A Day In The Life
Kitchen Update
We’re back with a quick kitchen update since we promised to share every step of the process, just like we did 4+ years ago with our first kitchen makeover (which ended up taking 113 days from start to finish). So the latest news is that the electricians came by as we mentioned last week. We’re definitely DIYers who aren’t afraid to paint or demo or drywall or build furniture (we’ve even dabbled in a little bit of plumbing) but we’re happy to call in the pros when it comes to risky things like electrical work in an older home that could lead to something major (aka: a house fire). So we hired a two-man electrician team who came highly recommended (two of our friends used and loved them) for a few quick switches to make our kitchen a lot more functional with the new layout. Here’s what they did:
- Solved the case of the mystery wire above the pantry. It was the dedicated line/outlet for the fridge which came out of the wall and went back in to be grounded (so strange, right?)
- Got the mystery wire back behind the wall and rerouted it to be the plug for the built-in microwave that will hang next to the pantry
- Converted the hardwired connection behind the cooktop to a plug for the new stove (more on that here)
- Terminated the hardwired connection for the old wall oven (more on that here)
- Added a dedicated line/outlet for the fridge’s new location across the room (we were using an extension cord to power it up to that point)
The main takeaway of this process? We forgot that rooms sometimes have to get worse before they get better. Here’s how the room looked before the electricians arrived (after we shuffled the fridge and the pantry around for a new layout – more on that here):
Well, actually we had our new counter depth fridge and oven in place (where the old cooktop and cabinet had been) and some missing granite counters, but we don’t have a wide photo of that stage, so we just had these of the stove and fridge in place (more on that phase here):
And here’s how it looked while the electricians were here doing their thing:
Insanity, right? But after they fixed all the wires and sealed up the wall they opened, everything got pushed back into place and the towels came back off the appliances. Voila, we were left with a working oven/stove, a plug for the microwave (so we can now start building that in), no more wire hanging out from the ceiling above the pantry, no more loose wires from the old wall oven to worry about, and a fridge that ran without an extension cord. Hazzah!
Totally worth the $80-ish an hour fee that we paid for a few hours of work with two guys on the job (first hour was $87, the following ones were $70). Oh and as for who we used for any interested locals, it was S.J. Ryan Electric. Good guys, fair prices, all that good stuff (they don’t even know we’re bloggers, so we didn’t get paid or perked to mention them, we just like to shout out people who do good work).
Admittedly, the kitchen still looks completely crazy, but once the fridge is built in with white wood (no more bulky black sides) and the dingy exposed paneling (and edge of that beam) is painted we’ll inch closer. And when the lighting is redone and the cabinets are painted and the new floors and counters and backsplash and peninsula go in we’ll be well on our way…
We were lucky because all of the electrical in the kitchen was updated pretty recently by the previous owners (we have GFCI protected outlets and stuff). And because we live in a ranch it’s pretty simple for someone to duck into the attic and pull things up and down (instead of dealing with drywall damage that can occur if there’s a second story) – although the electricians did have a bit of a challenge with the mystery wire above the old fridge since that was an area of the attic that was extremely hard to access due to the pitch of the original roof before the addition). Hence having to open and close the wall above the pantry (which usually doesn’t need to happen if there’s attic access).
Next on the never-ending kitchen agenda (the order isn’t finalized, this is just a running list that changes as we go):
- build in the fridge
- build in the microwave
- demo out the old backsplash
- install the new dishwasher and craigslist the old one
- build in the new stove so it’s flush with the cabinets
- create the peninsula with built or bought cabinetry
- demo out rest of old counters and install new ones
- add an 8′ doorway between kitchen and dining room (with the help of a contractor)
- buy & build in a vent hood for over the stove
- remove upper cabinets along accent wall (the stove wall) and add new counter to ceiling backsplash
- buy or build floating shelves for the accent wall (hanging them after tiling will make for less tile cuts & a more seamless look)
- buy/build matching doors for the new cabinetry so they blend right in with the old ones
- get new hinges/hardware
- redo kitchen lighting (remove florescent lights & fan, add recessed lighting in work area & pendants over peninsula)
- install cork floors
- add crown molding to top of cabinets
- prime and paint cabinets
- create cozy corner by the fireplace (chair + rug + side table or ottoman + built in shelves?)
Breaking a huge project down into smaller bite sized pieces = the key for us. Sure, we can still feel a little overwhelmed at times (one of those times being while typing up the list above), but we know from experience that taking it one day and one small project at a time can keep ya sane. And that way we can course-correct as we go instead of rushing into a ton of decisions/projects at once. So slowly and steadily we’ll inch closer to a finished room that we’ll hopefully love for a nice long time.
