Being Intentional With Your Design Choices | With Katie Fore

The owner of the Elevated Stage, Katie Fore joins the show. We talk about how to bring a consistent design theme to your home. The two rooms that are the most important to update. The trends we are seeing with home owners and sellers when it comes to updating their homes. 

 

Troy: Hey Katie. Glad you could join us today for the podcast episode you, since this is the first podcast with you on it, I wanted to give you just a brief moment to tell us who you are and what you do.

Katie: Yeah. Hey Troy. Thanks for having me on. My name is Katie for, and I'm the owner of the Elevated Stag. I basically help guys elevate their homes in wardrobes. , help them to attract maybe a little bit better more I guess concrete and better quality relationships into their lives.

Troy: and doing that through design and style

Katie: yeah. Style, wardrobe design, whether it's coming in and doing full gut renovations all the way down to just decor, finishing out spaces that they already have pretty well done, and then into their wardrobes, whether it's a full-blown closet renovation or coming in and just helping them to fill out the rest of the gaps that they might be missing.

Troy: Nice. As also a guy like what's one simple thing that you would probably say? is maybe the most common but yet simple thing for a guy or gal to increase the style or appeal of their space that you run into.

Katie: Yeah. I think just keeping it consistent. I think that a lot of people try to do maybe too many things. They get overwhelmed trying too many styles. They're not quite sure what they themselves want. So I think honing in on what their personality, what their style preferences are, and then jump using that as a jumping off point.

So if somebody like really loves grays and blacks and moody colors, just using. and then adding little bits and pieces from there, whether it's in their wardrobe or in their home. I think that a lot of times people just have a hard time visualizing what that's gonna look look put together.

So just using visual references. Pinterest, looking on Instagram, there's a lot of things people can do and you can mimic what's out there. But yeah, just keeping it as simple and then adding a few fun and, unique element. to make it their own.

Troy: Sure. And I think one of the problems or one of the ways that people struggle is because. for the, for most of our lives, we are slowly gathering stuff one piece at a time or one item at a time. It's rare that you, even when you're moving into a new place, usually you're bringing a lot of stuff with you from wherever you live before.

And so it's rare that you throw everything out and then start from scratch. And not that not that a lot of people can afford to do that or that everyone necessarily should, but I think sometimes it's just about being more thoughtful of the space rather than just automatically bringing everything along or placing everything the way you always had it before.

Katie: Being more intentional with your space. I think when people move, they think that everything that they had before is going to work automatically in the new space. And just being able to be okay with some things. Maybe not making that transition and letting go , that's a

Troy: There was, there were some things that probably shouldn't have made the transition from the previous space, so they definitely don't need to make that transition to the new, to the next space.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think also you mentioned just having more quality pieces. In being intentional, finding like whether it's in your living room and finding a really good couch that's gonna anchor that space to a really nice. Quality suit, that's gonna be a staple piece where you could use the jacket as a sport coat, you could use the pant to go with different shirts.

You can make that work with a lot of different scenarios. Try versus trying to have, 10 different suits in your closet but maybe aren't as good of quality. So there's a something to be said about being intentional with what you bring in and also quality over quantity.

Troy: It's interesting you mentioned too about. Creating a more uniform style for a lot of people in their homes and especially guys. But it's the reason that, part of it, it's interesting is now it feels like for the first time in a while, the in, in interior design space is getting to a place where that's not necessarily having to be the case.

Like for the longest time it's been very more kind of whites and grays and more some industrial stuff or whatever. But , there's been a lot more color added to homes, and it feels like there's more of a. not completely random, but more unique kind of statement pieces that I'm seeing in a lot of the homes that I get to go see, or the new construction, like there'll be blue counter or blue cabinets, which I'd wonder how long that's gonna be a statement that lasts, but Right.

And it's still all flows together, but in a living room you might have, vintage. Chairs and a couch that it works together, but they're not necessarily the same the exact same style. And so it feels like that it's not an excuse for a lot of guys to just be like, oh, it works now.

This is the new thing. But it's interesting that it's a style that's maybe the instead of, instead, I don't even know how to put it. Instead of being, instead of truly matching, it's being more com a compatible.

Katie: Yeah. They're being compatible. They're working together in, in in harmony,

Troy: word that I'm looking for

Katie: They are

Troy: complimentary. I need to have my here so I can figure out what my words.

