind of have permission to have those type of boundaries and draw those type of lines with the trauma that they experienced growing up and be okay with it, be okay with not being okay with the trauma that you grew up with.
Yeah, how did you go from being in like a small town in Missouri to being on a TV show? Like how did that? Where?
It was the trajectory, I mean, this is how much time do we Because.
I was like, you got like, let go from your job at restoration.
Yeah, I've been fired from every job I've ever had. I think really almost yeah, christ Teagan and I always like have that in comment.
She's like, I've been fired from every job I've ever had. I was like, oh my god, me too.
I think so I actually got fired for Restoration Hardware. While Tom Felicia, the original guy that had my job on the original Queer Eye was filming in the in the in the store. The long story wasn't anything crazy. I just I changed my own time in the system because I was there overnight, like making sure the store was perfect. And I went in the next day and I we had forgot to clock out the night before, and I noticed that the GM had just clocked us all out at the time that we were supposed to leave, but we had all worked hours later. So I went in and fixed everyone's time, including my own. And I had just let somebody go the week before for doing that because it was completely against company policy and somebody narked on me, and so.
I always do.
Yeah I know who it was too, with some other bitch who wanted my job. Yeah, so the GM, like on a technicality, had to fire me. But like her and I have stayed friends all this time. So when I when I went on Queer Eye, she actually was like, aren't you glad I fired you?
Yes?
Was that your job before? Well, like, because no, you had was was restoration before Queer before Queer Eyes?
Oh the restation was like two thousand and four, Okay, yeah, yeah, a long way way before Queer I twenty almost twenty years before.
Actually, how did you keep going, like after you kept getting like let go from all these jobs?
What kept you going?
I mean hunger, needing to pay rent?
Yeah, like never having a security blanket or a net to fall back on.
Like what kept me going was, yeah, needing to pay my bills.
So interesting.
Yeah, I know everyone's like, what gave you drive?
I'm like food, shelter, yeah, shelter yeah. Yeah, the yearning to go out every once.
In a while.
I have an expensive cocktail.
Yeah.
No.
When I worked at Resto then I brought home twenty two hundred dollars a month. My rent was twenty one hundred. I lived on one hundred bucks a month, yeah, my rent, and it included utilities how yeah like dollar chicken sandwiches a day.
Like I was so thin.
Yeah, I remember. I remember one day actually working there. I was walking up these steps and like my pants fell down at restoration Art because I was so thin and I couldn't afford to get a belt, so I was always like holding my pants up. But I was carrying these boxes and my pants slipped down because I had lost so much weight.
Yeah. Wow, but I wanted to be in New York, so.
Yeah, I mean that's the thing. It's like, you do what you have to do. I mean, that is a wild though. You're like, I have one hundred dollars after I pay rent and utilities, and I have one sandwich. Yeah.
Well I would get a sandwich and I would eat like half for lunch and then I would save the other half for dinner.
Wow. Yeah, do you do like home renovation design outside.
Of Yeah, I have a full Okay, that's what no. I did before Queer Eye. That's where I got the job.
Oh that's what I was gonna say. Okay, so what was the path of Like were you already doing that when you were at restoration, like doing like side things.
I was a design manager, so I was in charge of merchandising, so like making sure the store looked good, like setting up the displays. So I always had kind of an eye for that. And then I went to bed Bath Beyond that was horrible. And then I ended up at an Italian linen company and that was horrible. And then I worked at a company called Portico, which was a high end furniture company. I had about a dozen stores around the US, and I worked my way up excuse me, from like store manager to a creative director in the end, and that company ended up going bankrupt, not because I was running like I became creative director and then it went bankrupt, but when that company would make up, I had also built their e commerce division, and so that night when the company went under, I actually went in and this cloned the whole database that I had created for that company, and I registered Bobby Burke home dot com and I launched Bobby Broke home dot Com that night, being like, maybe I'll sell a sofa to while I look for another job. But it actually became quite successful. I was one of the first retailers in the world selling furniture online. My actually biggest hurdle was getting manufacturers to let me carry their product, because they're like, no one's going to buy furniture online. You're just gonna piss off our brick and mortar stores. So I two years later, I actually ended up opening up my first brick and mortar store, and so just so I could get the product I want wanted and so like, oh, if you have a brick and mortar store, we'll let you carry our stuff. Yeah, So then I started opening up more stores. I had stores in La Atlanta, Miami, and New York. And so I built that brand for about eight or nine years, and then my design firm started being more of a focus. So as leases were up, I started getting out of retail because retails, oh yeah, And the goal was never to be in retail. The goal was to use retails storefronts to build my brand name into license and design.