What did you guys do this weekend? Any electrical updates? Or crazy-long to-do lists? Is anyone else ripping a room apart just in time for the holidays? We have no idea why, but every year around this time we tend to start something major (which usually isn’t resolved until well after Christmas). At the end of 2007 we gutted our first home’s kitchen, then we refinished over 50% of our hardwoods at the end of 2008. At the end of 2009 we gutted the bathroom, and at the end of 2010 we packed up and moved! More on that here. Maybe the reno dust reminds us of snow? How seasonally appropriate of us.
Psst- We were asked to be speakers at Haven (a huge DIY/blogging conference in Atlanta this coming June) and we couldn’t be more excited – and nervous. Here’s hoping we get to meet some of you guys there (and don’t bite the big one on stage!).
Blogiversary IV: What The Heck We’ve Learned
We thought we’d wrap up blogiversary week with one last post for anyone else writing a blog and/or trying to make a business out of it. We don’t like to think of ourselves as formal blogging experts, but since we always share our learn-as-we-go insights when it comes to home and DIY, we figured it made sense to share what we’ve learned in the past four years of blogging too. Oh and we included pictures of Burger to help illustrate some points along the way. You know, for kicks.
Rule #1: A blog should be born from passion (not a business plan). At least for us, that seemed to work. We write about DIY because we love it, not because we picked it off of a list of “hot topics that might make you money.” Writing about what you truly love makes all of the not-as-fun “maintenance” parts of blogging worth it, and helps make the fun parts that much more fun to do.
Rule #2: Blogging is not a get rich quick thing. Again, at least not in our experience. It’s more like a write-over-2,000-posts-over-four-years-and-make-a-modest-living thing. So in the beginning you might just be sniffing counting pennies, but remember rule #1… you’re doing what you love!
Rule #3: “Success” is an insanely random beast. We have no idea why our little blog grew like it did. There are thousands of amazingly creative blogs out there, so it’s not like we think what we do is terribly unique (see this post). Our best guess is that’s it’s some combination of hard work and a series of lucky breaks (more on that here). Though our geekiness, honesty, and borderline annoying can-do attitude might contribute as well.
Rule #4: Don’t try to be anyone but you. This honestly should be rule #1 because it’s the first and most important (albeit extremely tried and true) tip that we could ever pass along. Mimicking a blog that’s already big won’t get you there, nor will acting snarky if you’re not (or acting not-snarky if you are?). So if you’re not a taco loving chihuahua, don’t try to play one on TV on your blog. It’s much easier to detect phoniness online than you might think, and people will connect with you more strongly if you’re just being good ol’ fashioned you.
Rule #5: Not everyone will love every post/idea. We’re still working on this (hence Goal #4 yesterday) but Bill Cosby was right when he said the fastest way to please no one is to try to please everyone. There will always be folks asking for more of something while others want less of it. But in the scheme of things, it’s your blog. And blogging (like design) is subjective – so there’s not one “right way” to do it. It definitely helps to accept that opposing opinions are par for the course, then just hold strong to Rule #4 and you’ll be ok.
Rule #6: Blogging is a desk job. As you saw in our pie-chart-tastic post on Tuesday, we spend 80%-ish of our working hours doing something on the computer (writing posts, editing photos, responding to emails, writing columns, answering comments) so even though our subject matter is pretty “active,” projects are probably a smaller part of what we do than most people think.
Rule #7: Blogging’s also a creative after-hours not-desk job too. Which is our favorite part. The fact that painting a room, building a desk, or creating free art is a part of our job rocks our socks off. And that’s a big reason why we keep doing what we’re doing, because we recognize how incredibly fortunate we are to get to make a living doing what we love (which brings us back to Rule #1).
Rule #8: You work harder for yourself than anyone else. We’ve heard this from lots of people who have their own business, and it’s 100% true. The pressure is on when things like buying food and paying the mortgage all depend on your “venture.” And it’s especially hard to unplug when you work from home, since the line between laptop time and family time is blurred (we’re still working on it, hence Goal #1 of yesterday’s post). Just try to get some fresh air every now and then. We come up with some of our best ideas when we’re on a road trip or out walking around the neighborhood.
