Checking In With Joe And Serena — Everyone's Favorite "Bachelor In Paradise" Pair
Talking to Bachelor Nation's Joe and Serena is like chatting with your favorite married neighbors. Restaurant recs? They've got 'em. Decor and organization tips? For sure. Hilarious banter? No question! While they've only lived together for two years now, they feel like they've been together for over a decade. I was lucky enough to sit down with these Bachelor In Paradise babes to chat about all things NYC, cohabitation, and their partnership with Homesense. Here's what they had to say!
B+C: What has it been like cohabitating? Was that as easy as your relationship seemed on "Bachelor in Paradise"?
Serena Pitt: It was actually very, very smooth and easy. I think it's hard to ever know what it's gonna be like when you live with someone no matter like how great the relationship is. There's always that like...unknown when you move in together of how that's gonna work, and it was very seamless for us thankfully.
B+C: What do you think it is about the two of you that, like, really makes that work?
Joe Amabile: I think we're both really easy going and we're, I mean...We're different, but living together we're kind of similar.
Serena Pitt: Yeah, I would agree with that, I think. We're both pretty chill, we're both pretty easy going which does help when you're living with someone to have those kind of personality styles. And then I would say the way we like to live in terms of tidiness level and cleaning and what we prioritize in our home and our space, is very similar, which also helps.
Joe Amabile: Neither of us is like extreme, you know, in anything.
Serena Pitt: So, yeah. I would also say like we kind of divide and conquer. Like I like to — I've made the bed every morning for my whole life. Joe did not make the bed ever in the morning when we got together, but that's fine because I get out of bed second usually, and I like to make the bed and that's my task. And then like, you're [Joe] anal about cleaning the stove, which like...that's your thing.
Joe Amabile: Someone's got to do it,
Serena Pitt: You know, I would. I also clean the stove, but I'm not to the level that he needs the stove clean. So it's like you kind of divide and conquer what's important.
Joe Amabile: It actually needs to be clean right now.
Serena Pitt: It was probably cleaned yesterday also.
Joe Amabile: It's cleaned every day.
Serena Pitt: But I'm not complaining. I like it.
B+C: You guys have really lucked out, but I think like there is a difference between like cleanliness styles and that kind of vibe and decor. So I know that you guys have the coffee table from Joe's old apartment, but I'm curious — how would you describe your decor style and do those also match up?
Serena Pitt: I would say they do match up.
Joe Amabile: We mentioned this in, in prior interviews but a bit, we have a very similar color palette which goes a long way like that. To me that's like maybe the most important
Serena Pitt: It is an underrated thing when it comes to design, I feel like. Because I have friends that are like, "Yeah, I would love like a pink bathroom, but like my boyfriend's not gonna go for that," or like their boyfriend loves like really bold pieces, but they're like more minimalistic. And I would say we kind of meet in the middle pretty nicely. Like we both like to prioritize comfort and functionality, and I love a neutral palette for my home, and Joe is on board with that as well. So it kind of keeps our space feeling really like cohesive and it fits both of our styles.
B+C: I love that. I'm curious, how does the neon purple Amalfi Coast book fit into that [decor style] right now?
Serena Pitt: I think that my laptop's sitting on it as we speak, I'm using it to prop this up.
Joe Amabile: Everything that we have here has a function, you know, it has to.
Serena Pitt: Oh yeah, a double function. It's a coffee table book and it's a laptop stand.
Joe Amabile: It's a coffee table book that turns into a coffee table.
Serena Pitt: You know, it's not the perfect fit, but there are sacrifices to be made. Like I also got Joe A Grinch snow globe for our first Christmas together, and that has made its way to the bedside table for the last three years. So little things like that we just let it be. I would say the most color we have in our apartment though is Joe's cookbooks and books that we've read. And I think that's fine — like it's nice to have personal touches in our apartment even if it's not like right in line with the design style.
B+C: I love that and I feel like a minimalistic, like color palette kind of helps and like lends itself to having room to play like that anyway. So it's like, it's not like you have, you know, one bold colored room and you're just like introducing something that's like bright red into it.