Yeah.
And so twenty fifteen, my husband and I decided to move to LA and I was focusing to solely on my licensing business and my design business. And then twenty end of twenty sixteen, I started getting calls asking me to audition for QUEERAI and so I did a couple like virtual Skype. Yeah, you know, it was before pandemic, so Skype was the only thing you could do for video. Some Skype auditions, which I thought all went horrible, but I kept getting asked to do more, and then I got asked to come to in person auditions. The funny thing is I actually had a trip to Spain planned that week, and I was like, there's.
No way I'm getting the show.
I'm going to Spain, Like I'm not gonna add it was this tile company, Porcelonosa, was like bringing me to Spain and paying for everything, and like it was this amazing, once in a lifetime trip and I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to pass up this trip to go audition for show. There's that There's no way I'm going to get But luckily audition started on Wednesday night and I wasn't supposed to leave for Spain until Friday morning. So I'm like, all right, I'll go to the first two days and yeah, late late, at like one o'clock in the morning on Thursday night, because they told me like, we'll give you a call back if you're gonna come in Friday. If not, you just won't hear from us. And so at like midnight, I'm like, all right, well I'm going to Spain. I haven't heard from them. And then at like one one thirty in the morning, my phone ring and they're like, hey, we want you to come back for the final day. Oh so I wanted luckily canceled Spain.
Yeah, and now you're not eating chicken sandwiches anymore.
No, I am only because I want to.
One for lunch and the whole one for there.
What does your day to day look like? Now, Like, what's a typical day for you.
It varies, which is what I love. You know, I used to when I had my stores. I was in my stores, you know, three hundred and sixty three days a year, except Thanksgiving and Christmas because that's the only days you're open.
Which those days always pissed me off because.
I'm like, I still have to pay rent, yeah, but I can't open my stores. I'm like, landlord, why don't you give me those two days for free? It didn't worry that way, so, you know, back then, I worked seven days a week, you know, eighteen hour days on my store, and then my design firm, I was there, you know, five to six days a week every day. Now it varies. You know, I have a really great team at my design firm, so I don't have to deal with the day to day of it. I'm just kind of like a creative head I made. You know, There's some projects I'm like heavily involved in and then some really I'm not involved in at all anymore. And then I also have a marketing department at my company that we deal with brand partnerships and social and things like that. And then a lot of this like doing interviews and podcasts, and shows and random game shows and then filming other shows and yeah, so's it varies. Like there's some days where I won't be doing anything and I can just like have some chill time, which I didn't used to be okay with, going from somebody who worked like seven days a week up until the pandemic, that's all I could do.
Like if I just didn't do something for an afternoon, I would feel like, oh, I'm like, oh my god, I'm so lazy. I'm not doing the most.
Yeah, and then COVID came and I'm like, oh my god, yeah, no, I'm And.
Now sometimes I get annoyed.
I'm like, how do I have something four days this week?
What is this?
Because I'd also like today, my day started really early and it goes really late today and I'm packed all over the place, And I would prefer that instead of.
Like, oh, you've got like one interview in the afternoon.
I'm like, don't ruin a beautiful day by putting one thing of work right.
Back it all into one.
I'm fine with having a busy day, And like a line at my PR firms are always like, are you're sure you want all that one day? I'm like, yes, absolutely, I don't want to get camera ready for one interview. Yeah, pack them all in there. I can switch shirt so I'll never know.
It's one day.
So funny, it's so funny.
It was the exact same way like I felt before the pandemic, like I had to just keep going.
It was pretty crazy.
It's horrible for your mental health. Yeah, yeah, now I think we all all realize we need to prioritize them.
Yeah, and then when did you start writing this book?
So this has been an idea I've had for quite a few years. When the show came out, everybody wanted me to do like a memoir design book, and I'm not ready to do a memoir like I've had. You know, I've had an interesting pass. I don't need to put all that out there yet. Yeah, I don't need to ruin those brand deals yet. And a design book I didn't really want to do because design books are pretty you know, there's tens of thousands of them out there, and they're all amazing, they're all wonderful, But design books are expensive to make because there's.
A lot of photography that goes into it.
