As some of you guys have already discovered, we had the great pleasure of having our house photographed for the latest issue of HGTV Magazine. Well, our last house (we’d probably bat someone away with a stick if they tried to snap pictures of our new place just yet). And since a bunch of you have been asking for the behind the scenes scoop, here it is.
That day was such a blur that we weren’t even sure that we had any behind the scenes photos to share, but when we looked back in iPhoto, it turns out we remembered to snap a few photos. This is Clara the editor. She’s telling us what we need to fix for the shot to work better (“you need to see more of my toys”).
The HGTV Magazine crew (which included a photographer, his assistant, a stylist, and an editor from the mag) spent two days in our house. They were lots of fun and very gracious guests… even as our dining room became a makeshift office for 48 hours.
Well, except for when it had to be tidied up and photographed. Notice how there are only 4 chairs instead of 6? It was their trick to make it feel open and show off the pedestal a bit more. All part of the fun of seeing your house through someone else’s eyes.
And of course there were moments when the room had to be almost entirely cleared to get the perfect angle. This was the set up they used to photograph us in our office for the opening spread.
Sherry and I are quite comfortable with the chaos that comes along with a whole-house photo session (nothing can compare to the three straight weeks of book shoots). And by now I’d say our kids are getting pretty cool with it too.
Rachael, the photo stylist, was awesome with flower arrangements, pillow fluffing, and Clara. They even developed a secret handshake to help her feel at ease with all of the strangers around. Although I fear this photo gives away the whole secret (it was just pressing their thumbs together). Simple or not, we love Rachel for thinking of that.
We also love that she and Jen (the editor) brought some fun props with them. You may have caught this Instagram shot of our kitchen doused with pretty food and accessories. It was eye candy and literal candy all at once.
You can see some of those styling props hard at work in this picture of our kitchen, which we think is just about the prettiest shot of it ever taken. But even as photo-styling goes, we loved the balance the HGTV Magazine crew struck. In our opinion, it wasn’t too over-styled (it still looked like our kitchen) but it was fluffed enough to make it look interesting on the page and to give us some new ideas about what we might want to tweak ourselves (more on that later).
Perhaps the only bummer about the feature was that some of our favorite shots didn’t make the cut. We knew they were taking more pictures than they’d have room for, but we saw some along the way that we had our fingers crossed for – like this one of the recently-completed fireplace.
That shot also featured our new favorite term: “an aggressive sandwich.” Someone deemed the prop sandwich too big at one point, dubbing it too “aggressive” for the shot. I think they eventually tamed it by removing a tomato slice. We all had a good laugh about what goes into these shoots, and Sherry still trades emails with our new HGTV friends by signing them with “xoxo, Aggressive Sandwich”
Here’s a peek at what could’ve been, had these shots ended up in the spread.
The frame wall never looked better. Here’s one of our over-their-shoulder shots of the hallway styled up with some pretty flowers by Rachael.
I wonder if the photographer feels a little sad when certain shots don’t make it. He took a ton of time setting each one up, but he’s probably used to it. Oh and you’ll notice that we had to take down the basket light in the kitchen because it was casting weird shadows during the fireplace shot, so down it came.
Fortunately, we got to enjoy the fresh flowers, even if the photos didn’t make the final cut.
Oh, and they also cut a shot of the two of us prepping food in the kitchen (when we took this Instagram picture). But we’re 100% sure that we looked far from natural in it, so we’re forever grateful (us + cameras aimed at us = especially awkward). The funny thing is that we thought this might be a 2-3 page spread and it ended up being 10 pages long! Completely mind-blowing, and way more than we expected.
Speaking of abundance, there were lots of flowers. Which of course means that Sherry was in some state of flower-induced euphoria the whole time. They had a box shipped directly from the flower market in New York City and, thanks to our cooler, the sunroom became a makeshift florist shop for the two days they spent with us. Seriously, the room smelled like one giant flower for like two weeks afterwards. Sherry loved it. I thought it was kind of spooky once the flowers were gone (“where is that smell coming from?!”).
You should have seen Sherry creeping around the house whispering “If only they would last foreverrrrrrr.”
At least we have pictures to remember them by.