Rule #9: As your blog grows, the expenses will grow too. Many of our friends are surprised to hear that we have business expenses (hence this post on Tuesday), but between paying for hosting, site support, insurance, business fees, accounting, and quarterly taxes there’s definitely a price to blogging (not to mention all the projects that we take on, which have to be budgeted for as well). So it might help to prepare for that stuff by learning how to stay organized, track your money, and balance a budget. Heck, getting chummy with an accountant or two can’t hurt either.
Rule #10: It’s all worth it! So just relax, have fun, and see where you end up. In spite of some of the hard behind-the-scenes stuff about blogging, one thing is for sure: we love what we do. And we wouldn’t rather be doing anything else. Seriously. Four years ago when we started this whole shebang we never dreamed that we’d end up here. But we did. And for that we’re extremely grateful. So remember to enjoy the ride. Heck, feel free to wag your tail a bit.
Ok, now we want to hear from you guys. To those who blog, we’d love to hear what you’ve learned (I’m sure the lessons are completely different for everyone!). And if you’re not a blogger, we’d love to hear a few things that your current profession has taught you (are we the only nosy folks who find other people’s jobs fascinating?). For example, in advertising I learned to be flexible, not get married to an idea, be passionate, and wing it.
With that, we have reached the end of our big ol’ fourth blogiversary. Thanks so much for celebrating with us! We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled home improvement projects on Monday. So in the words of Clara The Songstress, cheers to the weekend!
Psst- We’ve updated the end of Wednesday’s poll post with stats about who you guys are (at least the 5,000 folks who took our Facebook poll). So just click here and scroll down for those deets.
Blogiversary IV: Goal Tending
It’s time for some annual goal declaring (because nothing lights a fire under your arse like a big ol’ public proclamation). Let’s do this thang.
Goal #1: Find Balance- We mentioned that we were aiming for more balance in our lives during this 2011 resolutions post. We basically said that we’re going to try our darndest not to fall into the trap of putting all of our time, money, and energy into the house to the point that we have no life, no savings, and Clara is trapped in our casa for her entire childhood (we actually haven’t been on a big vacation since our honeymoon four and a half years ago other than some low key road trips and family beach weeks). Well, we’re bringing it up again because we need to be better about it.
We’ve had a very busy and exciting year (John came on full time, we moved, Clara is running and talking, we’re writing columns for BabyCenter and Do It Yourself magazine along with a 260+ page book, we’ve tackled tons of house projects, we redesigned the site, etc). But what has slipped to make room for all those amazing opportunities is recharging away-from-the-computer time. Since the internet is 24/7, we’re still plugged in on nights and weekends and even on vacations and over the holidays. Heck I had a baby last year and didn’t even miss a post. So one reason that we started Young House Life was to remind ourselves to take a minute to actually live and have fun and be spontaneous and step.away.from.the.laptop.
Goal #2: Not drone on in every post. This actually might be the key to accomplishing more of the balance that we crave above. See, some of our favorite posts don’t have 2,000 words and 20 pics. We even admit that we skim each other’s posts when they’re too long. So we know everyone at home probably doesn’t read every word of every post that we write either. The point is that sometimes short and sweet is a-ok. And not every post needs to be a novel. Sometimes an update is quick, or we buy something simple that we want to share, or something funny happens and we catch it on video and slap it up. That’s the joy of blogging. Not everything has to be super polished and verbose. Ooh, I just used the word verbose. Ten points? Anyone?
Goal #3: Bring back before & after inspiration. A year ago we used to share Reader Redesigns twice a week along with two weekly giveaway posts (one to announce the giveaway and a second one to announce the winner) and a little poll post on Fridays that we called a Burning Question (about something decor-related, like if you prefer painted cabinets or wood ones, or if you’re a wall-to-wall carpet person or into tile or hardwood floors). But at our last blogiversary we realized that five posts a week about not-our-house stuff was really taking our blog away from the good ol’ DIY diary feel (which is definitely how it started, and something that we wanted to maintain).
So during our last blogiversary we decided to turn the focus back to our house (since we had a big move ahead of us, and a lot to talk about). We eliminated those Friday Burning Questions, along with our weekly follow up giveaway winner post (we just post that info as a p.s. at the bottom of another post), and we bid a fond farewell to both of our weekly Reader Redesigns (we invited folks to share their before & afters on our Facebook page instead). We didn’t miss the giveaway winner post or our weekly Burning Question, but we definitely mourned the loss of Reader Redesigns since they’re so inspiring and full of eye candy and ideas. So we’ve decided to bring them back. Not two a week, and maybe not even once a week – but they’re going to be making regular appearances again. There’s just too much amazing stuff that can leave us all inspired/encouraged. So if you have any awesome transformations to submit for consideration (like the stunning card-catalog-turned-buffet seen below), just send them to submission@younghouselove.com.
