Blog Banter
The Latest On The Book
We’ve dropped a few mentions of working on the book lately, so we figured it was about time for another post about the process. Our post two months ago mostly covered the journey to getting the book deal and the beginning stages of writing, but now we’re really in the weeds of things so there’s definitely more to share… and we don’t have to use pics of Burger to illustrate it this time! Sorry Burger.
At the time of our last book post two months back, we had turned in our 160-ish page completed outline and were beginning to coordinate the design process with our publisher. If you recall, the book is a compilation of 250-some ideas for “how to show your home some love” (everything from small art projects, little tweaks, and quick ideas to bigger makeovers involving paint & furniture). Things were trotting along nicely and our publisher, Artisan, was trying to figure out whether to keep our Fall 2012 release date or hold off until Spring of 2013. Sherry and I begged for the earlier date and they agreed – but it meant putting the pedal to the metal. So we buckled our seat belts…
- In a matter of two weeks (the two weeks that happened to fall over Christmas and New Year’s) we had to turn our finished outline into a completely written book. Yikes. But we put our heads down and two dizzying weeks later we had the manuscript done. Phew.
- When we turned the manuscript in to our publisher, she took the next week to read the entire thing and we braced ourselves for edits or rewrites.
- She finished without any major edits (really?!) so it went off to a copy editor – someone who would read it for nitty gritty stuff like grammar and punctuation. It spent a week or so there before coming back to us.
- As you saw in last Monday’s post, this baby arrived last Saturday as a hard copy. Our manuscript now officially lives as a printed document that has our publisher’s edits and the copy editor’s notes marked up in different colored pencils. Our task was to use our designated blue pencil (they included it in the FedEx box) to respond to any questions, agree (or disagree with) all edits, and make any final changes. Scary. Especially because as a single-spaced, single-sided document it’s 375 pages long. We thought it was really funny because we assumed it would all be done via email, so getting a giant chunk of paper overnighted to our house felt sort of official and old-fashioned, but that’s apparently how it’s still done these days! It’s actually a lot easier to absorb the info and catch errors while “really” reading it (as opposed to reading it off of a computer screen) so it ended up being really helpful.
- Once again, we hunkered down and plowed through. It was due back to the publisher by yesterday so we overnighted it to them on Saturday afternoon. Bless Sherry for having the focus to sit down for two days straight and do pretty much nothing but focus on that. It’s how she spent all of last weekend while I watched Clara (and did kitchen stuff while the bean napped).
- After 16+ hours (broken up over two days) just to read through the thing, we then scrambled to fill in some gaps and rewrite some sections just to further explain a few projects/ideas in the remaining four days. Then back to the publisher it went…
But the manuscript is only half of the book process adventure right now. It’s probably less than half, actually. Maybe a third? Because what’s really keeping us busy is prepping for the photo shoots that began yesterday morning. So here’s what’s been going down on that end of things:
- With the 250-ish ideas we’re including, about 100 are going to be photographed. Another 100 will be illustrated and the remaining ones are pretty self-explanatory tips that make sense without an image. So that means 100 of the projects/sets need to be done so we’ve got something to actually photograph. Can we say yikes again? Anyone with a blog knows that churning out enough projects to keep things interesting (maybe 3-4 a week?) is a pretty substantial task. But completing 100 secret projects on top of that? Crazytown. But things are really exciting and fun in Crazytown so we totally can’t complain. Or sleep. But sleep is so 2011. At least that’s what we’ve been telling ourselves as we whirl through projects into the early morning.
- We didn’t really start full force on the projects until after the manuscript was turned in for the first time after New Year’s (we didn’t want to do a project that we or the publisher decided to later kill for some reason). That meant we had about 30 days to do nearly 100 things. So on pretty much any night over the past month you could find us painting, hanging, sewing, cutting, and shopping for up to five projects. And that pace will continue for the next three weeks until shooting wraps (since many things have to get shot as “before” and “process” pics before being completed). But it’s fun because we’re transforming some pretty ugly things, like this old rusted thrift store table:
- As much work as it’s been, we’re not doing it completely alone. Our publisher hired a producer to help keep things organized (100 ideas doesn’t just mean 100 photos, since many have a before, process, and after shots attached to them – so it’s a lot to keep straight and schedule). We also have someone who has been a big help when it comes to gathering supplies for us. Sometimes it’s faster for us to just grab things while we’re out and sometimes we email her and say “ahhhh, can you help us get blank by such and such a date so we can sand and paint it in time to shoot it? Thanks!”