There's a lot of photo shoots, there's a lot of photos to pay for. There's a lot of set direction and design to pay for, so it makes it an expensive book and I didn't want to make this pretty coffee table book where Honestly, a lot of times those books also just really make you feel bad about your space because they show these big, beautifl spaces that are really unattainable for most people. So and again I'm not knocking those.
I love those.
There's lots of inspiration, but I really wanted to do a book, like with my show, that helps people and really makes them think about how design affects not just the way their home looks, but the way their home makes them feel. So during the filming of my show, I started noticing like tall tale signs of depression in people's.
Homes, and what are those signs?
Like?
You know, when I would walk in and I would see piles of laundry in a bedroom, I'm like, I think we're dealing with depression here, and you were like, what, piles of laundry doesn't mean you're depressed. I'm like, you're right, it doesn't, but it can. You know, it's if you think of accomplishing laundry, you know, as an accomplishment. And when you go to bed at night and you see that pile of laundry sitting on the floor, and you think to yourself, ah, I told myself I was going to do that, but I didn't. So you go to bed with a notch of failure. And then when you wake up the next day, the very first thing you're confronted with is literally that pile of failure, and you.
Don't think much of it.
It's not like this huge nail, ghastly failure, but your brain starts your day off with a, oh, that was something I told myself I was going to accomplish and I didn't. So when you get to work, your brain is already kind of on that the road of not accomplishing things, you know, so little things like that, and even like making your bed in the morning, I know, it's not this huge accomplishment, it's this big thing you're accomplishing. But again, you make your bed and you've got that little notch of accomplishment, and you you're training your brain that you are going to succeed at the things today that you told yourself you're going to do, and by the time you get to work, your mind is already being pre programmed, like your car battery. I don't know if you guys drive electric, but if you put in an electric charging station, your car will automatically say, because it knows it's about to get charged, pre conditioning battery for charging. So it's pre conditioning that battery for success. That's what you're doing with these little things in your home. You're preconditioning your mind for success for.
The rest of the day.
I love that I do make my bed every day, and I also have a hell of laundry in my bedroom. I'm balanced.
I'm like such a firm believer in that too.
And like so I have an apartment that's mine and I like designed it to be exactly what I wanted to be, and I like felt so badass in that apartment, like it was all mine. It was all my design, Like I just was put together. And I have a boyfriend that I don't live with him officially, but I basically like live with him.
I just haven't like this is this is a whole other time.
You could talk to me for days about that, but I can't give up my apartment until I'm engaged.
I just feel very strongly about that.
But Anyways, I got to give him an ultimatum. Well he knows that watching ultimatum.
We actually started watching it and he was like, this is probably not the best.
Show for us to watch it.
I'm that type of television.
Yeah, but it's very empty. The house is just like very empty. There's nothing in it. And I'm like, there's something that's making me like I when I move my stuff over, I will you know, make it more of like my space. But I'm like, there is something about the way that you live Like I'm like, I feel empty because my home feels empty. It's such a subconscious thing. Like the space that you live in is so important, and like when we have just stuff everywhere, we're going to feel suffocated in life.
Well, think of your home as like your phone charger. You know, if you don't plug your phone in every night, or if there's a short in that court, or you don't get it in all the way, your phone doesn't get fully charged, and what happens to it doesn't make it through the next day it does. Your home should be recharging you fully.
You know.
When people are asking me all the time, like, oh, how should I design my home? What are the trends, and I'm like, the trend is whatever makes you happy. And like the first chapter in the book is talking about the literally it says, let's normalize not asking people what their design aesthetic is because your design aesthetic doesn't matter. It's not what your design aesthetic is. It's let's normalize asking people what makes them happy, because putting things in your home that make you happy is what's really going to cultivate a space that really recharges you. And if that ugly purple credenza from antch Gertrude makes you, put it in your house. It's about that eye.
And if it doesn't, yeah, don't take yeah, exactly get rid of it.
If somebody like, okay, if somebody's starting out, I guess I could say me, I'm not I'm designed for dummies.
It's not my thing.
It's like I just don't have that they I don't have.
The eye, I don't have the touch.
What's something that can really kind of like transform your home or your space like design for dummies?