Besides tempting us to blow our life savings on fresh flowers (don’t worry, I’ll rein Sherry back in), one tip that we picked up and were inspired to put into action by watching the pros involved the pillows on our sectional. Rachel loaded it up with a bunch more pillows than we’d ever used… and Sherry was in heaven. Picture her doing one of Oprah’s over-the-top “a-ha moment” faces. You can’t really see them in the final magazine shot, since they used a picture of the living room with us in it, but Sherry may or may not have bought some of the pillows directly from Rachel when they were done (they were $20 from HomeGoods) to fill out her already robust pillow collection. Just picture me rolling my eyes in the background.
Oh, and you can’t tell from our picture above, but this little table was deemed too short for their shot so they borrowed some scrap wood from the basement to give it a lift. Also note how our usual desk and mirror got the boot so that our chalkboard could take its spot (see the picture above).
Wardrobe tricks were also employed – namely for one of Sherry’s loose shirts that was deemed “too maternity looking” for the way it draped in the shot of us in the office. She ultimately swapped this outfit out for something less breezy (which is why she’s in a different shirt in the other shots) but lo and behold, the original test photo with the pre-clipped shirt ended up in the magazine on the first page of the spread.
As for some literal “behind” the scenes dirt, when they took the picture of Clara playing in her big girl room, I hid behind the wall in the closet so that one of us was nearby while they snapped away. The toughest challenge was getting her not to run in there with me.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for them was shooting the outside of our house, since late March in Richmond wasn’t looking as spring-y this year as it usually does. Not to mention we had yet to begin lots of our recent improvements out there…
So now you know why the pictures of our outside are pretty small or just limited to close-ups of us on the porch. Although they did a great job of cheering things up by moving our red adirondack chairs (swiped from the patio) to bring in some semblance of color.
Oh and although the article mentions our moving plans, we actually didn’t share them with HGTV until we shared them with you guys on April 30th (via an email that Sherry most likely signed “Aggressive Sandwich”) – so they added that right at the end before the issue shipped. It really was locked deep in our brains until our alarm system was in and we were ready to tell the world at large, so I think only our parents, siblings, best friends, and the realtor knew before that. It was especially fun to finally tell the HGTV crew though, because we were able to explain how meaningful it was to us to see our house captured in such a major way before we said goodbye. It was a nice last hurrah, and they were psyched to have been the ones to document it all.
So we’re incredibly grateful that they thought our home was worthy of their magazine, and we’ll end this little behind the scenes spiel by sending out a big thanks to all of you who have stumbled upon it and said such kind things via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blog comments, email, and carrier pigeon. Just kidding about the carrier pigeon – you guys know we only accept ravens.
I LOVE behind the scenes stuff, thanks so much for sharing them! I would be in heaven to have that many flowers around the house! I bet it smelled wonderful in there!
I am dying over that photo of Clara’s secret “thumb”-shake. And I just checked out the spread in the magazine the other day at our local library! So pretty and colorful. Congrats!
Gorgeous pics!! what a cool experience! Thanks for sharing!
have you ever hit up fresh market (across from chesterfield town center) for fresh flowers?? they have THE MOST gorgeous flowers, and I always find them to be reasonably priced :)
We haven’t, but my mom loves that place. I guess mother knows best!
-John
Fresh Market is so expensive! I once bought a $9 chocolate bar there by accident. Trader Joes is a cheaper flower option. I planted lots of good greenage shrubs in my garden and buy a mixed TJs bouquet then split it up to make two or three vases along with my homegrown greens.
Sherry, I’ve been wondering this ever since I saw your dining room chairs. I used to have IKEA wicker chairs in our living room ($30 arm chair, wooot!) and we’d use them when we had guests for dinner. They were so low that we’d have to pile them with couch cushions to get our elbows high enough to eat. Eventually we switched to using my yoga ball and a storage box. In these pics I can see you have the same problem. Do you have dense foam cushions or something when you eat at that table? I imagine you’re normally at the kitchen bench for dinner?
The chairs are actually a nice dining height (with the cushion that comes with them at the base) but we learned that our table is a smidge higher than is standard (no idea why, but we got it at an outlet so maybe that’s why it was so marked down). We can put bigger cushions on the chairs to help, but we were hoping to somehow adjust the base of the table to get it to be standard height. Not sure how we’ll do that yet, but it’s floating around as an option – haha!
xo
s
Crap, so every chair you try will have the same problem? And of course it’s not just a simple pillar needing a trim. Can you dig a hole in the center of the room for the table?