- And of course we’ve got a pro photographer who’s going to make everything look prettier than we ever possibly could with our little Nikon. So our “crew” of helpers aren’t exactly elves who do all the projects at night (we wish!) but it certainly takes a load off to have such a great team. Since we’re ultimately the people who have to choose all of the items, do all of the projects, decide what rooms/corners to shoot all of the photos, and style all of the shots, we’re still burning the midnight oil.
- As for where things for the book are coming from, we have a pretty modest book budget so we’ve been stalking craigslist, thrift stores, and even borrowing items from some of our favorite stores with their blessing (they’ll be returned in three weeks when shooting wraps). The nice thing about a modest budget is that it keeps us honest (there are a good amount of under $50, under $25, under $5, and even some free projects in our book, so that’s pretty exciting to cheap-os like us). And yes, sometimes Sherry gets hyper when we’re picking out accessories (our aim is to style things so they look fresh for you guys, since reusing all the things we already have around our house that you’ve seen a million times would be kind of stale).
- And our house? Well, it’s a mess. We’ve got projects at mid-completion here and there (we need to save some that are halfway done to shoot progress photos, so we can’t just knock them all out at once). We’ve got tons of thrifted furniture piled in the sunroom just waiting for a makeover. There are a bunch of fabric and frames and accessories stacked on the dining table. Paint cans pepper the floor. We even have frames missing from the hallway where we’ve repurposd them for book projects. Nothing is sacred. Haha. Again, in a word, it’s a mess. But it’s pretty exciting chaos.
- Being the over-sharers that we are, we’d love to tell all of the details of every project right now (#ohmanit’skillingus). But I’m not sure our publisher would be very happy with us ruining the surprise. So here are a few hint-y sneak peeks:
- Our guestroom has kinda become home to all of the completed projects. The dining room is home to all of the things in progress and the sunroom is where we’re housing all of the things we can’t touch until before photos are taken. Here’s sort of what they look like (well, as much as we can show ya)…
- So that thing that Sherry mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post that lasts three weeks is some pretty crazy-but-exciting book photography. Most of it will be going on from 8:30am to 6pm four days per week for the next three weeks, so nearly our entire February will be spent on a photography set. Well, actually the set is our house for the most part – so it’ll be three weeks of being in our house-turned-photo-studio. We finish just a few days before flying out to Oregon for the Portland Home & Garden Show, so it will definitely be a jam-packed month. Thank goodness it’s only 29 days long!
- Yes, we’re pretty much hosting a little crew of people in our house for the better part of a month so we’ll have to tell you how that goes! They’re all awesomesauce so far, and yesterday we banged out a ton of before photos and as soon as they left we were painting and upholstering and doing all the things we can now do since those “before” shots are in the can. Gotta tell ya, it feels good to get this thing going – and we already can’t wait for the book to be out so we can spill the beans about all these secrets. We’re taking lots of behind the scenes photos to share with you guys this fall when it comes out!
Update: Lots of folks are asking what we’ll be doing with all those secret projects/items once the book is shot. We’re actually hoping to do a giveaway with some of them (not sure how shipping will work though) and some items have to be returned, etc. Maybe one or two especially sentimental ones will stay at our house, but they’re all “bonus” projects (we didn’t “design” any of them to fit into our house, which is actually really freeing since we can have fun with lots of color/fabric/textures, etc) so it should be fun to see where they end up!
So our apologies to anyone who left a comment yesterday and took a little longer than normal to see it pop up or get a response! We’re definitely juggling things over here when it comes to keeping the blog and the book (and the bean) attended to. And as nuts as the next month is going to be for us, we’re so grateful for the opportunity and so excited to share the whole crazy journey with you guys as we go. Anyone else dealing with someone visiting them for weeks on end? Or keeping 100+ secrets that are slowly burning a hole through their brains? Tell us about it. Or just tell us how crazy our house looks. Go.
Psst- Thank goodness our bean sleeps the night away so we can get stuff done (check out her technique over on Young House Life).