Katie: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that, I have a lot of blocks and tans in my color scheme in my condo. And then I have pops of, right now I have rust, an a burnt orange. I have a big burnt orange chair in the living room and then I've got a painting that plays on some of those colors as well.

And I think if you keep a pretty simple palette throughout the re, the remain. The rugs and the bigger pieces of furniture. You can always play up color with pillows and, throws and different accent pieces throughout the room without feeling like you're really married to it.

Cuz like you said, the blue cabinets, they're great and they're beautiful and I've seen a lot of really well done blue kitchens, but not everybody loves blue. And for resale or for down the road, when you're tired of looking at the blue, A very expensive change to make in the home versus if you had blue accents and different things around the house against maybe gray cabinets or white cabinets or even black or a wood tone.

We've been seeing a lot more of the wood tone cabinets as of late.

Troy: Yep. What. Shannon mentioned current trends. What are you just seeing in the market overall as far as, obviously interior designers and contractors have been slammed the last few years in the real estate market in general, on the home, on the buying and selling side. Things at the end in the second half of 2022 kind of came to a screeching halt.

Everyone just was on pause to see what was gonna happen with interest rates and the economy and stuff. What's, how have things been like for you and your market and your business as well?

Katie: Yeah. They've been, as you said, for the last really two and a half, three years. It's been crazy. We're all just I think, catching our breath , which isn't necessarily a bad thing. To be able to do. But we are also being a little bit more intentional in our business and how we approach projects, what projects we actually agree to take on the way we're pricing.

There's a lot of things that we're changing, I think because of the way that the market is changing. We don't have the luxury to just take on any project, and there's a lot of people that wait until the last minute or they need something done yesterday, and it's unfortunately for our business, that's just not how it works.

If we were full on construction and we were GC every project and we weren't involved in the design aspect, then maybe we could handle. But by the time the construction is involved, the design should have already been taken care of. Materials should have been ordered and everything else should have been done.

So there's a process and an order in which things need to happen, and we're seeing a lot of people that are scrambling at the last minute to find good contractors and not whether they're able to plan it ahead or not. It's, that's, I think what we're seeing more is a lot of people trying for some last.

They're wanting to put their house on the market, get it up before spring, and it's just, I'm not sure that it's gonna be possible.

Troy: And I mean you say it's unfortunate and for those people in those situations not be able to find someone. When they want to do something is unfortunate, but say for you and your business, it's actually fortunate that you don't necessarily have to take on a client.

That's probably gonna be a bit of a headache if they're expecting stuff to get done super fast. When ev anyone who's done any kind of construction remodeling thing knows that it's gonna take longer than you expect. Probably gonna be a little more expensive than you expect. And so the fact that you guys are in a good place business wise, where you can

Katie: absolutely.

Troy: Take on clients that will understand that and get a, build a better, stronger relationship with them is awesome cuz I know that's one of the biggest things as a real estate agent as well too. like you, I would love clients to reach out earlier

Do. 'em that wanna reach out a couple weeks before they wanna put their home in the market. And it's I would've liked for you to reach out a year before because we then really plan stuff. Now a year is maybe a little, idealistic and probably not like we haven, but at least a couple months.

So that way we could be like, Hey, let's actually take the time to do this right. And set you up for as much success as possible.

Right? Like I'm, I, we're, that's a lot of people don't realize we enjoy that as well too. I think nowadays you have so much stuff that's on demand from Amazon and all these other kind of things, like people feel oh, it's just when I want it is the best scenario.

And for a lot of things, no, like I don't charge you more to sell your home because we talk about it a couple months ahead of time and do it right. Like much

Katie: I think it's I definitely feel lucky that I have positioned my business in a way that we can make those kinds of decisions. I think it's also super important, both for myself and my business and my team, but also for the clients that we work with to set boundaries and set the proper expectations.

when we're starting to work together. And I've gotten a lot better at that over the last, several years in not just saying yes because we want to people please cuz I, I definitely have a hard time with that and saying no more often because I know it's the right thing to say in the moment. Because even though as much as I would want to help this client, by me taking that client on, I'm doing myself, my team, and that client a disservice if we just don't have the bandwidth to give them the full focus and the full attention that they deserve.

So I think that's this year a big focus for us is taking on the right projects making sure that we, set proper expectations on timelines and really stick to those. But for people that are coming in at. A moment's notice, asking for help, helping them to maybe connect them with other people that could potentially take on their business, but being really careful to not over promise.