Haha, exactly! We’re hoping we can figure something out. Like removing the top lip of trim if that comes off and re-bolting the top down.
xo
s
Awesome! Maybe I missed it, but is there a link where we can look at the full magazine spread of your pics?
They don’t seem to have a link to the full article online, so maybe flipping through it at Barnes & Noble is the easiest way to check it out?
xo,
s
http://www.hgtv.com/decorating-basics/how-home-improvement-bloggers-live/pictures/index.html
heres link to quite a few pictures with descriptions!
http://www.hgtv.com/decorating-basics/how-home-improvement-bloggers-live/pictures/index.html
In your “About Us” tab, when you click on the HGTV mag shown under press, it shows the whole thing! :)
Duh! Forgot about that! We scanned it in, so those are the pages all compressed into one doc :)
xo
s
What an amazing way to remember your house with. While the styling is nice and I like the fresh flowers honestly if you were to mix up photos you two have personally taken and the ones the professionals took I don’t think I could tell the difference. I have serious photo taking envy of you!
Congratulations! I just got home from a long business trip and was flipping through the magazine just the other night – what a great surprise! And I remembered the blog posts for almost all of the projects they mentioned in the spread. What a great memory for you! I hope they’ll do a follow-up article in a couple years with your new house (maybe a before and after?? – I LOVE those!)
When and where can we a copy?
It’s been out for a couple of weeks, so you should be able to find it at places like Barnes & Noble, Home Depot, or anyone else who sells magazines.
-John
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing your last home in HGTV magazine. What caught my eye was your dining room table base. I loved the detail! And now I know why I hadn’t noticed before … you had it covered by the six chairs. It is beautiful. What a neat thing to happen before your move to the new house.
How amazing! I love the behind-the-scenes tricks! And those peonies are to die for…love!
There was comments chatter on Apartment Therapy that you two should have your own HGTV show! The commenters suggested you as an alternative to uninspiring, non-real reality decorating shows.
Aw, that’s so sweet! We have actually been asked by a few networks but we’re honestly just not TV show people. I mean, we love watching TV, we just don’t dream of having our own show. Ack, that makes us all itchy and freaked out. Haha! It’s fun to do a five minute chat with someone like Nate Berkus once every few years (you know, so we have time to recover) but we don’t think we’ll ever have our own show, since we’re happy to hide behind our computer screens and share our lives with you guys this way :)
xo
s
I was so excited when I saw the pictures in the magazines, you had a beautiful house, and I can’t wait to see the developments in the new one.
Wow!! Now I have to go find the HGTV magazine. I’m a huge fan of HGTV but have never picked up their magazine – this is a great reason to do so.
I am headed out to get that mag today. Love the styling…not overdone at all. Still looks like your place. Or old place now, I guess!
Congrats!
Your raven comment just made my day complete and it’s only 7:30 here! So happy you’re GoT fans <3
I love the spread! I just looked at it again after reading your post and it really is beautiful. Is it bad, though, that I take a secret pleasure in the fact that your art in the green matting in the office is SLIGHTLY off-kilter? It makes me happy that even in magazines, you guys are rocking the “we’re not perfect, and this is all attainable!” status. :)
Haha! You know what’s funny about that? I fixed that for showings. And when I did it took two seconds and I was like “why didn’t I do that sooner?!” But I guess I can’t be too Type A if I lived with crooked art for a few years and it ended up in a magazine right? At least that’s what I’m telling myself…
xo
s
@Sherry
I love the “I can’t be too Type A…” Type As unite, in an orderly and punctual fashion! :)
I just got your book, and now with the magazine I keep thinking how weird and awesome it would be to buy the house that gets so much press.
Thankfully the new owners seemed to like checking out the photos (we disclosed it to anyone who came to a showing just to be sure they weren’t freaked out by it) and we left them our book and a bottle of wine at closing.
xo
s
Congratulations on making the spread on HGTV magazine eventhough some of your favorite pictures didn’t make the cut. We’ll enjoy those pictures here :)
I would also love to have fresh flowers in my home every-day. I can relate to how Sherry would want them to last “foreverrrrrrr”! those anemones, those peonies, them ranunculus and hyrdangeas!
Can’t wait to see what you’ve done on the new house on your future posts!