Dealing With Criticism
It was fun to crack open a little bit of our personal “stuff” last Tuesday for this post about the real $herdog (yes, I’m still patiently waiting for that nickname to catch on) and John’s J-Boom version. And a funny thing happened after sharing those. Not only did they receive over 1,200 amazingly awesome and encouraging comments (note to self: apparently you’re not a social pariah if you admit that you sometimes have strawberry cream cheese on your ear and are inclined to impersonate Cindy Lou Who) but we also got dozens of emails – not even exaggerating – asking about how to deal with criticism and respond to negative comments. And thus this post was born.
I guess by sharing all of our weird idiosyncrasies it encouraged people to write about something they’re struggling with and ask how we handle it? It also could have had something to do with this thread on the $herdog post. Either way, the emails mostly came from folks who run small blogs who have somehow fallen into larger readerships thanks to being pinned on Pinterest or otherwise thrust into the spotlight suddenly (like a feature on Apartment Therapy or Design Sponge). And the general gist of every single email was this: someone was blogging along about whatever they blog about (some of these people aren’t home bloggers at all) and then… zinger… it happened. A not-so-nice comment. And it stung.
With more readers definitely comes more “feedback” – both good and bad. And you know I’m happy to be that spunky little cheerleader on your shoulder shouting high-pitched overly-enthusiastic things like: “you can do it!” and “reach for the stars!” – so here’s my humble advice in a nutshell:
- It’s your blog.
- Be who you are. That is enough.
- Try to give the good feedback as much weight as the bad.
- Do all things with love.
Sounds corny huh? But I’ll explain how those four things have really helped us deal with the whole “you’re putting yourself out there and I’m anonymous so I’m going to tell you exactly how I feel” phenomenon. After all we’ve been told (both nicely and not so nicely) a few of the following things:
- I’m not really interested in posts about _____, so I vote you skip them
- I’m losing interest in big projects – do more little ones
- Do more big projects – the small ones are filler
- I want more Clara and Burger and everyday stuff
- I want less Clara and Burger and everyday stuff
- That paint color/art/room is ugly/not the right choice
- Stop using certain words/expressions because they make me cringe
- Stop being so cheap and spend some money
- Stop spending so much money and be more frugal
- Move faster, I’m bored
- Move slower so I can catch up
- I’m disappointed in this choice/this idea/you
- This blog used to be better because _________
- I will no longer read this blog because ________
See all the contradictions going on in there? Basically if we listened to every suggestion, well, we wouldn’t have a thing to blog about. Not a single thing. And after 2,000+ posts and over four years of doing this, we’ve definitely learned that some folks like things that others hate and some people have an opinion when it comes to how they’d run this blog if it were theirs. But here’s the thing. It’s not theirs.
Which brings us to…
Tip #1: It’s your blog. It might sound weird to point out, but your blog isn’t a magazine with a team of 30 people who poll their readers and try to please the largest group (at least I don’t think it is). The very definition of a blog is just an outlet to write whatever you want and share whatever part of your life that you’re passionate about in your own words and at your own pace and in whatever way feels natural to you. Whether you do it full time or as a hobby once a month, your only real task is to be who you are and share what you like and those who like it will drop in.
In our case, we’re just two people with a dog and a kid who happened to gain a following sharing our adventures on the home front. We just write about whatever’s going on in our lives and seems interesting to us, which has gotten us here (we’re not Facebook or Pinterest, but 5 million hits a month = crazytown to two kids like us). See, if you attempt to please every last commenter, as much as you love and value your readers, know that it’s Mission Impossible – and it could even lead to your blog’s downfall (it won’t be yours anymore). So trust yourself. Everyone else might have an opinion, but your voice really should be the loudest and your vote really should be the one that counts.
Tip #2: Be who you are. That is enough. I think most people are a little guilty of the whole wanting-more syndrome. When a show ends I immediately want the next episode to come on (and I want it to be even better than the last). When I get a magazine and it’s feeling a little thin I wish it were twice as thick. And I think boxes of Oreos should be bottomless (I expect them to refill themselves while I’m sleeping). So it’s no surprise that when it comes to blogging, well, readers are inclined to want more. They might say it not-so-nicely, or very kindly indeed. And either way it might make you feel sort of wop-wop. But it’s just human nature. And I can tell you from experience that you will be a happier person and a better blogger if you make peace with that completely normal phenomenon.