Goal #4: Be Secure In Our Own Bloghood. Sure, we’d love for every single person who drops by to love every single one of our 2,000+ posts, but we’d also love a goose chihuahua that lays golden eggs. The truth is that in putting our lives out there for everyone to see, we have to be ok with not everyone loving everything, or even anything. And in turn they’ll hopefully understand that projects, decor choices, and post-writing is as subjective as favorite foods and hairstyles. So there’s not really one right way to do it.
This is just our personal DIY diary of sorts (the good, the bad, the ugly, and the blissfully mundane). One day we’re gutting a bathroom & one day we’re organizing a junk drawer or even talking about breastfeeding (tangents definitely occur). Strangely enough, four years of that “blogging formula” is exactly what got us here. Over four million hits a month?! We’re humbled and so very thankful. My brain actually threatens to explode when I think about it (I pretend I’m writing to ten people to combat blog stage fright). So sure, some folks might do things differently if this were their blog, but that’s the beauty of blogging: everyone can do it in their own way.
Goal #5: Be Grateful. Sometimes the stress of a harder-than-we-thought project or 150 pending comments to respond to can make us momentarily forget that this is a dream job. Because as much as we love what we do, at the end of a day it’s still a job. We do it because we love it (heck, it was born from pure never-thought-we’d-make-a-dime passion), but we also currently rely on it to feed our family – so there’s definitely pressure sometimes (as anyone who runs their own business will tell ya). So this goal is more of a mental shift than anything else. Whenever we’re feeling overwhelmed by looming projects or mounting comments or magazine assignments and book chapters to complete, we just want to remember to stop, breathe, and remind ourselves that we’re living the dream (corny but true). So in those oh-crap-I’m-stressing moments we just have to think about how geeky giddy we are over this amazing opportunity that has somehow materialized (no one is more surprised about where we have ended up than we are – and we lay awake in bed at night perma-smiling and excitedly chattering about our next project). Life is good. Even when it’s busy and full of chaos. We are oh so grateful.
Goal #6: Try New Things. Whatever they are. Maybe it’s just having an open mind about some weird half-baked decorating idea that pops into our heads. Or embarking on some other new adventure like House Crashing or Window Shopping (who the heck knows what that could be). With our book coming out next fall we imagine that will open up a ton of new (aka: potentially scary) experiences for us (starting with a bunch of photoshoots in the next few months for hundreds of secret projects that will be photographed). So we just want to be open to those new (aka: potentially scary) experiences. And try not to fear them or dread them or turn into a big ol’ ball of stress. I guess this goes hand in hand with being grateful. We want to remember to try new things and take chances and be spontaneous (all of which are what got us here in the first place).
So there they are. Six probably-won’t-all-be-accomplished-but-we’ll-try-our-darndest goals for year five of blogging our pants off (figuratively speaking). While we’re on the goal tending topic, we also like to annually revisit the prior year’s goals to see how we did.
You can read them a bit more in depth right here, but we thought we’d just summarize the ones from last year in bullets to evaluate our progress:
Last Year’s Goal #1: Move On - This goal was all about moving into a new house and enjoying it and documenting our adventures and projects and tribulations, which we definitely did. Yay. The verdict: Mission accomplished.
Last Year’s Goal #2: Loosen Up - This goal was about feeling less machine-like and blogging in a looser more real-time format (we were doing projects so far in advance that things sat in the hopper for up to two weeks before we could share them) so we could get back to posting things as they happened. Now things usually go up a day or two after they’re done (just because editing pics and post writing takes some time). So we definitely accomplished the less-lag-time thing. Score! But we also mentioned getting back to the balance of long meaty posts interspersed with quick updates and small real-life details that weren’t 2,000 words long (sometimes short and sweet beats heavy and wordy, so we wanted to get back to a nice balance of both). The verdict: Still gotta work on that. Hence goal #2 this year.
Last Year’s Goal #3: Get Real - In the first year of blogging we shared ordinary in-progress and spur-of-the-moment stuff all the time (like this, this, this, this and this), but somehow we fell off. So we couldn’t wait to get back to chronicling those real & random moments between before & after (you know, the stuff that you don’t get to see on 30 minute makeover shows). This year we definitely kept it real (sharing messy house tours, fridge before & afters, and even a cloth diaper update) but a lot of the fun off-the-cuff posts that we linked to as inspiration were quick and random (everything doesn’t have to be 20 photos long and full of wordy breakdowns). The verdict: 50% accomplished. Still gotta work on tossing things up that are light and spur-of-the-moment like the good ol’ days.