Serena Pitt: Totally. Like, I would say we have a lot of neutrals, but we're by no means like monochromatic where it's like...everything in here is white except for this purple Amalfi coffee table book.
B+C: I think living in New York is such a unique thing too because it's just everything is so condensed and like you said, like, everything has to have like, duality, right? I definitely eat dinner at my coffee table all the time. Like, there's just an essence to living in New York that's like that. But do you think you would ever consider living in the suburbs, or is it New York or nowhere?
Joe and Serena: Oh, that's a tough question.
Joe Amabile: I'm not a suburb guy. I prefer to be in the city.
Serena Pitt: Yeah. I don't know if I picture anytime soon us living in a suburb. And by suburb, I mean like the suburbs — I don't mean a city suburb where you're, you know, right outside of downtown. In any city, whether that be if we lived anywhere, I don't think we would be living in a major suburb yet. That's not really the fit for our life at this time.
B+C: That's totally fair. I'm curious though to know if you were to move, maybe not to a, a like suburb that's like, totally far from the city, but like, somewhere where maybe you have a three bedroom house, something like that.7:15Would there be a room that you would be the, like, very excited to decorate? What would that be and why
Joe Amabile: I wouldn't have a, a singular room. It would just be more the entire space. Like I would bevery excited to decorate the whole house.
Serena Pitt: But don't you think a lot of it would be transitioned over from what we have now? Like, don't you think we'd just kind of reset up our bedroom in our new place?
Joe Amabile: Yeah, but we would, I mean, we would probably do things, I don't know, I don't know if we would do things differently, but I would just be excited to do the whole space.
Serena Pitt: That's what I'm saying.
Joe Amabile: I wouldn't have like one room that I'm like, oh, this is like my, my room that I wanna make like mine.
Serena Pitt: Okay. I feel like I would be, if we had an office, it would be very fun to decorate because we currently like both work from home. We podcast from home. So to be able to kind of create a space that could be used for creating content for sitting and doing emails and like—
Joe Amabile: I would have my own office.
Serena Pitt: —and there we go, he needs to change his answer.
Joe Amabile: I would have my own office. I'd probably have a sauna.
Serena Pitt: A sauna in our three bedroom home?
Joe Amabile: Yeah!
Serena Pitt: You're going to decorate it, what kind of decor style you going for?
Joe Amabile: It would be outside.
Serena Pitt: Okay.
B+C: I've never seen a decorated sauna before, so I think that's something the world needs.
Serena Pitt: We can aspire to that.
Joe Amabile: Yeah, we'll see.
Serena Pitt: So, a podcast office content space, and then a sauna.
B+C: I think that's incredible. I did notice because I have seen the apartment to have y'all since you filmed that decorated your bathroom at all because I know you were talking earlier about pink bathrooms and this and that. Have you guys made any headway there?
Serena Pitt: Well, when we worked with Homesense, we were lucky enough to go shopping at a Homesense store and we did pick up some stuff for the bathroom
Joe Amabile: We got some towels, we got a polar bear picture.
Serena Pitt: Yeah, we got a polar bear — is it a polar bear?
Joe Amabile: It's a polar bear in a bathtub.
Serena Pitt: Yeah, we got a little artwork. We got a new shower curtain because our old one—
Joe Amabile: We're artists, you know. We need high end art—
Serena Pitt: We're all about animal art apparently in this house. I think the only like two photos we have are with animals. But yeah, we got a new shower curtain nooks. There was a bunch of stuff that we were able to pick up that was great because honestly, our, our bathroom hadn't done, we've done nothing with it and it was the most boring room by far. So it's nice to kind of spruce it up a little bit.
Joe Amabile: We like...like, we don't have an issue with animals, but neither of us are animal people. So the fact that —
Serena Pitt: That's not true!
Joe Amabile: you're an animal person? When I say animal person—
Serena Pitt: Do you mean like dogs? do you mean like—
Joe Amabile No, I mean like into animals, like...you're, you're gonna sit down and watch like—
Serena Pitt: Planet Earth?
Joe Amabile: Planet Earth, and go on a safari. Like neither of us are animal people.
Serena Pitt: Okay, that's fair. That's fair to say. But we like animal artwork apparently.
