#135: How Many Dollhouses Is Too Many Dollhouses?

If you think our podcast has tackled this question already, JUST YOU WAIT! The universe recently tested Sherry’s dollhouse fixation and whether she passed or failed it, well, may depend on who you ask. We also share what item Ikea was mysteriously selling in bulk – but only in America (we laughed out loud at the big reveal) and we hear from some listeners about how space makeovers can affect behavior in a fascinating way. Plus some interesting lessons someone learned when they challenged themselves to dress in only one color. And we talk about the always emotional topic of textured walls. Buckle your seatbelts.

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.

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What’s New

Below is a “before” of the dollhouse that our friend recently offered up to us, despite having already accumulated our fair share of dollhouses over Christmas. You can hear more about those in Episode #124, as well as the little “Sweet Shop” (that basically counts as half a dollhouse) in Episode #130.

Does it remind you of a certain home we know and love? Especially now that our brick is painted white.

Sherry and our daughter have already had a lot of fun fixing it up, so I’m sure she’ll post about how it turned out and detail all of its tiny contents soon. In the meantime, you can read about how they fixed up our son’s dollhouse already.

Updates

You can hear the original mention of Wheel of Goon / Goon of Fortune in Episode #133 where we talked about design norms from around the world. If you wanna see the game in action, just google “Goon of Fortune” and a few videos will pop up for your viewing pleasure.
Also, here are those Ikea articles that listener Jo was kind enough to share with us: this one about how Ikea tweaks its designs for each country (including the anecdote about the vases) and this one about how many of Ikea’s images are now computer generated. Here are some examples from the article below:

You can also hear our original discussion of the book Joyful in Episode #130.
And there’s more info on Sherry’s minimal and mostly black uniform in this closet tour post and in Episode #115. And I believe we also mentioned Sherry’s “salad-dressing” face routine too, which you can read more about here.

Also, speaking of using parameters to your advantage, we talk in Episode #97 about what we learned by creating some major shopping parameters for ourselves as part of a “No Spend Month” and in Episode #131 we share the lessons we learned from creating parameters around our TV watching.
And if you want to listen in on the original debate about shoes off or on in the house, it’s in Episode #132. Below are some charts (charts!) summarizing the nearly 10,000 responses we now have (we got more since we recorded the episode).

The main thing to note is the big difference between the blue slices, which represents those with a strict practice of always removing everyone’s shoes – which jumps dramatically from Americans (21%) to Non-Americans (62%)
It’s also interesting to note that the green slice (“don’t really care”) is nearly three times as large for Americans.

Can We Just Talk About Textured Walls?

The photo above (from our bonus room) is a pretty good demonstration of the smooth walls we have in our home – and have had in all of the homes we’ve owned. Literally never had a textured wall or ceiling anywhere.
By contrast, here’s an example of a space with texture on both the ceiling and wall, which definitely seems to be regional as well as more prevalent in certain home-building eras.

I’m not a pro in all of the taxonomies of texture treatments, but I believe the ceiling above is considered a “swirl” or a “comb swirl” treatment and the walls are “knockdown” texture. Here are a few others with my best take at identifying them:

image sources: *orange peel* / *knockdown* / *stipple* / *popcorn*

And now on to the important part – the poll!

We’re Digging

This is the book I’m SO happy you guys recommended to me: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. If you want to get a flavor for what it’s about and why it was way more fascinating and engaging than even I expected, here’s a trailer for the movie HBO made based on the book:

https://www.hbo.com/embed/movies/the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks/videos/henrietta-lacks-trailer

And here’s the version of Ticket To Ride that we’ve been playing (it’s the standard, grown-up, American version). There are also lots of other variations like Ticket to Ride: First Journey (for kids), Ticket to Ride Europe, Ticket to Ride New York, and even specific countries in Europe too.

Here are some other games we’ve been playing with our kids (ages 4 and 8) lately too:
- Happy Salmon
- Clue Jr.
- The Game of Life Jr.
- Tenzi

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 Rothy’s for sponsoring this episode. Use code YHL at Rothys.com to get free shipping with no minimum order!