In this episode of the Uploft Interior Design Podcast, I reflect on my experience as an interior designer and podcast host while answering a listener’s question about how to make her living room feel more cohesive and inviting without a full redesign. I walk through practical, low-cost changes—like removing an unnecessary layered rug, swapping out matching furniture for more variety, and introducing color through pillows and accessories—to help transform the space from bland to personalized. Along the way, I also share my thoughts on a documentary about the Murdoch family… If you have questions for me, make sure to submit them here.
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Design inspiration, real life makeovers, and the latest in pop culture. This is the Uploft Interior Design podcast with Betsy Helmouth. >> Well, hello there. Thanks for joining me again this week. I’m so glad to be here with you. I’m Betsy Helmouth. I own
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Uploft Interior Design. Not only have I been designing for 20 years, I also teach interior design. I have an an academy for people who want to be designers and I spend a lot of time over there creating modules, working with students, uh doing coaching, and it’s
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just a beautiful place to be for people who are looking for a new career. So, there’s never a dull moment here at Uploft Interior Design. I hope you’re staying busy this spring. I hope you’re having some beautiful weather. And I have beautiful questions filling
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this mailbag. So, thank you guys so much for heading over to uploft.com/mpodcast and sending me pictures of your projects, sending me questions about what you’re working on. That’s what not only fuels this show, it also fuels me. This is what I do for fun people. I’ve
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been doing this for 11 years. Yes, March was our 11th anniversary of podcasting. Over 500 episodes. That’s a lot of mic time, I’ll tell you. And it never gets old. And it never gets old thanks to your design questions and dilemmas. So, send them my
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way. I mean, where else are you going to get free interior design advice from somebody who’s been in the industry for over 20 years? Whoa, I can’t believe it. Okay. Uh, well, we have lots of interesting things to talk about today. Not only do we have a wonderful design
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question that’s come in, but I’ve been watching TV, you know, I have and I recently watched The Murdoch on Netflix. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So much to say, so many thoughts. If you like true crime, if you like um learning about influential people and
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their families, if you liked Succession, you are going to be obsessed with this documentary. I’ll get into it a little bit later, but uh you won’t want to miss it. And just head over to Netflix right now. Put it in your like section. Say, “Remind me
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later to watch this because whoa, whoa, whoa. It started off a little slow. I wasn’t sure and it captivated me and especially because of all the parallels to Succession, which again for me was a little slow, a little repetitive, but I could not stop watching.
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All right, even more exciting than the Murdoch family is hearing from Jenna in Somerset, Connecticut. She has interior design questions. I have answers. Let’s get into it. Hi, Betsy. I feel kind of silly writing this, but my living room has been bothering me for like a year
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now. It’s where we spend all our time, and it doesn’t feel good to sit in, if that makes sense. My husband thinks I’m overthinking it, but I swear something is off. The couch is against the wall. The TV’s on the other wall. We have a recliner that doesn’t really match, but
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we need it. I’ve tried moving things around, but then it feels even worse, so
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Jenna’s living room dilemma introduced
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I put it back. I think maybe everything being pushed to the edges is part of it, but I don’t know what else to do because the room is not huge. I don’t want to buy all new stuff. I just want it to feel more cozy and less like a waiting room. What would you change first? Okay.
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Well, Jenna, don’t be so hard on yourself. Your room does not feel like a waiting room in my opinion. Could it use an uplevel? Of course. But I think it’s got some really great bones and I don’t think you’re going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get it to the next
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step. So that’s the good news. The bad news is yes, it could use some love. So let’s talk about it. Now you asked me what is the first thing I would do. Nothing is calling out to me as being like super problematic, but I do have some moves I would make.