B+C: Do you think you would get like a dog or...not a Planet Earth pet, but like a regular pet?
Joe Amabile: I think we, we both would love to have a dog. We just...right now we travel so much, and it's just with the traveling it makes it too difficult.
Serena Pitt: Yeah, we've talked about it for sure. At some point we will get one. I've never had a pet, but Joe grew up having dogs and our friend, Natasha has the cutest little dog, Nyla who we just adore and I feel like, if we were to get a dog—
Joe Amabile: Speak for yourself — I don't like Nyla.
Serena Pitt: Yes you do. That's a lie. You love Nyla, you literally love Nyla.
Joe Amabile: No.
Serena Pitt: Yes, you do. You're obsessed with her. I literally have so many photos of Joe and Nyla. But if we were to get a dog, it would have to be a very small dog that we could like bring with us places. And also because our apartment's kind of small, something that doesn't take up too much room.
B+C: I know since you guys said you travel a lot when you're not traveling, how often are you hosting at your apartment? And do you have any tips for people who are trying to host their friends and family in a tighter space?
Serena Pitt: You know what...we don't really host ever. And that's not because we don't want to, it is just not really our lifestyle here. We just don't quite have the space to host, but I will say we've made our space as comfortable as possible, so if we do have a friend or two over like watch Succession or something... it's like we've got these two super cozy chairs from home since that were obsessed with me like swivel and then we've got some seating in the kitchen like barstools and stuff. So it's definitely to have one or two people come hang out very comfortable and we have done our best to like maximize that. But in terms of like hosting a dinner party, like we don't have tables, so...
Joe Amabile: And the key is in a small space, like...we have a lot of clothes like everyone does. And you have —especially when you live in a city like New York and it gets cold — you have jackets and whatnot. So when we did go to Homesense, we got a dresser that's like, massive and fits in our space. But it stores so much. That's like, key to get rid of the clutter, you know?
Serena Pitt: Yeah. We try to keep it, like, as clean as possible and here and organized as possible for, like, if we do have people coming by, it's not like, "Sorry, our jackets are all over the couch!"
B+C: So it seems like seating and organization are probably two big things that y'all consider if anyone's coming over. That's that's good to know.
Serena Pitt: My mom is a big believer in this and like furniture that can also act as storage, like coffee tables with like big drawers or like side tables with drawers in them — anything that has like hidden storage that like looks nice. And there's so many options at Homesense — we saw so many things that are like amazing fits for this category. But like things that dual as like, "Oh, it looks aesthetic, but it also can like hide all your TV remotes."
B+C: I do wonder — because I know you guys said you were lucky enough to get to go to Homesense and do some shopping — is there like an aisle or an area of Homesense, and just any like home decor stores in general, that like gets you so excited? Like, is it the chairs, is it the storage? What is it that you're just like, "Oh, I could stay in that aisle forever"?
Joe Amabile: Probably like chairs slash couches. I love looking at—
Serena Pitt: Yeah, you were testing out all the chairs.
Joe Amabile: Yeah, and it's easy to like...yeah, that's what I would do. I would sit down and, like, play in those aisles.
Serena Pitt: Yeah, Joe picked out the chairs we end up getting from Homesense, and honestly they're very cozy. He did a good job. I like the rugs. I think it's just so fun to, like, go through all of them and, like, feel the different materials and the different patterns and they're just, like, so huge and tall and, yeah, I like that part.
B+C: Well, I know you guys said you don't host a lot but have you had any Bachelor Nation alums over recently at your apartment or have you been hanging out with anyone recently?
Joe Amabile: Not really...I actually had dinner with Nick Viall last night because he was in town for a few days.
Serena Pitt: He's crashed at our apartment before last year he came for the weekend and stayed with us. And then Natasha comes over once in a while, too. We usually...we're go out people, you know? We're in New York — there's so many restaurants. It's so hard to not be like, "Let's go meet out and try this place." But when like The Bachelor is on, or like a show that we all like, it's fun to have her come over and hang out and watch some TV and drink wine together.
Watch The Full Interview With Bachelor Nation Faves Joe And Serena!
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This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Header image via Sean Zanni/Getty Images for Amazon