Now we’re turning the love train in your direction. We appreciate you all so much and thank you violently profusely for dropping in on us. Without you guys our goal would be: get back into the advertising thing because we’d be out of a job. Haha. All in all we can’t believe where we are four years after starting a tiny blog for friends and family members to watch our little kitchen makeover back in 2007. Life is crazy like that. But I better stop waxing poetic about the whole who-woulda-thought-we’d-be-here thing. We could talk about how shockingly random our little blog’s evolution has been for days, but this post is already 1,819 words. Looks like we’ll have to keep working on the old “short and sweet” aspiration. Is anyone really surprised?
Psst- First image found here and last image found here (without our heads on them of course, we added those). Oh and that cute photo of the bean was taken by Katie B.
Psssst- We announced this week’s big $500 West Elm gift card winner. Click here to see if it’s you.
Blogiversary IV: Time, Money, And Pies
Like previous blogiversaries, we’re gonna use this week as an excuse to take a look at the business side of blogging (at least as we know it). As you’ve probably gathered by now, we never intended to start a business when we wrote our first post back in Sept 2007, nor did we ever construct a formal business plan. So this whole adventure has been a learn as we go / roll with the punches / adjust along the way / insert more cliches here kind of deal. And just like we don’t claim to be DIY experts or trained interior designers (we’re just two people with a chihuahua and a baby), we’re not about to pretend that we’re the savviest business people out there either. But like everything else we do, we’re just gonna share our experiences in an effort to help someone out there who might be trying to grow their blog… or is just curious about what we do all day. We’ve lightly touched on some of this info in past blogiversary posts, but this year we’ve added a lot more details along with some new visuals: PIE CHARTS. Oh yeah, you read that right. Sherry’s math-teacher dad is about to do the happy dance. So get your fork out and prepare to dig in.
Let’s start with a look at how we spend our time… a slice (har-har) of which was somewhat encapsulated in yesterday’s day in the life post. But this is a more global look at all the things we do as opposed to the somewhat random and always-changing things that we do in a day. Oh and to be clear, this is a look at when goes into running Young House Love (so it excludes things like parenting a sixteen month old and other general I’m-an-adult duties like cooking and cleaning). Behold, a very simplified / approximated breakdown (all the pie charts in this post are very general guesses, btw):
The main thing that might surprise you here is that we actually spend a very pretty small sliver of our time actually doing projects (aka “DIYing”). In fact, some weeks it feels like we barely have any more time to tackle our to-do list than we did back when we both had full-time jobs in advertising (that was pre-Clara too, so we might have had more energy, haha). Our weekends (along with weeknights after 7:30 when Clara’s in bed) are still our most productive days in terms of making house progress because the blog is “quieter” (as we say around here). So we can focus more on tasks and less on answering comments and proofing & posting posts. But that pie chart isn’t complicated enough, so…
Here’s a further breakdown of the breakdown above (yup, we broke down a breakdown) to give you a better sense of what we really do within those general categories:
INTERACTING:
- Comments: Our philosophy is that if you take the time to read what we write, the least we can do is return the favor. So we manually moderate all comments so that one of us – usually Sherry – can read it before it risks getting lost in the count and so that we can answer any questions that come up (the only exception to this is giveaway entries, which get approved in bulk since they routinely top 3K and actually topped 10K yesterday, and stopped loading, so we had to start a second giveaway post). Yes, it’s time consuming. And no, it’s probably not the most efficient system. But being part of the conversation on our blog is very important to us and we hate leaving any question unanswered. Farming that duty out to someone like an intern just feels too “answering service” to us, so we’re happy to stay grass roots and hands on.
- Twitter, Facebook & Email: Similarly, we try to be as responsive as possible on other social media. We don’t hover on our Facebook page as much as we used to, but we still try to poke in to respond where needed. And Hootsuite helps us track @mentions on Twitter so we can do our best not to let a tweet question or comment flutter by unnoticed.
WRITING:
- Posts: Well duh, a blog has to have posts right? We’re wordy and we know it (clap your hands!), so this is another major chunk of blogging. And we write around 35 a month, so it keeps us busy. But we’re not sure how you can be a good blogger without spending a good portion of time on your posts. Plus it’s our first love, along with DIY. Writing posts is what we used to do on nights and weekends after long days of working in advertising just for fun. And we still feel that way – it’s a good time.