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And all of them can be relatively low cost and all of them are going to be pretty easy to do. All right, let’s get into it. First, for those of you who are not watching along on YouTube, I will explain the room. Okay, so we do have a big beige sofa that is on the largest
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unbroken wall. It is flanked by two rustic in tables that are a combination of wood and dark metal on casters and the wood is distressed and definitely has that rustic feel. Those are topped with two matching ceramic lamps that have like a tan shade. And the ceramic
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has like a crackle glaze that ombres down from like a cream all the way to a dark brown. Above the couch, we have a piece of art. In front of the couch, we have a table that matches the in tables and that it has the casters, the rustic wood and the dark metal. Opposite the
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couch, we have that TV stand. and you were referencing. It is um a glass piece that has metal. And then adjacent to that kitty corner, we have the armchair. Now, I’m not seeing the recliner in this picture, but you’ve told me you have to keep it. We won’t worry about that only
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Removing the layered rug and layout issues
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because I don’t have a photo reference. And this room opens up into the kitchen. So, there’s a couple of stools at the peninsula. There’s some midtone wood cabinetry. It also opens into an eating al cove where we have some olive green drapes. A circular wooden dining table
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that appears to be like a dark wood with some seaggrass woven dining chairs that appear to be like a light kind of seagrass basket weave with light wood legs. And all the walls are cream. Okay, so that’s the lay of the land. Now, in the living space, we have wall-to-all
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carpeting. However, it stops right before we get to the counter stools. So, the kitchen and the Eden dining area are all wood floor. The first thing I would do and potentially the easiest thing to do is you have like a remnant carpet. Maybe it’s 5t by 8 ft under the coffee table
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in front of the sofa and it’s layered on top of the beige wall to-all carpeting. It is also a beige remnant, so it just looks like a second layer of essentially the same texture and color. Get rid of that. Very rarely do I layer a rug on top of plush carpeting. I’m not opposed
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to layering rugs. I do like layered rugs when it’s one area rug on top of the other. And of course, the one that’s on top would be smaller or a different shape so that it really contrasts and you can see the one underneath. And you have to be very intentional about what
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you’re doing there. You really have to have a designer eye to pull that off successfully. But I do think it really works when you have sort of a more neutral style area rug on the bottom and then say you layer on top with like a cowhide rug or something. That’s very
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easy and very successful if that’s the style you’re going for. Here it looks like carpet remnant on top of wall to-all carpeting which leads me to believe you’re covering stains or something like that. It just is odd. And having a plush carpeting on top of
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another plush carpeting also is very difficult in terms of the edges always pulling up. It bubbles. Um I can easily catch my toe on it when I’m walking through the room. It’s just a no for me dog. Yes, that is an American Idol reference, Brandy, if you’re listening.
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Uh so yes, I would pull up that remnant and put it somewhere else. Uh send it back to the universe. The next thing I would do is I do not like in tables that match the coffee table. It looks like a matched set. It looks like you went to the store and said,
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“Give me the rustic combo.” I would definitely be swapping out either the end tables or the coffee table. And in this case, it’ll be more cost effective to just get a new coffee table. Now, we have the glass with the TV stand. We have the wood. We have the metal. I
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might incorporate a stone type texture. So doing something marble. This is a very narrow room. So I like keeping the rectalinear shape. I would just switch up the material. It might also be nice to do something upholstered if you find that you could put your drink or your
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snack on the end tables easily enough. And then you could put your feet up and you could incorporate a new color into this space because that’s that’s another
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Furniture swaps and adding texture/variety
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thing that I think this room is really missing is color. And bringing it in through like a really cute upholstered ottoman would be amazing. I would also bring it in through another set of pillows on every couch. I like two sets of two pillows. Uh that’s a minimum by the way, but I
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find that two sets of two fits best on most standard sofas. And you do have an inspiration piece in here, which I’m excited to see. The art piece above the sofa is quite colorful. It incorporates, of course, the beige, but also some yellows, some of that olive green that
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we see in the drapes in the Eden dining area. We see this blue color, as well as like some coral oranges. I would be pulling the tones from there for accessories because this entire room is very brown. The brown leather club chair, the beige sofa, the brown wall
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to-all carpeting, the brown kitchen cabinets, the brown countertops, the brown wood stained floors, the Okay, you get my drift. You get my drift. And even the pillows you do have on the sofa, which I really appreciate the fact that they are patterned, bring in absolutely
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no color. So, layering a colorful pillow behind those would be amazing. And typically when I’m layering pillows, I like the larger one to be behind. I actually look for a larger size. I want there to be a size disparity in my pillows. So if the front ones are 18 in, I’m going to
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go bigger than 18 with the ones behind. Maybe a 20, maybe a 22 in square. And if I do do an unusual shape like say a circular pillow or a rectalinear lumbar pillow, I would only do one. Those are some really quick wins around this room. Certainly, I think there’s
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more work to be done. But once you start with those, I think you’re going to see new opportunities. And of course, you can send me the update and I’ll give you more to work on cuz I do think we need a rug under that dining table. I do think we need a pillow or at the
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very least a throw blanket on that leather club chair. I do think we need more art in this space or more opportunities for color and visual interest so that this doesn’t look like an Airbnb and starts looking like someone’s real home. See guys, when you write in, I tell you
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what I really think. I hope that helps, Jenna. Please keep me posted. Head over to uploft.com/mpodcast to let me know what happens. While you’re there, you might as well check out our Instagram page, which you can find. Just head over to Instagram and
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look up Aloft Interior Design. You can find us on Tik Tok. You can find us everywhere. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. We’re everywhere. All right, we’re also on Netflix. So, when I’m designing, a lot of you guys know that I like to watch documentaries
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in the background. Whether it’s a true crime documentary, whether it’s a documentary on a completely different topic, in this case, kind of a biopic, if you will, but it’s a documentary, or even dine 48 hours. I love all of those. Speaking of, I’m very happy to see that
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48 Hours has now landed on Netflix because I actually much prefer 48 Hours
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Bringing in color with pillows and accessories
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to Dine, but Dine has such a better backlog in terms of it being accessible on Peacock and other places. Anyway, I digress. The other day, I was designing for a client on the Upper West Side. Uh, she has a seven-month-old baby. She has a husband. She’s a busy lawyer. Just went
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back to work. and she needed her entire living space done. Living, dining, entryway, and boy oh boy did we do it. But I designed it while watching The Murdoch’s on Netflix. If you have not seen this, head over there right now. I was pretty much taken from the beginning.