Wow, so much fun seeing the behind-the-scenes of a magazine shoot! LOVE the kitchen picture. Shoot, love all of them.
So fun! Those flowers are killing me. Gorgeous! What a great tribute to your beautiful house before the move. You guys are so sweet; I’ve been reading your blog over breakfast for years, thanks for being a part of my morning!!
You’re welcome Kara! Thanks for dropping in on us.
xo
s
Do you have a link for your feature on HGTV? Or was it only printed?
Gorgeous! I’m sure the new homeowners love having their home featured by HGTV!
They don’t seem to have a link to the full article online, so maybe flipping through it at Barnes & Noble is the easiest way to check it out?
xo,
s
Go to the hgtv website and under search enter young house love. An entry titled How home improvement bloggers like, with 14 photos comes up.
http://www.hgtv.com/decorating-basics/how-home-improvement-bloggers-live/pictures/index.html
Awesome post, glad you guys shared. And I bet you all are also stoked to have this archived forever as another reminder of all the hard work you put in to make this house outstanding. I’m very much looking forward to all the changes and updates you’ll be making in your new digs. Thanks always for the inspiration and know-how to make our own houses as beautiful as yours!
Gah that house was awesome. But I love seeing what you’re doing with the new house! Can’t wait to see it in the magazine!
I was wondering when you guys were going to mention your spread! It was fun to read through the article and notice things that weren’t “right” (that chalkboard doesn’t live there!)
Congratulations. I love HGTV magazine!
This is amazing!! Congrats!!
How cool! My subscription ended a few months ago, but I’ll definitely look for this issue =)
Interesting, a closepin! I think I finally know why all the shirts at Eddie Bauer don’t look the same on me as they do in the magazine. Or at least that is the excuse I am going to use from now on!
Oh yes, guys, from being in advertising I can promise you that clothes never fit the model perfectly and always get pinned/clamped/rolled or otherwise manipulated to make them look so dang good in catalogs, print ads, and commercials! So it’s not you or your body being weird, it’s the secret styling that makes things look/fit differently in ads. In other words, it’s not you, it’s them. Haha!
xo,
s
When I got married, I did DIY arrangements with tons of gorgeous flowers shipped from Columbia by FedEx. I spent $500 on what would have cost thousands from a florist.
So cool that you DIYed your flowers!
xo
s
I did, too! It was my favorite part of the wedding, even though it was a ton of work. We had the bath tub in my tiny apartment bathroom completely full of buckets of flowers — I took a picture before taking them all out to make the arrangements and it’s still one of my favorites. Plus, the room smelled awesome the next day while I was getting ready.
Love the spread! What a great way to remember your old place.
Well… I love that magazine already.. but I am going to get my copy. to. day.!
Aww I’m really gonna miss this house! I love it sooo much!!
Aw, me too. Sniffle.
xo
s
My husband and I are obsessed with watching HGTV. So cool that y’all were in their magazine. Great behind the scenes shots!
Such a great recap! Loved seeing you guys in the issue :)
John and Sherry,
I absolutely love this post! Being an interior photographer myself, I enjoy seeing behind the scenes. I really like seeing the little tricks they’re using and also how these crews, with large budgets, handle themselves with the homeowner. Thanks for such a great behind the scenes post!
So exciting! I need to go get a copy.
What is that framed page-long note on your wall of frames? I guess I never noticed it before.
That’s this cool poem that an old friend of ours wrote out in calligraphy and gave to us as a housewarming gift. He was actually the guy who did the “inspection” fixes on our first house when we sold it. He was such a cool guy!
xo
s
So neat!
What an awesome going away present for you guys to be able to remember that season of your life. My husband and I just moved from our first apartment as a married couple where we spent four years to our first house. The moving process got so crazy that we never snapped pictures like I’d planned. It’ll be so nice for Clara to have such nice pictures of her childhood home (not that your blog didn’t cover house #2 in lots of detail).
Love all of the pretty color from the flowers and foods! Eye candy for sure!
This was a great behind the scenes post guys, thank you and congrats in being featured in the magazine.
Hi guys! Reading the last paragraph, I’m wondering how you kept Clara from spilling the beans about your new home? Wouldn’t she say something about it at school? Or did you not really tell her you were moving so she wouldn’t repeat it to others?
