A little glass etching cream, a homemade stencil and thrifted apothecary jar and suddenly we’ve got the perfect spot to show off what we’re thankful for.
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#152: The Haunted Room At Our Beach House
In honor of Halloween, we’re sharing a spooky occurrence at our beach house that we legitimately couldn’t explain for a few months (even I, the perennial skeptic, was like… “how did that just happen?!”). We’re also chatting with author Miranda Anderson about how her entire family took on a yearlong shopping ban, and how that choice led to more gratitude, patience, and a sense of adventure for the entire family. Plus, an update on how things are getting real (and real messy!) in our bathroom reno – and a tool we’re using to help keep our sanity throughout the process. What’s New Here’s a peek at the current state of our bathroom after all of
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#151: When Is It Worth It To Splurge?
Today we’re sharing how two recent treat yourself moments in our house turned sideways on us and how it shed some light on when to splurge and when to make like Elsa and let it go. One even involves a feature in our bathroom reno that we’ve dreamed about for years, but suddenly can’t seem to justify in actual practice (although it sounds great in theory!). Also after nearly 11,000 people took our “Side Of The Bed” survey, we have some surprising insights about why people sleep where they do. Plus there’s been another Color of the Year development and we find the silver lining to a recent personal event that shook us up. What’s
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Ikea Kitchen Costs – A Full Breakdown
As our bathroom reno continues (current status: more demo happened, our vanity, tub, & toilet arrived, and we have our plumber & electrician scheduled to rough things in and then we can prep & tile) we thought it would be fun to share a duplex kitchen budget breakdown. *Also, for anyone who has inquired about renting the duplex this fall, there’s an announcement about that later in the post* Obviously, there are LOTS of factors that affect how expensive a kitchen renovation will be, so let this post just be a reference point for you – not a prescription for how much a kitchen reno should cost. The average kitchen reno in 2019 was $24,047
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#150: Changing Our Minds About Our House (Again)
Our home’s exterior makeover didn’t stop with painting it white last year, so today we’re catching you up on some projects we’ve completed and what’s still to come (and it involves something we’ve changed our minds about twice). We’re also reflecting on a few experiments & interviews over the past 149 episodes that truly changed the way we live in our house – and we’re issuing a challenge to help us all find some new ways to improve our household routines and daily lives. Plus, we look into why someone might buy a house they’ve never seen, located in a town they’ve never been to (!!!). The idea may be less crazy than it sounds…
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Our Bathroom Reno: The Floor Plan & Picking Tile
Ok, now we’re cooking with gas! Maybe I shouldn’t use that expression for a bathroom reno… ANYWAY… we’ve made lots of progress since partially demo-ing the room last week (more on that here), and wanted to share our final floorpan with you (IT’S SUCH A GIANT IMPROVEMENT!) and our final tile picks (along with a few other things we debated, why we chose what we chose, etc). So here’s the old bathroom layout. Yes we lived with it like this for over six years. Yes, it was A LOT of doors (the one leading from the hall to our bedroom is right behind where the tub is below – so there were five in a
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#149: The Episode That Made Me A Plant Lady
We’re sharing how our bathroom reno went from zero to fifty percent (that’ll make more sense when you hear what we did) and how we gained a ton of insight about the right layout and the right size for the vanity, shower, tub, etc. Also… the houseplant struggle is real, so we asked plant expert Carmeon Hamilton everything we’ve ever wanted to know about how to keep inside greenery alive (and happy!). She shared her favorite easy plants for beginners and even laid out when to water, re-pot, and fertilize your indoor greenery (we were like: wait, we should be fertilizing?!?). Plus, we’re shouting out a super handy multipurpose tool that we loved so much
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4 Decorating Tricks For A Smoother Makeover
We’re in the midst of two room redos right now and I couldn’t be more excited about them! One is our bathroom reno that we shared last week, and the other is a much lighter and less dusty one, which involves zero demo or wall moving, but a whole lot of function that we’ll be gaining (plus a wall treatment + wallpaper, which thrills me to no end). We’re “reconfiguring” the middle bedroom at our beach house, which used to look like this. Yes, it’s a very small room that was basically all bed: Having a lighter room redo running in the background while we wait for orders like our bathroom tub & vanity to
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#148: How We Keep Our Lives & Projects Organized
People are always asking how we keep our projects and our household organized (“do you make lists? use an app?! help me!”) so today we’re outlining the three tools that we use every day. Some are digital, some are old school, but the most important part is that they help to keep us on the same page (sometimes literally) about our projects, purchases, and more. We’re also sharing the near completion of a long overdue outdoor update that almost sent one of us over the edge… of the roof. Also, could it be true that some people don’t have a de facto “side of the bed” every night? WHAT?! We have questions. What’s New That’s
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Starting A Bathroom Renovation
If you listened to this week’s podcast you heard John and I proclaim that we’ve moved from the verrrrry long daydreaming and changing our minds phase of our bathroom planning process (which lasted over 6 years while we renovated most of the other rooms in our house as well as the entire beach house & duplex) into the finally-being-sure-of-what-we-want-to-get-out-of-it and beginning to actively space-plan it phase. For example, after years of going back and forth about whether we wanted a separate tub and shower or a tub/shower combo, we’re now 100% sold on separate ones (we have that setup at the beach house and it’s our favorite bathroom ever). I even said on this week’s
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#147: A Summer Living In A Smaller House & Smaller Town
What happens when you move into a smaller house in a smaller town for over two months? That’s what we found out this summer when we stayed at our beach house to manage the duplex rentals – AND IT WAS THE BEST SUMMER OF OUR LIVES. The smaller home and smaller town lessons that we learned really stuck with us when we returned home – and they have already inspired us to make 4 changes to our life and habits back in Richmond. So even if you aren’t planning to move or downsize, there are some things you could experiment with too. We’re also sharing why we’re fiiiiiinally starting a long-awaited renovation in our house,
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5 Lessons From Our Summer As Airbnb Hosts
We talked on this week’s podcast about how our first rental season at the duplex wasn’t perfect, but it went pretty darn smoothly, all things considered (you can hear a bunch of specific stories, nerve-wracking moments, and things we learned in that episode). Over the course of this past summer, we hosted 23 families thanks to it being a duplex. Two bookings were always happening simultaneously, and the house was fully occupied with guests every night from mid-June to Labor Day. We joke that going from managing zero Airbnbs to two was kind of like going from having zero kids to having twins – it literally felt like we were plunging ourselves into the deep
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