Well, a lot of times people, you know, going back to the design aesthetic, you know, they don't know because just like you, it's like design's not on the forefront of their mind, Like that's not what they do. They think they don't have an eye for it. But it's all about just figuring out the things in life that make you happy. Like years ago, there was a client on the show that you know, he had inherited his grandmother's house from the seventies, Like she had an amazing style, but it was not the style of a twenty seven year old bachelor. And so I asked him. I was like, you know, what's your favorite show? And he's like, mad Men. I'm like, okay, fifties, And like what's your dream vacation and he's like Cuba. I'm like, also stuck in the fifties. So I did his home in mid century modern and put this really mural of a havana in there, and did like, you know, some banana leaf wallpaper, and he's like, oh my god, how did you get in my head? Like this is exactly what I wanted, even though I had no idea exactly what I wanted. I'm like, I asked you about the things that you're passionate about in life, because those are what you should fill your home with. So like, think about what your favorite article of clothing is. If it's like a worn leather jacket, then you'll probably like leather accents in your home. Or if it's a you know, a chunky knit sweater, then you'll probably like chunky nit pillows or throws and like those are the things that are gonna make you happy in your home. So start with thinking about dream vacations, favorite movies, favorite shows.
You know, think about what you like about those, and that will help you figure out what you like to put in your home.
Mm hmm.
What if you're someone who thinks set a white couch is going to make them happy, and then you get the white couch and you realize that it is a absolute pain and you can't keep it clean, like myself, what do you say to that person?
Be cleaner?
Like I have a little dog and like her little pawprins just like going outside, they get on there.
I have a white sofa and I have a little dog.
How do you keep I buy a sofa with removable cushions so they can be washed.
Yeah, yeah, don't you have that?
Yeah? Take off?
Yeah, I mean she gets a dirty sometimes, but I just take the cushions off every few months. Yeah, But like, don't ever if you have a pet, you know, don't buy a white sofa that doesn't have removable cushions.
Yeah.
Yeah, Like there's a sofa I'm dying to get from this company in Australia called Jardin and this is so beautiful, but like it's all tight back and tight cushion, which means like the fabric is just like part of the sofa. There's nothing that's removable, And I'm like, no, I can't have that, you know, And you have to think about things that are in your life when you're doing design, Like what part of the book it's all about function, you know, figuring out how things need to function in your life because function is the mother of design. Like, when I'm going into somebody's home, the first thing I think about is how the space needs to function, not about how it's going to look, because if it's dysfunctional, that's the thing that's going to cause frustration and annoyance and anger and you know, strife with your relationship with your partners and your kids because you're frustrated that your space isn't working for you. Like one of the chapters is there's a little room guide in every single chapter, And one of them is for the kitchen, and it's like your kitchen should be the sous chef, Like your kitchen should be set up in a way that you don't necessarily need somebody helping you. Like, your kitchen should be organized in a way that everything you need is right there and accessible.
You know.
So like there's something like the you know, the single arm test, if you can, if it's something that you use often, you should be.
Able to reach it without having to pull a chair out. You know.
Obviously there's some smaller spaces that that's just not possible, but you know, there's there's good advice in there for for everybody, even small spaces.
Yeah, I love that.
I think I thought I think I was thinking, oh, I don't have kids, phoebe my dogs, I know, but like I don't have like a you know. And then I just started noticing. I was like, this feels.
You can also I don't know, like wash her feet.
Her feet, it's like the it's like something about whatever whenever her paws ge Like what I know, it's impossible.
I'm so like I I'm a clean freak, and I would like anytime my dog will go outside, i'd wipe her feet when she came back.
I used to not anyone.
No, you just can't. Every time she wants to go outside, it's like.
It's like your parents who have like one kid, they do like sanitize everything, and then the first one comes along, there's like throw their food on the ground.
They're like, here you go your that.
Literally, I try to get shoes for my dog. So anytime I took her out that she would like put her shoes on.
Yeah, we have those too, and she hated them. Yeah, She's like, what.
Are you doing to me?
She just lay down.
She's like, I'm not having anything.
We had a French of years ago that we would We lived in New York, so you had to take her outside, you know, there was no yard, and so when it was rainy, we would put a clothes on her and stuff and she would just stand there and refuse to ye, no, get this.
Off of me.
So yeah, and that's what Phoebe does too. She just stares at me like, how dare you? How did you meet your husband online? Online?
Which one gay dot com? This was two thousand and four, girl, Oh it's long long gone.
Oh wow.
The funny thing is it now forwards to the the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center is apparently like whoever owned it got in like huge trouble with taxes, and so as part of their penance, they had to like donate things to charity, and that they donated the domain to the LGBTQ s. LGBTQ Center has done anything with it yet. I'm like, that's a really great ip that you are literally gay.