Have an amazing weekend!
I know it’s really hard to imagine buying a house and promptly locking it away in your mind, but it was a save-our-sanity thing for us. We got the keys at closing and other than quickly getting the leaking roof and furnace fixed (some of which was done while we were gone on tour without us even being there), we literally didn’t go back there for months. Aside from the tour we also hosted the holidays, were doing tons of projects on our current house, were working on a lighting collection, etc). So John and I hardly talked about it to ourselves because the “ahhh overwhelming! we have two houses to juggle!” stuff would creep into our minds. We just focused on the current house and all of our other projects and since so much more time was spent there (and with friends/relatives/traveling on tour) I don’t think Clara really mentally grasped the new house until about a month before we moved in when we started doing fun things with her over there – like painting fabric and birthday party castles, etc. After that she talked about “the newwwwww house!” a lot!
xo
s
Love all the tricks they used! What great tips for our own homes, thanks for sharing! I wish I could have fresh cut flowers everyday too Sherri, I love getting high off fresh flower smell and healthier than magic markers (jk) =), but I think I’m better off with the potted variety…At least they can be reused in the backyard.
I looove fresh flowers! I’ve been seeing wild, orange tiger lilies everywhere, but they’re mostly on the edge of people’s properties and I really want to knock on their door and ask if I can snip some. Alas, I reign myself back in because that would be really creepy haha.
The flowers!! I love the flowers!
Reminds me… I need to get my husband on that gift of some flowers each month. I’d love that…. :)
Love these behind the scene shots! Which issue were you featured in? I’d love to grab a copy and see the whole thing!
It’s the July/August issue, which I think came out a week or two ago!
xo
s
It was so fun stumbling across you in the magazine. After reading your blog for years, it was like stumbling across a friend featured in the magazine. I was so excited! Your house looked awesome. I hope they’ll come back and feature your new house when you are done.
I know it’s a little early for lunch, but I’m having cravings for an “aggressive sandwich” right about now.
I haven’t gotten the latest issue of HGTV Magazine yet, so I didn’t know about the photo shoot. However, I was flipping through TV channels about a week ago, and I paused for a moment on QVC as something very interesting caught my eye. They were featuring a tablet at the time, and the gentleman demonstrating it was showing how easily you could “flip” through the pages of a magazine. It wasn’t clear which magazine he was using in his demonstration, but the pages they zoomed in on very prominently featured your house, which is what made me stop in my tracks.
So, just know that, aside from the many readers of HGTV Magazine, thousands and thousands of QVC viewers got a peek at your supremely decorated former abode, if only for a few seconds.
NO WAY! That’s hilarious!
xo
s
gah! love it!
Closing an awesome post with a GoT reference? Love.
Two words Sherry: Cutting garden. You need one, gal! Plant some high-production roses and add annuals like zinnias and cosmos that produce more and more blooms all season as you clip them. Google the phrase `cutting garden’ and drink in the ideas. So many flowers, so little money!
Love it!
xo
s
This is so cool and it’s so neat to see all of their little tricks!! Clearly, your neighbors in your old house knew of your DIY shenanigans- did you often have neighbors knocking to check out your latest projects?
Our neighbors were really cool! They loved hearing about stuff from us when we divulged, but they really weren’t nosy and wouldn’t show up unnannounced for the scoop or anything. It was awesome. We miss them a lot! Thankfully the new neighbors seem to be just as cool so here’s hoping!
xo
s
I’ve always been a fan of your kitchen makeover, but didn’t realize just how gorgeous that penny tile is until seeing the HGTV photo of it! Amazing! I also totally held up my grocery store line the other day when I ran to a check-out line a few spots over to grab the magazine…totally worth the disgruntled customers behind me!
Yes, pictures never did it justice! In real life… ah man… I miss it.
xo
s
Love seeing behind the magazine scenes! I’m in awe of the time spent fluffing and shifting and moving to get one shot. Those flowers…I can smell em from Alabama. Great stuff, guys!
Thank you so much for sharing this! This is all so fascinating to me. It’s so cool that you guys got that last hurrah for your home. Do you guys do anything to preserve these magazines/articles? Frame them or anything?
We keep them all in the green buffet that used to be in our entryway (now it’s in our dining room). And sometimes we buy a few extras and mail them to our grandparents since they love seeing them.
xo
s