Trading Spaces' alum Genevieve Gorder on the COVID-19 crisis

When things get really bad, home does really good, Genevieve Gorder believes. The interior designer and TV personality — who marks Sept. 11 and the 2008 stock market crash as crescendoes in her home career — says that’s because “it's where we nest and it's where we repair, we recalibrate and reinvent so we can go out again.” While stay at home orders in many states are easing, home life — or the cradle, as Gorder likes to refer to it — is still emphasized, and will continue to play a larger part in people’s daily routines. Because of the increased time spent inside, the lifestyle expert from Trading Spaces fame and Netflix’s Stay Here says that we see all the layers of home in a different and deeper way, like the cracks and old furniture, and when all those little details aren't working together, it can almost feel like you're stubbing your toe every day. That’s why Gorder, speaking during Yahoo’s Reset Your Mindset event, believes that even small fixes can be a really great medicine. “Let the light in, open the windows, bring in some brighter colors to change your mood. It really is more than just psychology. It is absolutely true,” she says. Video produced by Gaby Levesque

Video Transcript

GENEVIEVE GORDER: Hi, I'm Genevieve Gorder, interior designer and television personality, lifestyle lady, and I'm here to talk to you about the weird state of now.

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We're all home looking at all the cracks and things that we haven't done that we need to do. Let's talk about how fixing and making home a little bit better can make our mindset a whole lot better too.

So I know we're all living in this crazy pandemic of home and safety and fear and what's next? and how much do I spend to make my house what I want? I'm hoping, you know, just in a time that we're really focusing on our mental health that starting with home is a really great medicine for all of us and how we wake up and how we treat ourselves all day long. Let the light in. Open the windows. Bring in some brighter colors to change your mood. It is absolutely true. It's not fluff.

I think more now than ever, keeping a happy home, keeping a cradle that takes care of you instead of you working for it is important every single day. And this is the time to slowly fix. Fix all the things you never had time for. These little projects that you can even set daily can have such a huge effect on psychologically how we feel and how we treat others and ourselves in our home and outside of it. It's an important time. Focus on the cradle.

I think, first and foremost, is create a budget that you're OK with to spend, whether it's a new lamp for your bedside table or a new pillow for the bed to get rid of the one that's ripped that your dog ate. I mean, these are things that we all live with and hide to the exterior but we feel in the interior.

Start with the things that are free. So that means space plans. How is your furniture laid out, and how do you move throughout the space with objects? 50% of interior design is the layout. Move the stuff you already have around. Change the layout. Make an old chair feel new by moving it across the room. It really does change your whole mindset.

Paint is really inexpensive and probably the most dramatic mood changer, room changer, space changer there is. You know, $25 a gallon and a couple days' work, which you have the time, honestly, to really change the landscape.

And then it's accessories. These are the last 10% of every room, but they're really fun things-- the objects, the sculpture, the art, the decoration. Move your art around the room. Stop being committed to the same accessory layout that you've had for the last five years.

So those are the easy, cheap things to do. I guarantee you every home store is having a sale right now. Take advantage of the 80% off because they are in your face, and it will pay off enormously, especially right now.

If we really think about the silver lining of this weird time, we can come out of it however new, improved, and different we want to be. Like, that's a gift. Take advantage of it.