Yeah.
Yeah, we've been together almost twenty years.
Wow, amazing.
What's the secret?
He's the secret? Yeah, being with somebody that can put up with you. I don't know, you know, uh, we enjoy each other's company, you know, we we This sounds crazy, but we don't really do things apart, even though like we travel for work, so we're not like with each other twenty four to seven. But I know so many couples that are like, oh, I have to have my boys night or my girl's night a few nights a week, the like get away from my spouse. I'm like, if you feel they need to have to get away from your spouse, like that's not the person you need to be with. Like, you know, I can't imagine telling my husband and being like I'm gonna go out with my friends. Bye, Like that's just not ever been an option in our relationship, Like we do things together yea, And I think that's been one of the secrets to our relationship is we've never grown apart because we've we've always been very conscious to not allow that. Yeah, you know, I think it can be kind of a slippery sope. And I'm not, you know, saying that everybody who needs a girl's night out with their friends is in a doomed relationship, right right, Yeah, you know, but I think it starts to slippery slope, Like the more you do that, the more you know, you guys start not spending time with each other.
Yeah.
I was thinking because I did that too, where I have to actively go do things with my friends without my girlfriend because I could spend every moment with her. So I'm like, I have to like make this pun no, no, but I feel so grateful that I that we always want to be together. But I also am like, I want to, you know, nurture these other relationships outside of my relationship.
Yeah, you don't want to be one of those people that when they get in a relationship, they just like abandon their friends.
We had a friend like that in.
New York years ago, and we always knew when he was dating somebody because we're like.
Hell, has anybody heard from Bryce? Yeah, like Bryce must have a new boyfriend.
And then like a couple months later, you start hearing from them every day again, I'm like, oh, they broke up.
And then after a while.
We're just like weird, just don't answer as called anymore because we're clearly not important. So yeah, like it obviously is good to cultivate, but you know, our friends, his friends became our friends. My friends became our friends. You know, Like I can still cultivate the relationships with my friends, I just do it with him.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I think that's been one of the secrets. Is we just every aspect of our life we include it with each other.
Yeah.
I love that. I mean twenty years, that's like a real testament of being with the right person.
And the funny you know, for years, I traveled a lot for work, and so I'm like, for a while, my God, is a secret to our relationship is that we just you know, were away from each other.
But then COVID happened and we were together twenty four to sevens seven days a week, and we had like one.
Fight over the three years, and I was like, actually, no, that wasn't the secret. Like we can still be with each other twenty four to seven and we're still good.
I didn't ask how y'all how y'all deal with that? Because my girlfriend, she's an artist, so she goes on tour. I have a real I hate when she's gone, Like it's really hard for me.
So he goes to New York every month for five days for work.
Oh wow.
And then I used to travel constantly before COVID and even when I had my stores, I was always on the road. But with my show, like when I'm un traveling, he just he makes it. We make an effort to see each other every single week. I mean we He will fly to wherever I am every single week.
Oh that's great. Yeah, that's what I have to do too, every two weeks. You know.
I heard the store.
Ryan always tells a story about when Keith Urban was a judge on American Idol.
There was he do you remember exactly?
He like it was like he flew to Australia to see Nicole for like the night I want to dinner with her because they had like film Idol and I'm like, that is commitment to your reallyation.
We we had a date at the airport once because he was landing at the airport and I was leaving, and so we like, at least work the flights to where we could like grab dinner at PF Chains in the international terminal, and you know, you you have to make an effort.
Yeah, I love PF Changs.
It's a great day spot.
Love.
What is your dream like moving forward? You have the book, you're you've done done the show that we cannot speak of, Like, what what's your dream situation? In terms of career wise?
I would love to do a new design competition show. You know, if you guys remember like Design Star from back in the day. It's kind of like Project Runway, but for design. I want to find the next emerging designer and not just for like somebody to have their own show, but like the next big home brand, you know, the next Joanna Games, you know, the next line that's going to be in a major retailer. Like I want to do a design show like that, which I would host.
I feels like something is it already.
In the yea?
Maybe people are like, oh, it's because in fashion and like actually know, like this is something that that I wanted to do long before Tan told us in on set one days, like by the way, Loves I got my own show, and when he told me, I was like, noll, I want to do that too. So yeah, I've been like writing challenges for that show for for years.
And years and years. I so see that for you, And I love the idea of seeing someone come up and have that moment for themselves. That's really cool fun.