You can’t control how every single person reacts to your blog, but you can control how you blog. And struggling to eke out more to the point of exhaustion or burnout (be it recipes, sewing tips, DIY stuff, photography pointers, craft ideas, or anything else you blog about) just isn’t the answer. At least not if – in the words of Claire Danes in Homeland – you’re playing the long game. Ideally your method of blogging should make you feel more inspired, creative, and enthusiastic about blogging – which in turn will shine through so your readers get just as giddy about it as you do. There’s a reason that your blog is attracting a readership and people are coming back. So just go at your own pace and concentrate on doing things well and not making yourself sick or neglecting your family because a few usually very well-intentioned folks want something that should take ten days to be done, photographed, and blogged about in five. Forgive people for being excited and impatient. We all do it.
Of course establishing these boundaries applies to other scenarios too, so if you have a family blog and folks want more photos/info about your kids than you’re comfortable sharing, know that whatever you want to share = enough. In blogging I generally think if it feels wrong (or makes you feel tired/sad/uninspired), it’s wrong. So don’t do it. As much as I hate being told to relax (seriously, ask John, it’s on his “do not ever say that to me unless you want me to go crazy on you” list), just try to relax and do your thing.
Tip #3: Try To Give The Good Feedback As Much Weight As The Bad. The funny thing is that everyone we talk to who is wrestling with comment criticism admits they still get waaaaay more positive comments than negative ones. I mean the ratio is usually astounding. We know it just takes one cutting comment to get under your skin, but when the vast majority of people love something, it sucks to let one commenter sink your battleship. Let’s do some light math (I don’t do heavy math, but light math is ok). If over the course of a week or two, 99 people take the time to say they like your blog/post/project/house/whatever and one person chimes in to say something’s not their cup of tea, that still adds up to a 99% success rate. And those are good odds my friend- so keep on keeping on! Heck, even if a ton of your readers don’t like something but you like it, I wholeheartedly think that you should keep blogging about it. Why? Because you like it and – once again, for the folks in the back – it’s your blog. Picture me up stage wearing a pant suit and a pocket protector saying “I can’t hear you!” and holding the mic out so you can shout that chorus with me. Or dancing around in this outfit chanting it with my lovely family while serving up a heaping portion of jazz hands (Burger’s clearly hiding because he doesn’t want to be seen in this getup).
Tip #4: Do everything with love. It’s admittedly extremely cheesy (and you might hear a tiny violin playing in the background) but my favorite advice is usually summed up in that phrase. It’s actually written on a post-it note that I’ve had stuck to my laptop for the longest time. When someone takes time out of their day to say something they’d most likely never say to anyone’s face (or would they…?) I’ve come to realize that spewing the same venom that they flung in my direction won’t make me feel any better (heck, it would probably make me feel significantly worse).
So I try to look at them from a place of love. Maybe they’ve had a terrible day. Maybe they’ve lost someone they love very much and they’re hurting. It may seem weird to try to have compassion for those who don’t seem to be very sensitive to your feelings, but I’m telling you that there’s something to it. It helps me respond with humor or a quick explanation from my point of view without getting too heated. Or even just with the words “Merry Christmas to you and your family!” like I did when someone said that decorating our family Christmas tree with paint chips was akin to decorating it with tampon wrappers. Growing up my mom always said that above being successful, popular, or athletic (all the things I worried about so much back then), being kind was the most important thing. And that’s something I’d love to pass down to Clara. Sing it with me: all ya need is love.
So there it is. My brain dump. I hope it helps at least one or two of you out there who might be struggling with growing and having more eyes on you. I know it sounds corny, but for us this blog is just about sharing our adventures and hopefully helping you guys along the way. That’s why we make videos about grouting and cabinet painting and take so many photos and share every last detail – in the hope of helping a handful of you guys at home. And it’s also why we love sharing behind the scenes blogging stuff like this (since so many of you are fellow bloggers these days). I am completely embarrassed to admit this, but we wrote the Thank You part of our book a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t the part about our family and friends that made me cry, it was the part about you, our lovely readers. Crying isn’t even the word. It wasn’t cute. I was weeping. There was smeared mascara and a runny nose. The whole nine yards.