Troy: It's crazy to me how the people that you try and maybe that last minute client that. Try to help and you're like, yeah, this isn't quite work for me. I want to try to help them cuz I really do wanna help 'em also then end up being somehow the most unreasonable clients.

Katie: It always

Troy: the least understanding.

It's all, it's so weird, right? And then you'll have other people, clients that you get to help who are. Almost feel oh, I didn't, I don't, I didn't want to interrupt you. Is it okay if I, is it okay if I planned two days ahead of time to call you and will you have time?

This is my job, I'm here to do it. And then you'll have other ones that are upset. You don't pick up at 10:00 PM on a Saturday night and it's

Katie: Or.

Troy: I can't wake up at eight o'clock on Sunday to go show home. Someone's gonna be sleeping in it anyway. And so

Katie: Or you respond back and they're MIA a for two or three days and then they get mad when you don't respond back to them at 10 o'clock at night. And it's just, those are very tricky situations and I'm sure we've all experienced them in our industries.

Troy: No, and again it's why the biggest, the, right? Obviously I help people buy and sell homes, but it's really about building their relationships. You help people, remodel, improve their stuff, but it's really about the relationships, and you can't, there's, you can't put a price tag on that portion of it.

Katie: you, I think brought up a really good point is that I look at these relationships with my clients as people that I want to have a continual relationship with. I don't look at them as projects and somebody that like, when we're done with this project, then we're done and I'm moving on. It's I want, would hope that if they do have future projects, that they would consider us for the role and that we do a good enough job that they wanna keep us around for other things in the future.

and of course that they would refer us to their friends and to family members that might need the same services. That's always something we look forward to. But yeah it's tricky when you have certain personalities that are demanding. And then the line of work that you and I both are in, especially different price points, we certainly experience those those different types of person.

Troy: They say yeah the building relationships. to me why I got into the business. Again, the ho the homes is the product that goes along with it. The best conversations I've had this year are two different clients who I've had conversations with who we've decided not to sell their home like they were thinking, oh, I might need to, and then talking it over.

We decided, you know what? I don't think you need to because of X, Y, Z. And those were the best conversations that. that I've had all year, and it's all, it's awesome to have those and I'm, so it's just the way it goes. What in that kind of realm of last minute things what's maybe the craziest request that you got from a potential client?

Not that necessarily went ahead and did it, but.

Katie: Yeah, even just starting out this year, I launched the custom clothing side of my business in January of 2022, and that has taken a lot of focus for me personally as my team has continued to carry on the design side. And this. I think first month of being in 2023, I've had more requests for suits and tuxedos last minute that I can't unfortunately help them with.

Like they have weddings coming up in two or three weeks and there's just no possible way of getting that. I'd be surprised if they would even be able to get something off the rack at that point to get it tailored to fit them in time. The wardrobe side. I've definitely seen a lot of last minute requests.

I also had a client from an a condo building that I met with last year. They weren't quite ready to move forward with things and. Probably better that they didn't because the building had a flood on the floor that they live on, and so their entire unit was completely destroyed. The ceiling, the flooring, everything had to be gutted.

So he reached out. It's already been gutted, but he reached out to me to come in and help rebuild things. But they were looking to get started next week. and , they're dealing with insurance of course. Like I just there's just a whole bunch of other things going on in that situation that would make it really difficult for us to be even involved in it.

And so he's a little frustrated at the moment because, my answer was basically like, I don't have the bandwidth to, to do anything for probably another three months, and they are in a hotel right now because they don't have a place to go.

Troy: Don't have an actual

Katie: Yeah. . Yeah. So I feel awful. I just, unfortunately, I'm not able, I've connected him with the contractor.

I think that would be able to help him the quickest and got them connected so that they can start, moving forward. But yeah, it's like he's just very frustrated that, we can't just jump when he needs us to jump.

Troy: No. Again, like I say, I think. It's the unfortunate side effect of the Amazon vacation of our society, which again, is great in a lot of areas and it would, again, it would theoretically be great if you could have someone that could just jump at a moment's notice to do that part of it too. But again, it, the other thing you have to wonder is if someone is really not doing enough work, that they could just be free next week.

Katie: you really want

Troy: Yeah. Is that really the person that that you want and stuff? So you're running into that again, problem on the real estate side too. If the realtor that can is always available, like they should, how, how busy and how much market knowledge do they know in general too.