But I definitely wanted to be a show where you know, the ones back in the day, they're all like kind of like white box challenges. It's all shot in a studio, you know. I want to do it like out in the real world, like designing real homes, designing hotel rooms.
You know, actually like out there in the world.
Hopefully internationally, although studios are not spending any money on budget, so I don't know when you knew that.
Yeah, I love the idea of a hotel, like see who's going to design the look for the hotel exactly?
That is cool.
We're going to be praying for that for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to scrub in with us.
Yeah, and tell everybody where they can get your book.
You can go to Bobby Burk dot com slash book and you can find a list of retailers there. Please buy from small book retailers. I mean, we love the big retailers, but support the small booksellers.
I love that.
And where can they follow you? On social media?
My TikTok and my Instagram is Bobby.
Just Bobby, Yeah, at Bobby. And then when I people are like just Bobby, I'm like, yeah, just Bobby, and then they're like, I'm typing in just Bobby.
I know it's just atye.
Yeah, my threads, my TikTok, and my Instagram all that's thanks.
My X is not But does it even really matter anymore?
You know?
I like still forget that it's X. Like I was like looking for it the other day and I'm like, where's my.
I mean, that's that's a whole other episode. Yeah.
Yeah, thank goodness, the destruction of an amazing brand.
I have one quick question for you, Bobby.
I'm sorry.
My wife and I are restoring this like one hundred year old craftsman. I'll do it, yeah, the hard way. We've been in white paint colors for a very long time. We're in Minrovia near Pasadena.
Yeah, beautiful craftsman over there.
Yeah, it's it's great, but it's also a lot of work. Uh what's your go to white paint color? Do you have one?
It's Sherman Williams snow something. It's there's a whole article on Bobby burg dot com about my favorite white paints.
Oh there you go, thank you. We're stuck in polar bear and I want some other ideas.
You know, whites are polarizing. You know.
When we were doing my my offices, we had like twenty different white swatches painted up on the wall and inside and the outside of the house because it's white as well.
And You're like, all.
Right, is this white? This is the perfect white on the on the exterior. But I'm like, oh, I think this might be too reflect for the neighbors. And it's like gotta be too bright, you know, And so yeah, whites can be hard.
Yeah. I feel like I see a lot of people talk about this and they're like, which white do you like the most of them?
Like they when they put them on a pink.
Undertone, so them have gray undertones, And you really do need to put them up on the wall, and you need to see how they look in the light when when the light changes throughout the day, because as the light changes, you'll start to see the undertone color. And again like often, I mean you might want a pink undertone, but usually that's not the best white because it's not going to go with more modern things. So yeah, put up some swatches, like a at least like a twelve inch by twelve inch swatch, and so you can see the way. And put them up kind of close together so you can because it's hard the naked eye. It's it's kind of hard sometimes to see the differences in the white. You're like, I don't see It's like you know, a Terra Tara a Tyra Banks smiles. I'm like, I don't see the difference. I don't see what you're doing with your eyes, you know, do you.
See the difference?
You see what I'm doing?
Like, no, I don't.
You know?
White page it the same way. It's like, do you see the difference, And I'm like, no, I don't.
So put them right up next to each other so you can you can exactly see why they are different.
Last question, what is your one design. I know you said it's all about how you feel whatnot. But if you just based on like design mind not like how you feel emotion, what is your one design? Don't that you tell.
People scale the scale of things? Like I don't really think.
People always like what's the rules of design? And like the rules are there are no rules? Like the rules are really what makes you happy and what works for your space. But I would say the one thing I always cautioned people on is making sure the scale of things work for the room, Like because if if furniture is too big, yeah, you know, it really creates chaos in the space. Like I was at a hotel in DC recently and every single piece of furniture in the room was exquisite. That they were all too big and it made you made you feel like pac Man, like going through the room, like and you're stubbing your toe and you're hitting your hip and I'm just like God, the designer had such good taste that they do not understand scale, Like the scale of things need to be right, the scale of your rug, the height of lamps.
You know, like a scale needs.
To be right for a space to feel good. So always look for the right scale of things.
That's good advice.
I definitely have to get a copy of your book, because again.
I'd give you this one if it wasn't my only one.
If anybody wants a book, it's right at home.
How good design is good for the mind, And it's available September twelfth, so everybody order it now, pre order it, and let's get you on the New York Times bestseller list.
Yeah, thank you so much, You so much.
