Room to Think

In this episode, Lyssia sits down with Emily Campbell, founder and principal designer of Emily Jane Interior Design, to explore why the most meaningful homes are not just designed to look beautiful, but to feel deeply personal and restorative. Drawing inspiration from nature, memory, and emotional connection, Emily shares how her background in fashion, entrepreneurship, and design led her to create spaces that help people feel more grounded, calm, and connected to themselves. The conver...

In this episode, Lyssia sits down with Alana Nielsen and Kelly Breiter, the duo behind Alana + Kelly Design Co., a residential architecture and interior design studio, to explore why the idea of the “perfect home” often fails in real life. Working across both structure and interiors, they share how designing holistically allows them to bridge the gap between how a home looks and how it actually functions day to day. The conversation breaks down the difference between spaces that are designed ...

In this episode, Lyssia sits down with Danijela Saponjic, founder of Unfolding Space and a feng shui master, to explore the invisible forces inside our homes and how they shape the way we think, feel, and move through life. Danijela shares how she discovered feng shui during a transitional moment in her life, when she came across the idea of clutter clearing and became curious about how changes in her space could influence her reality, ultimately leading her to completely shift her path and c...

In this episode, Lyssia sits down with architect, educator, and author Juhani Pallasmaa to talk about the sensory experience of architecture and why we experience buildings with our entire body, not just our eyes. The conversation explores how modern architecture became overly focused on vision and aesthetics, and what we lose when we ignore touch, sound, shadow, memory, and imagination in the spaces we create and live in. They discuss why old buildings often feel more comfortable than new on...

Your home is doing more to your mood than you think, and a lot of it has nothing to do with “good taste.” I’m joined by Amber Dunford, a mental health therapist and design psychology educator, to unpack why certain rooms feel instantly calming while others quietly put your body on edge. We trace it back to attachment theory, early childhood environments, and the way memory builds an emotional blueprint for what “safe” looks like in adulthood. We get practical about the nervous system and the...

What if your room could lower your stress, sharpen your thinking, and help you sleep—without you doing anything extra? That’s the promise Dr. Esther Sternberg brings to life as we explore how design choices become signals to the brain and immune system. From the science of stress and inflammation to the subtle ways air, light, sound, and nature steer your biology, this conversation reframes “interior design” as everyday preventive medicine. We trace Dr. Sternberg’s research journey—from earl...

Renovation success isn’t about swinging hammers faster—it’s about slowing down where it counts. We sit with Danny Wang, Head of Growth Initiatives at Block Renovation, to unpack the real engine of a smooth project: planning, trust, and aligned expectations. From the first Pinterest save to the final walkthrough, we map the steps that keep your timeline, budget, and sanity intact. Danny shares the upstream moves that prevent downstream chaos: define scope with precision, price against a real ...

Hosted by Lyssia, Head of Brand at LiLi Tile, Room to Think explores the intersection of interior design and psychology. Each episode features conversations with architects, designers, artists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and makers who understand both the beauty and the science behind the spaces we live in. Together, we unpack how your home quietly shapes your mood, habits, energy, and relationships, and translate those insights into practical takeaways you can apply to your own space im...

Your surroundings are shaping your mood before you take a single step. We sit down with Professor Justin Hollander to unpack the hidden psychology of places—why our brains hunt for faces in facades, how ornament and craft earn long-term care, and what happens when cities are designed for cars instead of people. From the figural primitive to the power of light materials and human-scale detail, this conversation connects neuroscience with everyday design choices you can make at home and across ...

Subscribe to Room to Think In this first episode of Room to Think, Lyssia sits down with artist and designer Adam Trest, whose work lives at the intersection of storytelling, pattern, and emotion. From growing up in the South surrounded by handcrafted objects to studying architecture and fine art, Adam shares how his environment shaped not just his style—but the way he thinks about the role of art inside a home. The conversation explores how memory, childhood, and lived experience quiet...