What you're mentioned. That, things were changing as far as your business. What are what, I think we've talked a little bit beforehand, you are also doing more stuff for people from a like consultation process for their homes, potentially maybe getting ready to sell. Are you seeing a sh a shift in why people are getting stuff remodeled?

Because my guess is going into over the last couple of years, not a lot of people were necessarily doing the remodel. to sell. Unless you were dealing with some flips, then you maybe would see that. But in my experience the last couple years, not a lot of people were remodeling to sell because you didn't need to put any additional cash in your home to sell it.

It would just sell what you know, pretty much at a moment's notice regardless. But are you seeing a change in that part of the market as well?

Katie: Yeah, I would say a little bit. I think also some people are unsure of whether they want to sell or to keep. . I work with a lot of the condos and the condo market is a little different than the single family home market, as I'm sure and so I think some of them are looking at maybe, if they do stay, they wanna update things and they want to see if I update it and I stay, then you know, I wanna experience.

And live in the updated space versus continuing to live in the un updated space. And then if they do sell it, then that would add value depending on what they actually did. There's certainly things that they could do that probably wouldn't add a lot of value, but. I think most of what we're seeing is kitchens and bathrooms, which we all know typically if they're done well, that they will garner at least an even money return, if not more.

So that's what I think we're seeing. It's not that they're doing full gut renovations, but definitely updating and even so they're appealing to more of the masses versus doing more unique finish.

Troy: Yeah. In the condo space, it's also tougher to do updates that aren't valuable because there's so much less space. So the most of the space you have is space that's

Katie: Doing a lot of Murphy beds.

Troy: Yeah, exactly. Adding more, adding space for

Katie: more storage. Yeah.

Troy: You can never have, that's one of the things I always tell clients, regardless if it's a condo or even a single family home with a three car garage, like I've never had anyone complain about having too much storage in a space ever.

Katie: right? Yeah. You actually brought up a good point earlier about the uniqueness of like pops of color and things that you're seeing around some of the homes that you're doing walkthroughs, and I think the bathrooms and kitchens we're starting to see. people not necessarily go stray too far outside of that the normal lanes that they're going in.

But definitely seeing some different finishes and fixtures, people are getting a little bit more adventurous and letting us do some more fun light fixtures and back splash tile and, maybe hardware, some things. Are fairly easy to change. You can change a backsplash pretty easily.

It'll cost, a little bit, but you could change that more so than a paint, paint color on a cabinet or a really crazy, bold countertop that somebody might not like. So there's some things that we could do to make it a little bit more unique and more and more pop. . Cause I think that's what buyers, they're starting to see these homes that are like spec homes basically.

And you walk in and everything's staged and it looks perfect and it's beautiful. And then the ones that are not that way are I think the ones that are having a little bit more challenge in selling

Troy: Yeah.

Katie: as quickly. At least I,

Troy: No, and I also do wonder too, if.

As a, as an agent, you, one of the things you generally have always told sellers is that you wanna maybe tone stuff down to appeal to the most number of buyers out there. So to try to help get you the highest price. And not that, again, we still don't want people to get too wild and crazy, but I actually am starting to think that because buyers are, he still a little hesitant with the higher rates and economic uncertainty that potentially.

Being a little bit more unique and having some more wow factor. While it may turn away, some people, it may actually get that person who is like thinking they might move forward to actually jump, to actually get up and make a move. Whereas all the other units they're seeing, they're like, yeah, this is nice and okay, maybe I could do it.

Do I really

Katie: But there's just nothing that's grabbing them.

Troy: Nothing to get that emotional attachment that's this is my home. And it's, again, it's a tricky balance because you don't want to get too wild and crazy where almost no one is gonna, be attached to it. But I do think that having a c having colors, having some design that might turn off a certain percentage of people isn't necessarily a bad thing because it really might be the trigger for that emotional let's, this is our place for another.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely.

Troy: and that's something I wouldn't have said a couple for the last couple years. In a lot of cases. The last couple years you bought anything, but in previous years you've been like a little more, wanting to be a little more mainstream.

Katie: Yeah. And I think also just the rise of home renovation shows and, people that are out there doing these flips and finding like really cool unique things to put in the homes. There's expectation that is, has been elevated. , I think just a little bit to have certain finishes and when you go in and builder grade finishes versus something that maybe people found on Wayfair, so it's not that they cost that much more, but there was a little bit more thought and a little bit more intention that was put into it.