- BabyCenter & Do It Yourself Magazine: We’ve been lucky enough that writing our blog has spawned other writing gigs, like our weekly post on BabyCenter’s Momformation blog and a regular column in BHG’s Do It Yourself Magazine. So between coordinating those with our bosses over there, coming up with ideas, writing them, taking photos (or briefing an illustrator or photographer in the case of DIY), and answering comments (on BabyCenter), they’re sort of a part time job on their own.
- Book: We’re writing a 260+ page book (due out in Fall of 2012) full of hundreds of projects and photos (more on that here). Some weeks this slice of pie should be muuuch bigger, and some a little smaller. Now that we have 90% of our manuscript turned in (whew!), this slice may actually get permanently larger since it’s time to actually do all of the projects that we talked about and have them photographed at our house by a pro before Christmas (yes, hundreds of them). Should be interesting…
DIY-ING:
- Projects: This is the actual doing of stuff to our house, which we then blog about. Most of these projects might have gotten done even if we didn’t have a blog (DIY is just something we love)… but we definitely take on projects sooner, faster, more thoroughly, and with more gusto than we may have if we didn’t have an audience. The fact that you guys are watching adds pressure, but it’s the good kind that keeps us going. Promise. You guys = momentum.
- Gathering Supplies: This is the part that makes us best friends with the employees at our local thrift stores, home improvement stores, craft stores, fabric stores, lighting outlets, etc. Sometimes running errands (aka: gathering supplies) can take less than an hour. Sweet. And sometimes it can take more than a day to track down something we need. Hunting stuff is always kind of a wild card item on the to-do list. But you know what they say about the thrill of the chase…
PHOTOGRAPHING:
- Photo Taking: Sometimes this is just taking a few moments during each step of a project to snap a few shots. Sometimes it’s cleaning up and styling rooms for “after shots” or “house tour” pictures (Hurricane Clara can leave quite a mess before we swoop in and straighten up so you guys don’t have to stare at a giant stack of books in front of the new desk that we built). This also includes the technical aspects of photography that still take us more time than we’d like (using the tripod, adjusting the aperture, waiting for different times of day to see which light is better, etc), which is why we have…
- Photo Editing: These are things like adjusting the color, exposure, size, and the way that our photos are cropped (sometimes even after thinking we’ve mastered the camera things are too blue or too yellow or too wide or off-center, so we try to adjust them so they look as true to life as possible). This also includes uploading and sorting through the hundreds of pics that we take each week. Wish I were kidding about the “hundreds” part, but we usually average 50-200 photos per post (which can tip the scales at 1,200 photos snapped each week). We then boil them down to under 20 per post and size & upload ‘em).
BUSINESS RUNNING:
- Sponsors: This is where most of our money comes from (more on that later) so it involves a lot of fielding advertising requests, notifying sponsors about renewals, sending invoices, and uploading ads to our sidebar. (FYI, we use Google AdManager to serve our sponsors’ ads to our site, which takes a bit of “supervision” but not too much beyond the whole client-relations thing that we do via email).
- Giveaways: We make no money doing this, but it’s our way of “giving back” to our readers (and a way to deflect the free products that we’re offered but no longer accept). Coordinating each week’s giveaway involves a bunch of emails to confirm the prize details, notify the winners, and facilitate the prize delivery. There’s also the task of being the bearer of bad news to folks since we just don’t have room for every prize that we’re emailed about (and sometimes they don’t feel like the right fit for you guys). Which leads me to our next point…
- Saying “No Thank You”: We’re people pleasers, so this is a hard one for us, but we get so many requests each week that we 1) just don’t have enough hours in the day for (i.e. attending a local – or not so local – event), 2) don’t really blog about (i.e. “could you pretty please write about my dog walking service?”) or 3) have a policy against doing (i.e. reviewing a product, adding paid text link ads to posts) that we find ourselves having to decline a lot. Sorry if you’ve been on the receiving end of this. We’ve learned that saying no is difficult, but sometimes it’s necessary for reasons of principle and/or sanity.
- Bookkeeping: Ugh, this bores me too much to talk about. Just pretend I said something interesting about paying bills, filing quarterly taxes, renewing our business license, paying for our own health insurance, managing our site-hosting fees, and organizing receipts. Wish it was less yawn inducing, but it’s a necessary evil when it comes to running your own business (more on that here).
