Selling Sunset's Amanza Smith Shares Her (Really) Honest Design Opinions

At work, Amanza Smith is surrounded by luxury. The interior decorator, home stager, real estate agent, CasaWire Advisory Board member, and mom of two arrived on season 2 of Netflix's Selling Sunset ready to sell homes valued at tens of millions of dollars with her recently acquired realtor license. But despite the 10,000-square-foot listings, infinity pools, high fashion and higher budgets she encounters, she still calls herself a DIY queen.

Though we sat down with Smith to find out how she set up her outdoor space for summer, we ended up learning so much more, from her hot takes on current design trends to what's in her text chain with Jason Oppenheim.

When we spoke to Smith, she had been having back pain for roughly a month and was waiting on the results of the MRI. Since then, Smith has undergone two surgeries to remove a blood infection from her spine. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Spruce: Could you tell me about your outdoor space?

AS: I’m currently renting, and whilst I have a full front yard and full back yard, I have two kids. So it's been completely abducted by tweenage articles of extracurricular. The good thing is my son has gotten good enough at basketball now we can move the giant net that prevents the basketball from bashing into the house, and they've decided they no longer are interested in the trampoline. So now all that’s changed.

Since I've been down for the count with this back injury, which has been about a month now, I've been thinking about what I want to do to my outdoor space. I want to get bougainvillea bushes. And I'll have a nice sitting area with a fire table. I may design my own outdoor furniture, and then I want an infrared sauna in the corner. I would love to have a Jacuzzi. Then astroturf just so that we don't have to maintain the grass, it’s just always perfect. And I know string lights are a little played out, but they still really do look so beautiful.

Spruce: Wait, so you don’t own your place, you’re renting?

AS: This is a rental, we don't own it, so I’m not gonna come in and knock down walls and retile floors. Do I want to spend all my down payment for a house that I would purchase to upgrade a house that I'm renting for the next renter? No, let's swap out a light fixture, maybe change the hardware on our cabinets, and call it a good one. (Laughs)

Spruce: If you know that you're staying at least another year, are you just going to commit to making changes to your outdoor space as though you own it?

AS: Look, I have big plans to have an empire and I may break the lease in six months because mom has ballin' out so hard, we can go and get that dream house. But right now I know that I've committed to the landlord for at least one more year. So for me, instead of sitting and daydreaming for a year, I will do what I can within budget.

I could make a billion dollars next year and I would still live on a budget, because you can take the girl out the trailer, you can’t take the trailer out the girl. I grew up on very humble means and that's how I got my love and passion and my knack for design and [being a] DIY queen, because everything was always on a budget. And we're still on a budget—I'm a single mother of two.

Spruce: You called yourself a DIY queen. What are your favorite DIYs or some of the ones you're proudest of?

AS: I don't know my favorite. I've done so many. I more enjoy seeing something that's like $2,200 and then going to a yard sale or the Hotel Surplus Outlet and then recreating it for a fraction of the price. Just sanding off the varnish or throwing on a coat of paint. Changing the hardware or adding removable wallpaper. It's kind of like painting the barn. You know, you go get Botox every now and then—you’ve got to paint the barn.

Spruce: You're from Indiana, which I love because I'm from Missouri. Los Angeles seems to have a very distinct style that is not like the Midwest. 

AS: Yeah, it's definitely different here. Even in the past 10 years, every architectural structure is the same, and it's all California modern. And nobody knows, unless they hire a designer or decorator.

Spruce: Do you feel like part of that perspective comes from exposure to other design styles, and maybe those DIY roots, and thinking there's other ways to do it that could be upgraded or different?

AS: I think so, and when you have a design eye or if you’re an artist. Being well traveled too. Even just being from Missouri and then moving to New York, that is enough travel to see how many different genres of design there are. You might be the first brownstone with a porch swing.

I will have a brownstone at one point and I want it to be black brick. Jason Oppenheim and I actually have a text chain going, and if you go to the images, we've shared with one another, because we both have an obsession for black brownstones, and he’ll be like “have you seen this one?” I'm like, “Oh, I already saw that one.” They're very few and far between. So we probably have 10 pictures, and then he has ADHD and low key dementia, so then he'll send me the same one that he sent me five times. Like, “we've already seen this one J, remember?” because there's that few black brownstones. At least on the internet. I mean, I don't even know if I've seen one in real life.

Spruce: What are your favorite home stager secrets?

AS: We go to Goodwill [for books], or you can get free books with apps such as OfferUp, and you just cover them with whatever color paper—matte black, white, or the brown Kraft paper. And those are really great for dressing a coffee table or filling in. Look, not everybody has 500 books that they've actually read that look great on their shelf. Or if you have wack books that you don't want people to know you read, like How to Love a Narcissist. You're like, "Ah, well, that relationship didn't work. Let's cover that one with brown paper, stack two on top, and stick a candle on it in the middle of a shelf.” And there we go.

Spruce: It’s a vignette.

AS: Exactly. In staging, there's projects where people just have an empty space where they want you to bring in everything. And then there are people whose plan is to just use what they have and redo it. A can of paint goes a long way. New rugs, long way. I like changing light fixtures. Even if I'm renting, I'm always changing the light fixtures. I think ceiling fan is a trigger word for me. 

Spruce: There’s a thing now that’s a ceiling fan and chandelier combined. A chandafan, or something.

 AS: That would be like eating caviar on a McDonald's hamburger. You don't put those two things together.

 Spruce: I remember what they're called, it’s fandelier.

 AS: A fandelier. I haven't even seen it and I hate it.

Spruce: Do you have any design opinions that you feel like are unpopular but true?

AS: I think greens are great, they're beautiful, but I don't think that they're for everything. And if you don't know exactly how to place it, or how to use it, you could look like my Granny's rooster-themed kitchen. It could be a nightmare.

And, everybody wants a f---ing Cloud sofa and I'm like, I don't want to hear that word. It looks lovely. But if you sit on it once— do you want to have to fluff the cushions every time you get up? Because you sit on it for 30 minutes and you get up and it looks like it's been slept on. There are alternatives that maybe aren't as loosy-goosey, and can still give you that clean, beautiful crisp linen.