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Okay, so it’s of course about Robert Murdoch or Rupert, excuse me, Rupert Murdoch, excuse me, long day. Rupert Murdoch who built one of the most powerful media empires in the world and he built it from essentially nothing and he owns major outlets like Fox News,
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like the New York Post and he’s created essentially a family dynasty. So his entire plan is of course, well his first plan is to never die and he’s doing a good job with that. I think he’s like 94 or something. But he literally is thinking he’ll live forever and is working on longevity.
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And he’s doing this so that he can avoid handing down his company to one of his children. Now he has a lot of children from different marriages. So he has an older daughter from one marriage, then he has three children, one daughter, two sons from a different marriage, and then
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he winds up having two more children, two girls from an even different marriage. But it’s really those children in the middle, Lachlan, James, and Elizabeth, who are most in the running for the succession of his company. And they’re all, of course, trying to
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work with him. They’re all of try, of course, trying to curry favor. He’s giving them small divisions so that he can see how they operate certain branches of his media company. Uh, Elizabeth winds up quitting and kind of doing her own thing in media and
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ultimately selling it back to her dad. There’s a lot going on, but what happens is that he selects a child that he feels would best succeed him in this company and that he feels most confident handing the reigns over to. But of course, what does that
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do to the other children? How does that break things apart? his second wife, the mother of those three children, actually put a trust in place so that this would never happen. So that all of the children would have the exact same number of shares so that this very
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issue, she was so precient and wanted this issue to not tear their family apart and made a plan in advance. However, with all these highpowered lawyers, they found loopholes and they found sort of this little but what about this? And of course, it made the trust
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somewhat of a moot point and of course still continued to tear the family apart. Now, all of this is interesting on its own, but it becomes even more interesting if you saw Succession on HBO, because if you did, you’re going to be noticing a ton of parallels between
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these two families, between the Roy family and the Murdoch’s. And you’re also going to be noticing that all of these headlines from the Murdoch family were used as plot lines in succession. I mean, it is a oneto-one comparison and it is so literal that I’m surprised
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there hasn’t been sort of more static attorney wise between these two factions because Succession was definitely basing their entire show off of this family and what is happening to this family. Now, I don’t know if the children are actually good personifications of the actual children
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um in real life. But wow, wow, wow, wow. Of course, there’s scandal. Of course, there’s lots of reputation issues. Billions of dollars are at stake. Who’s going to control this global empire?
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Murdoch documentary discussion and reflections
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And you know, in getting so successful and so famous, what does it do to your personal life? First of all, was Rupert Murdoch ever there for his children? They have a couple of videos of him as a dad, and you just get a glimpse into what that might have felt like and been
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like. So, what sacrifices do you make to be a billionaire? And what resentments does that create? And how much money should we leave our children just because you can leave them an empire? Should you leave them an empire? Is your company in the safest of hands with your
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children or is it best to leave it to somebody else and let your children find their own path? When I was pregnant with my daughter, I went to see an astrologer and the astrologer told me that my daughter would take over my company as an interior designer. And so I’ve always
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had that in the back of my head even though I certainly did not keep to it. And I didn’t put anything in place. I haven’t pressured her into liking interior design. She does not like anything having to do with art or color or anything like that. She’s a theater
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person through and through. But I now have another daughter, so who knows? Maybe he got it mixed up. And yes, I will definitely pressure my little daughter to be an interior designer. Anyway, I digress. And I am joking. But um I think that’s very complicated and as we know what is it
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90% of family businesses don’t go past two generations and I think you really understand why from watching the Murdoch on Netflix. Wow. It makes me definitely not want to leave my company to my children. But if one of them was very enthusiastic and this was definitely
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their life passion, I would be open to it. Heck, I would even be proud and excited for it. But it is complicated and do not recommend. But I do recommend checking out The Murdoch on Netflix. You are going to have a very entertaining ride. Thank you so much for joining me
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again this week. If you have questions, not necessarily about who should take over your business when you pass away, but more like what color curtain should I have in my living room? Well, I’m the gal to ask. Head over to uploft.com/mpodcast. Once again, that’s uploft.com/mpodcast.
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I’ll solve all your problems as long as they don’t have to do with wills or um trusts. Yeah. Okay, I got you. Until next week. Bye. A big thanks to our producer Jeremy Young and to Eton and the Embassy for our theme music. And shout out to our parent company, Uploft Interior Design,
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your trusted source for expert interior design. Visit uploft.com to explore our services and book a consultation with one of our talented designers. If you’re enjoying the Uploft Interior Design podcast, please support us by sharing the show with friends and leaving a
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