I Was in the Wrong Job for Seventeen Years! Reno Rules' Julia Green

If you’ve ever stood in your living room and felt nothing, this one’s for you. Stylist, author and TV reno judge Julia Green joins Editor Elle Lovelock to talk about building a home that feels like an autobiography, not a catalogue spread. She went from “peddling drugs” (pharmaceuticals) for 17 years in a job she hated to styling shoots, closing her beloved store and now judging My Reno Rules, all while raising a family and painting every available surface in colour. Julia is funny and unfiltered about the gap between how interiors look on TV and how they actually feel to live in. She talks about growing up with a mum who let her paint her bedroom walls on a whim, decking out her first flat with no money but a lot of ingenuity, and why she’ll always choose “considered chaos” over safe beige. There’s career whiplash, there’s grief for past chapters, and there’s the quiet joy of realising your house doesn’t have to be perfect to feel like home, it just has to feel like you. Moments you’ll hear Julia deadpanning that she used to “peddle drugs” (legally) in pharma for nearly two decades, hating every minute, before a stranger buying her couch told her she was in the wrong job and handed her a Vogue photographer’s business card. The chaos‑magic timing of going into labour four hours after that conversation and only circling back to the card at the end of maternity leave, a week before she was meant to return to corporate life. The “I’ve got a new job, I’m a stylist tomorrow” conversation with her husband, despite having no idea what the day rate was and only a Home Beautiful style brief to go on. Childhood bedrooms that changed colour constantly, a mum who let her paint the walls as often as she liked, and the lesson that home is something you’re allowed to experiment with, not preserve in glass. Julia explaining why she can’t do white‑on‑white (“I’d last two seconds”) and how she thinks about colour as “deliberate chaos” - surprise without visual shock. How she furnished her first apartment with basically no budget, just a sharp eye and a willingness to hunt, and why she’s now the stylist who tells people, “Do you really need that?” instead of pushing more stuff. Behind the scenes of My Reno Rules: judging alongside Neale Whitaker and Simon Cohen, trying to keep two strangers’ styles coherent in one house, and what really happens when communication breaks down on a reno show. The emotional side of closing her much‑loved store, stepping into a new TV chapter, and figuring out what kind of home she wants to come back to at the end of it all. Thank you for listening ❤️ before you leave... 🗣️ Get in touch What did you think? We are a brand new podcast and would love to hear from you as we build this together. Join our friendly Home Beautiful community and DM us on Instagram. 👀 See more My Reno Rules All The Details For The New Series! Clever With Colour and Julia Green Julia Green on Insta 📱 Julia's Website Green House Interiors 🙏 Our special thanks for making 'The Edit' our new home: Luxaflex - our beautiful 'studio home' curtains Oz Design - furniture Australians love  Credits: Our friend Julia Green Edited by Propod  Production by Thomas Crnkovic and Charlie Potter  Our wonderful Home Beautiful team  Learn More: HOME BEAUTIFUL  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.