It does make, I think, a difference.

Troy: Yeah. Speaking of Remo, the remodeling thing, have you found that there tends to be a better. Time for somebody to remodel? Are you getting mostly people who are already living in the place or do you get a lot of people who buy a place and then want it remodeled that way as one? Typically much easier than the other.

Katie: Yes. That is a multifaceted question. So to answer, the easiest part of that is yes, if they could not be in their home while we're remodeling, that would be the ideal situation. Living in a construction zone isn't fun for anyone. It's not fun for the homeowner and it's certainly not fun for us because, when you're living in a space and you're seeing everything as we're going and progressing, you point out every single little detail things that are, maybe we know.

But if you weren't there, you would never know because it would be fixed before you would know about it. And we can't be on site every five, five seconds. So we do regular check-ins on our projects to make sure that we're hitting milestones into the things that we need to hit, but that's why.

our clients hire us so that we are the ones that are making sure that these things are going properly. When we have clients that live on site, a lot of times they can tend to micromanage a lot, and that's really challenging. It causes a lot of tension between the client and the contractors and then us sometimes who are the in betweens.

I think having homeowners that can understand the position that we're in, that we are there to help and to be. Kind of the liaisons between the construction teams and the the homeowner to make sure that everything at the end of the day looks and feels the way that they ultimately wanted it to.

That is what we really want. That's our end goal. I think we're all on the same team. when it comes to those things. So if they can be out of the house, great, but the majority of the time they're not. So we try to work around that as best as possible. I think, I've had a few clients that have purchased something and they have, either it's their second home or they have the ability to go somewhere else for a time being.

So that's been helpful. The reality is that most people don't have that luxury and , so we do our best to work within the, confines of where we find ourselves for each project.

Troy: Yeah. You mentioned for your guys' business right now it's a, a couple months out if, for someone that's, gets to you guys today and is saying, Hey, we want work done. At that point it feels like it's gonna be a good year generally going into the year because of that, hey, things are going, should be going pretty well, how are you?

What, but what are your mid slash long-term projections of the market? Both say maybe real estate in general and for your side as with the design space and remodel space.

Katie: Yeah I feel like, just like in real estate, if you're, if you've been in it for a long time or you have a really good. , network. I think that's so important in both of our industries, right? The word of mouth business for me is everything. The day that my phone stops ringing is the day I start to get worried.

Which luckily that hasn't happened yet, but it's I think if we do what we're supposed to do, we continue to put out good work and to communicate with our clients and set the right expectations that we'll continue to. The phone calls, whether the market dictates that or not. The people that I generally am working with are not as affected by the overall market I think as the general population.

So I ha I, I certainly see them being affected to some degree, but it's, it might, instead of their whole house, they're gonna redo portions of it.

Troy: Like the bigger thing that you're seeing there is the p the some of the economic stuff, right? Like the interest rate stuff. No one wants to pay a higher interest rate for homes. But again, if in, in Austin and if you're the meeting home price being around 500,000, like generally if you can afford that home price or up from there it's not like you could afford at 3%.

You can't afford at 6%. You still can. Sucks to have to pay a little bit more, but the concern about, hey, I'm a whatever executive at Amazon and we just announced that there's 18,000 people getting laid off over the next year. Like that uncertainty is, I think, what's holding some home buyers back.

It's shoot, do we wanna make the move to a bigger home or add, add some debt with a house payment? If there's uncertainty that we could lose a job and maybe it takes six months for us to find a new one or so.

Katie: Absolutely. Yeah. I think those bigger purchases especially. I've had a few clients where they were looking, they're ultimately wanting to do, $250,000 renovation to their home. But instead they're just going to start with the kitchen. And so we'll start with the kitchen. And honestly, for.

It allows us to help them, but also to take on additional work. Whereas if we were doing a full on $250,000 full home renovation, it would take a lot more of our attention and focus. So it's, for us, if I can fill the other, $200,000 with three other projects and we're working on those versus one, one main one then we'll do.

Troy: to dive to diversify with

Katie: Exactly. And it's fun cuz that's what we like to do. We, we wanna have different designs and have our feet in different, because not everybody's the same. So it gives us a lot of different things to work on that are fun and

Troy: If if price wasn't necessarily objective, if there if, but if you're in a house, we'll say house cause it's getting condos a little too small, there's just not many options. But if I'm in a house, what, is there one room specifically you would generally recommend getting remodeled?