- Technical Stuff: On a good week this slice could all but disappear, but on a busy week we may be installing updates, dealing with server glitches, craaaaaashing entirely (which gives us approximately 50 gray hairs each time), or even doing a whole blog redesign like the one we did a few weeks back (we probably spent 40 hours total on that over the course of about four weeks). Since we’re not technically trained I’m sure all of this takes longer than it should.
So now that we’ve taken a general look at the time aspect of running our blog, let’s talk money. Before you get your hopes up, we’re not gonna detail how much we earn. Call us old fashioned, but we feel like “how much do you make?” joins “who’d you vote for?” and “are those real???” in a our list of conversations not to be had with the entire planet (anything we don’t talk about with friends at dinner usually = off limits here in blog world). In a general sense, we like to say that we make a modest living (we’re not rolling in cheddar, especially after we pay our business-related expenses like hosting fees – which we outline at the end of this post). But we actually think is a good thing because we blog about living modestly, so it all goes hand in hand. But we’re happy to talk about where our money comes from and how that has changed over the last four years. Let’s do it.
Waaay back in 2009 we spoke on a local panel about making money blogging. At the time we sung the praises of a “multi-channel” approach to earning income from your blog. Because, at the time, we (though mainly Sherry, since she was the only full timer then) got money something like this (again, this is a very general guestimate):
We’ll breakdown some of those terms further under the next pie chart, but let’s talk generally for a second. A few years back, despite our best efforts, money from advertising just wasn’t cutting it. So Sherry branched out and started selling inexpensive art prints that she had printed locally and shipped herself (she’s got a fine arts degree). It was sort of like being an Etsy vendor (but she created a shop page on our site to vend them instead). At that time Sherry also began offering custom mood boards to help readers with their “Design Dilemmas” (and briefly even offered smaller services like paint color advice and even short phone consultations).
When it came to pricing those mood boards out, Sherry did some for free first, just to get interest up and a few under her belt. Then she slowly raised her rate using supply & demand as the guide. After being free for a while they were $30, then $60, then $100, and slowly built up to $250 when supply/demand increased over the years (Sherry refused to sell them for more than that, even when the two per week that she would offer up would sell out within two minutes). Oh, we were also writing for Do It Yourself Magazine and our local R Home design magazine, so that’s where we got the whole multi-channel method thing from. We were doing lots of stuff to make a small income. Which was necessary because ad income alone just wasn’t cutting it (I should mentioned here that Sherry took a huge pay cut to go from advertising to blogging, but she just wanted to see it through, and looking back it was a risk that we’re so glad we took).
But now let’s look at a new pie chart. Times have changed, and luckily for the better. As our traffic grew, so did our ad revenue, which meant that we were able to spend less time on services and selling prints (both of which we discontinued after Clara’s birth in May 2010 out of sheer no-time-at-all necessity). The elimination of these services allowed for more time that we could spend focusing on blogging. In fact, while baking making these pie charts I noticed that our currently weekly Google Ad income is larger than what we pulled in our entire first year via Google. This is not to indicate that we’re making an enormous amount now, but rather that what we started at was so laughably small. Hopefully this encourages anyone who is currently earning a few cents a day to stick with it for four years and 2,000+ posts (if you love it I guess, haha, don’t stick with it for the uncertain years-down-the-line dividends). So now our income sources look more like this (this chart might be completely inaccurate since we didn’t really calculate things so it’s not made up of actual percentages – it’s just representative of the general shift in our income sources):
It’s still “multi-channeled” in a way, but the majority of the channels are advertising-based. We still keep our income split across different sources so that if one falters, we aren’t sent into a panic. And in case you’re scratching your head at any of those labels, here’s a quick breakdown:
- Google Ads: These are labelled as such on our sidebar or at the bottom of a post (they’re by the geniuses at Google who take words from our page – or hints from your browsing history – to show you ads that they feel are most relevant to you). We have little say in what’s shown here, except for blocking inappropriate ads. But we love that they’re pretty self-sufficient, which means more time for projects and writing posts.
- Ad Networks: Lots of blogs substitute or supplement Google with ads from a network, which allow for more home improvement specific ads that can also pay more (since they don’t usually have enough “inventory” to fill all slots, we usually use a back-up method that shows Google-Ads when they’re not running). Our ad network is Haven Home Media for anyone wondering, now owned by Reader’s Digest. And they came to us, so we’re not sure how you sleuth an ad network out (in general we believe in focusing on keeping projects/posts great and sponsors/networks will hopefully come to you).