The enthusiasm, sweetness, and support that you folks send our way is nothing less than life-changing. I really mean that. The least we can do is crack open a little bit of ourselves in beyond-DIY posts like this from time to time (every once in a while we get the itch to overshare, like this and this along with our more recent J-Boom and $herdog posts). So lets get all sappy and share mom and dad quotes in the comments. Or any other older and wiser family member who said something while you were growing up that rings oh so true to you. My mom was also famous for saying “always wear nice underwear in case you end up in the emergency room” throughout my formative years. And let me tell you, she was right on the money about that too. It’s waaaaaaaay too embarrassing to go into, but I didn’t follow her advice and I royally regretted it. There were Care Bears involved. And I was 21. And I don’t think the doc grasped the concept of ironic underwear. I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination.
Pssst- We announced this week’s giveaway winners. Click here to see if you’re one of them.
The Real J-Boom
First off, in kitchen progress news, all of the chaotic electrical work has been completed! In just five hours actually. Woot.
So we’re cleaning things up, taking pics, doing some pendant hunting, and writing a big ol’ post about it for you guys on Monday. But apparently when Sherry shared “The Real $herdog” on Tuesday there were a bunch of requests for a John version. Color me surprised (I honestly thought Burger and Clara would get mentioned before I would). And since I don’t really have a cool street name like Sherry, she has suggested that I use “J-Boom” for the time being. It’s a little too close for comfort to a certain busty Jersey Shore cast member for me, but since I figure there’s little risk of confusing the two of us – I’ll use it for now. It certainly has more flare to it than my childhood nicknames of “JP” and “Petersik.” Anyway, since Sherry stole some shared facts for herself (about our marriage and our daughter) – my list might be a bit more random than hers. Here goes nothing.
#1 – I don’t always enjoy shopping and decorating. If reading our blog has given you the impression that I’m always the dutiful husband who skips merrily alongside Sherry on shopping trips for our latest decorating project, well – that’s not 100% accurate. I may participate in (and often enjoy) running house errands more than the average husband, but I also do my fair share of groaning when I’m told we “need to go out for pillows.” Same goes for tasks around the house. Let’s just say I don’t bound joyfully from the couch every time I learn we’re hanging curtains or need to go up in the attic to carry something that “takes two people, one being the strong and helpful husband.” But when worst comes to worst, I just try to find the humor in being the tagalong husband:
#2 – I’m the king of typos. Case in point, my fingers originally made that “I’m the kind of typos.” I’ve accepted this about myself: my brain and fingers don’t always work in unison and my eyes don’t do me any favors by catching them. Sherry has little tolerance for it (especially since I will even drop an entire word or three here and there). Yes, sentences like “then I spread the grout with a trowel” might get typed out as “then I with a trowel” and Sherry is left scratching her head. It’s one of the reasons Sherry proofreads every post before it goes up and also why I’m not as active in the comments (along with the fact that I have no idea where each of our ten million pillows hails from). I confessed my typo problem in a local interview two years ago where Sherry and I had to submit secret responses about each other separately. I said I loved Sherry because “she fixes my tyops.” Sherry told me it was a sweet and clever answer… until I further confessed that I hadn’t done it intentionally. It was just the most well-timed typo of my life.
#3 – I’m sometimes insecure about being a stay-at-home dad. Those who caught my BabyCenter post a few months ago already know most of this. And though I think I technically qualify more as a “work-at-home” dad, I still often feel funny about not getting up, putting on work clothes, and trotting off to the office like other “normal” dads. Even though I can rationalize that being home with Clara is actually a very good thing, it still just feels off to me sometimes. Especially when Clara and I are checking out at the grocery store in the middle of the day and I get that “oh, he must be unemployed” look from the cashier. But I’m doing my best to just embrace it and be as good at it as I can.
#4 – I’m a shameless consumer of “new” things. Maybe it’s the former advertising exec in me (or the reason I got into advertising in the first place) but I’m a total sucker for new products. They don’t even have to be totally new – maybe Hershey Kisses’ just released their seasonal flavors, for example. I. Must. Try. Them. All. Heck, I even bought a box of Life cereal the other day just because the packaging had been redesigned. Sherry knows whenever I go food shopping alone that she should brace herself for the weird new flavor or product I’ll come home with (Dulce De Leche Cheerios? Check).