Updated first?

Katie: I definitely do the kitchen if that hasn't been touched since the home was built. That's probably the first thing, and that comes from both on the design perspective, but also from a buying perspective. If I walked in to, to purchase and my husband and I look at different real estate opportunities all the time.

If we had the means to be able to purchase something and we walked in and saw a kitchen that looked like a project , we're probably less likely to jump on that. Because even though this is my business and what I don't necessarily have the time to devote. We moved into our new place in July and I'm.

Still finishing the interior, because guess what, when you're the business owner, you focus on your clients first and we get to go to the back of the bus. So I'm still finishing out some things in our place as time permits, and I feel like the same thing as people walk into these homes. They're looking at what is the biggest project and what's gonna cost me the most money?

And then when you're looking at the interest rate issue, and then they're looking at, oh, this isn't turnkey. I'm gonna have to, spend another $50,000 to make it the way that I want it. That's where they start having those thoughts and then they're like let's just back out of it completely

Troy: Yeah, no, and I would, like I say, I would say kitchen two while. Probably the most expensive. Not most, not probably. It is definitely the most expensive

Katie: Yeah.

Troy: room, like far away. But it's again, the most, it's probably the biggest attention grabber from a potential home buyer. And it's also even, but even as someone, if you're living in the home like.

especially nowadays with Open, most homes still having a relatively open home concept. It's the center of life, right? Yeah, great, you could do your master bedroom, but how much time do you spend in there? Which is why in the nineties when you had these huge master suites, I was like, do you really go to your.

Bedroom to the master bedroom to read or to work out. No, no one ever did that. It's we don't need that. But your kitchen, you're there. The kids are doing schoolwork there. You're cooking there. And so that's probably unfortunately the most expensive one, but also the one that you're gonna, you spend the most time in by far as well.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And then obviously from there I think would be the primary bath is probably the second area that tends to garner the most attention and I guess best return. I've seen a lot of people doing

Troy: It's cause for some reason it get, it lo it, the primary bathroom. will look so dated so quickly. I don't know what it is about

Katie: It's those garden

Troy: another, there's not, yeah, again, there's not another room in the house that looks more dated more quickly than the ma, the primary master BA bathroom.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think the patio has been a understated space for. Okay. A lot of reasons in Texas, obviously we have a lot of people that are moving here that are not from Texas, and so they wanna add these big giant sliding doors and all these patio, where they're gonna sit out and spend all this time.

in the Texas summers, outside, but I have seen a lot more people putting money into their outdoor spaces. . And I think that there's been a return of the pool. For a while a lot of people were going away from the pool and now so many people after Covid are putting pools back into their backyards.

So I've seen a lot more of those. And even some of the smaller pools, right? There's people with small backyards that don't have room for these big, lavish, giant, Monstrosities with fountains and all the stuff that people used to put in. But they can put really nice, smaller pools with a hot tub.

And they have a great space. And I think that actually really adds to the value of the home. And the

Troy: It allows you to enjoy the patio more cause you just go, as you're starting to sweat, you just go

Katie: You're not just sweating.

Troy: And then just go back to your, go back to your lounge chair and sip

Katie: can escape the mosquitoes.

Troy: Yeah. So it's pretty that way. I feel like I'll, I have to get out of here.

On one last question in that since part of your business is also men's style and I'm a man, so other than a staple suit,

Be the, maybe the second styling tip you would recommend in general?

Katie: men's shoes are really awful most of the time. , their shoe game is really just not where it needs to be. And that's mostly on the casual shoes. I think some guys have the dress shoes. You've got your brown and you're black and they, sit in the closet. But where I see guys lacking and probably needing the most update is in their footwear to wear it with jeans, to wear with shorts.

They might have one or two pairs of casual shoes and flip flops, and that's it. We need to expand that to probably five or six pairs of shoes. The leather tennis shoes are great. They come in every color you can do black, brown, gray, blue, and they go with shorts, jeans, casual pants, five pockets, you name it.

The casual shoe game though really for guys here in the Austin area specifically, since that's where I am, is is hurting

Troy: Fortunately your husband has you, so we know his

Katie: He does

Troy: is on point.

Katie: He has more shoes than I do, so

Troy: That's awesome. It seems like a good place to end it. Appreciate you jumping on and and doing this episode, and we look forward to more.

Katie: Thank you so much for having me, Troy.