- Sponsors: These are the ads that you see on our sidebar marked as such (as well as folks who get shouted out in a thank you post once a month). These are people/companies that we work with directly, who come to us because they think we’d be a good fit. If we agree (and have room for them, since sometimes we’re “full”) they come on as YHL sponsors and we send them lots of virtual wet kisses. We have a lot of love for them because unlike the random ads that come through an ad network and Google, these folks choose to work with us directly, which is pretty cool of them.
- Amazon Affiliate: There are lots of affiliate programs out there where basically bloggers earn a very small cut (usually around 4-7%) when someone purchases a product that you recommend. The only affiliate links you’ll find are in our “We’re Digging” sidebar column with a label under them that says “links contain affiliates”(we’re sticklers for labeling ads, sponsors, and affiliates to try to keep things 100% transparent). They’re all items on amazon.com that we love (some of which are things that we’ve actually bought ourselves – like a specific book, camera accessory, decor item, or toy for Clara).
- Writing Gigs: These are the aforementioned BabyCenter and Do It Yourself columns that we write, as well as random things that come our way once in a blue moon (like an opportunity to write an article for another publication).
- Book: Yup, they’re actually paying us to write a book. We can’t believe it either.
But of course, no business is without expenses. And it easy to assume that blogging is a free endeavor (after all, it was when we started in ’07, we even had one of those free urls with wordpress.com at the end of it). But as our traffic and business grew, so did our costs – such as:
- Hosting: Between paying for our site (on LiquidWeb) and our images (on Amazon S3) we’re headed towards a five figure year when it comes to hosting expenses alone. Yes, that’s tens of thousands of dollars just to host our site so you guys can read posts and see pics. Totally worth it though. Blank blog page = no readers. And we like having you guys around.
- Taxes: Not that anyone is immune to these, but since no employer is taking out taxes for us upfront, it takes some extra planning on our part (i.e. remembering that about a third of every paycheck needs to be squirreled away because it’s going right back to the government in the form of quarterly tax payments).
- Insurance: When I left my advertising job last May we were suddenly on our own when it came to securing and paying for our own health insurance. And it’s not exactly cheap, but with a little one, good coverage is definitely worth the peace of mind.
- Retirement: Without an employer automatically socking away bits of a paycheck into a 401k (or doing any sort of matching for us), Sherry and I each opened a SEP on our own, which we’re responsible for contributing to regularly.
- Business License/ LLC Fees: Since we’re a legit LLC in Virginia, we pay annual license fees and taxes.
- Professional Help: I know that sounds like a therapist, but what we mainly mean is that we pay our accountant (who does our taxes) and the occasional programmer to help us navigate technical issues (ex: we crash four times in a week and feel like throwing our computers out the window). Though maybe we should consider the therapist sometimes…
- Equipment: If it weren’t for blogging, we probably wouldn’t own a second laptop, a DSLR camera, an HD Flip video camera, an external hard drive, or an iPhone (among other items that I’m probably forgetting right now). But it definitely helps to have some decent “tools” for blogging as efficiently as possible, so we’re glad to invest in them (and yes they’re write offs, which doesn’t make them free, but it takes away a bit of the sting).
- Project Costs: Arguably a lot of these costs would probably have been incurred eventually since we were DIY junkies even before we started our blog (so we would do most of this stuff anyway). But as I mentioned earlier – some of our projects happen (or at least happen at the pace and scale that they do) because of this blog. So we might have done all the things that we did to our current house in two years instead of in nine months if we weren’t home bloggers. Oh and since we get asked this a lot: none of our projects are write-offs since we’re doing them to our primary residence (our house isn’t zoned as an office building, which is a good thing because if it was – and we wrote projects off – we’d owe a big chunk of money to the government if we ever sold it).
If you want more info on the expense side of blogging, we actually wrote about it in more detail last year. But that’s enough out of me for now. Hopefully “peeling back the curtain” helped – whether it’s to use this info as you plan your own blogging business (or other somehow-related venture), or to just help you better understand what goes on behind the scenes around here. It’s certainly a lot more than just doing projects and writing about them, but there’s nothing else we’d rather be doing. Seriously, we’re completely amazed that we ended up “here” and our cup runneth over with gratitude. In fact a pie chart of our gratitude would be 101% full. And now as anything with charts should end – who else is hungry for pie?
Psst- The lady wife did a fun little interview about how our blog has grown and revealed a lot of behind the scenes blogging and book-writing info for anyone interested right here (it’s long, but full of tons of juicy stuff, at least in my humble husband opinion). Some of you may have already listened to this, but we figured it was a good thing to add for anyone who hasn’t since it’s on the same subject.