#5 – I sing. A lot. And not that well. Sherry and I are both guilty of bursting into song pretty often, whether it’s singing along to the radio or crooning an original tune that narrates what we’re doing (“a grouting we will go, a grouting we will go, high ho the tile-e-oh, a grouting we will go”). So maybe this goes along with Sherry’s admission that she’s painfully cheerful? It’s like a slightly off-key and slightly-sarcastic Disney movie up in here sometimes. And it’s probably why Clara isn’t shy about belting a little medley out too. We aren’t “real” singers or anything, but we can both (key word: sort of) carry a tune. And sometimes harmonize. Sometimes even on purpose. If we were to try out for American Idol we’d be in that in-between group that’s neither good nor bad enough to see the judges. You can catch a snippet of me singing in this mockumentary my college improv group made about a squash tournament (that obviously needed to close with a big mediocre musical number). Fast forward to about 12:10 for my extremely brief verse. Or if you care to watch the whole thing, start here with part one (warning: I can’t guarantee it’s entertaining for anyone beyond those of us who are in it).
#6 – I don’t really read Young House Love. Since Sherry proofreads every post (see #2 if you’ve forgotten why) and responds to most comments (questions like “where did you get that mirror?” are like asking me what color earrings Sherry wore three days ago), she reads just about every single word that ever gets posted on this site. So with all that we juggle each day, it’s not really the best use of our time for me to read everything too. I barely find time to read other blogs, let alone the one where I already know how things end. So if we ever talk in person and you reference something funny that Sherry wrote, please forgive me if I just smile and nod. Does it make me feel like a bad person? Sometimes. But c’mon, you know brevity is hardly a virtue of ours…
#7. I can get pissed like the best of them. This might come as a surprise but I can get pretty darn peeved in the middle of a project that’s going anything but well. I have even been known to throw a screwdriver (maybe “lob it at the ground” is a better description) while grappling to fix an incredibly frustrating mailbox issue. I’m working on it, but just know that I’m not Mr. It’s All Going To Be Hunky Dory during every project. Sometimes I’m just gritting my teeth and muttering under my breath. But when it’s all said and done and we’ve lived to tell the tale, it’s 100% worth it. Which probably explains why I keep jumping back into the ol’ DIY arena. I’m like Russel Crowe in Gladiator – except significantly less ripped.
So maybe my list was less “surprise, I’m not perfect” than Sherry’s since I figure you guys already knew I was no Matt Damon / Edward Cullen / Justin Bieber or whoever else is the epitome of male perfection these days. Just don’t tell Clara that. I think she’s pretty convinced I’m all that and a box of raisins. And I’d like to keep it that way.
Pssst: We are not famous. But somehow we’ve been invited to be part of the Richmond Comedy Coalition’s series called “Richmond Famous” that’s happening next Friday night (Jan 27). We’re not totally sure what we’re in for, but supposedly we’ll tell some true stories from our lives and they’ll improvise scenes based on them. And yes, Sherry is beyond nervous that we actually “have to talk” so we’d love to see you guys there. At least I would. Sherry might rather hide in the car. Get more info here.
Psssst again: We announced this week’s giveaway winner. Click here to see if it’s you.
Is It Bad Luck Not To Say Thanks?
**Psst- We know most Fridays we just post once, but every month on sponsor shout out days we double up. So Sherry will be back in a few hours with a quick tiling + furniture rearranging update.
It’s time for our usual monthly show of gratitude to our sponsors. You know, the people who make the other 30+ posts possible… and generally keep us away from black cats and stop us from walking under ladders (okay, not really the last part). But since today – Friday the 13th – is a sinister day cast in the shadow of superstition for some people, we tried to find some joy in the darkness by highlighting a few black, white, and grey items from our sponsors (none of which have been gifted to us – here’s our no-swag policy). And if you need some luck today, check out of some of the special discounts bulleted at the bottom. Happy Friday the 13th everyone!
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- Bien Living Design‘s Long Distance Design service – especially the after pics.
- Natural and organic goodies from Limegreen, made by a country girl in Brooklyn.
- Personalizing just about anything over at Initial Presents, like this ikat pillow.
- Everything from The Tile Shop that’s getting us through backsplash-fest 2012.
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- All of the quatrefoil-y goodness happening over at Shades of Light these days.
- Speaking of quatrefoil, Z Gallerie‘s new 2012 stuff also has it going on.
- WallQuotes‘ simple kitchen decals (are you surprised we have kitchens on the brain?)
- Hoards of inspiration on Hometalk‘s Pinterest page. Oh look, another kitchen.
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- “Estelle” from Jenna Lou Designs, which had Sherry in love at first sight.
- Dot Coms For Moms‘ DIY section, which includes a round up of cool free printables.
- Old photos from Ruby Lane (they’d make for an awesome wall collage).
- This geek-tastic retro calculator iPhone cover from House 8810.
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- These stacking rivet rings from Heart & Stone Jewelry which could be our book motto.
- Beautiful custom wedding suites from Smock Paper for those getting hitched in ’12.
- Royal Design Studio‘s zebra stencils, which have us in the mood for safari.
- Chic Shelf Paper‘s bold animal pattern (speaking of safari…) – so graphic and fun.
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- Flashcard style + chic silhouettes + great nursery art = Sarah + Abraham.
- This guy (well, pillow) from Jilly’s Happy Home (he just looks fun to have around).
- Liberty Hardware‘s good lookin’ Delta Porter Bath Collection.
- Lasting Greatness from FLOR (hah, that’s actually the name of the pattern).
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- This (glue-less!) paper plane wallpaper from Trendy Peas (Sherry audibly gasped).
- Le Papier Studio customizable silhouette mugs from their Valentine’s Day collection.
- Amen, A Vintage Poster. Amen.
- And for kicks here’s Burger, who looks like this in the morning (yup, he’s laying on a pillow, belly up with his lower half under the covers)
And now for those DISCOUNTS:
- Shades of Light: 10% off using code YHL0811
- WallQuotes.com: 15% off with the code YHL15
- The Tile Shop: 10% off when you use the code YHL10
- Heart & Stone Jewelry: 10% off your purchase with the code YHL10
- Royal Design Studio: 10% off stencils with code YHL10
- Jilly’s Happy Home: 10% off custom orders using code YHL
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432 Posts Down To 12
I’m a type-A kinda gal. I admit slash attempt to embrace that quality, because it’s just who I am. So to that end, after we did our first superlatives post back in July, I kept thinking about how it would be nice to have the earlier seven months worth of project breakdowns – to fill in the gap between January (two weeks after we moved in and essentially when we started doing projects) and July (when we started doing monthly roundups). It’s just fun for us to see a month at a glance, and we thought it might help some of you guys dig up specific projects without trolling through 432 posts in our archives. Scrolling through twelve posts to recap an entire year isn’t bad, right?
So that “would be nice” thought festered for a while, and started nagging me more and more and then it went from thinking about it (aka: wouldn’t that be nice) to obsessing about it (aka: do it before your brain eats itself!) so eventually I gave in and spent the last few months chipping away at it. Of course they don’t include every last blog post (there aren’t any Reader Redesigns or House Crashing posts or other random not-really-house-related things) but they’re full of all the noteworthy projects and adventures that we’ve had each month for the past year.
I figured I could silently post them at the end of each correlating month (by pre-dating them so they’d drop into the archives in the right order), but I also realized that hiding them “back in the day” isn’t as helpful as rounding them up in one big easy to troll page with 12 boxes to see the entire year at a glance. So here ya go (you can access that page anytime by clicking the box on the sidebar that says Quick Monthly Round-Ups). It was one of our resolutions to make our archives easier to navigate, so we figure this is a good first step.
Hope you enjoy the walk down memory lane. And here’s to another twelve months full of projects, posts, the bean, the Burgsie, and random ceramic animals of all shapes and sizes! We’re probably getting our penny tile on as you read this, so stay tuned for a big update with some wide shots and another video all about the application process tomorrow!
Psst- We’re craigslisting our full sized sofa bed from our first house’s office/guest room/playroom, so here are the deets for any interested locals.
