This post started as a long, complicated draft that felt heavy and forced, so I deleted it and wrote something simpler and truer. I’m sharing what we’re actually feeling—honestly and plainly—including things we haven’t said out loud and a few things we’re still admitting to ourselves.
The short truth is: we love you. Truly. Even the tough love. We know most feedback comes from a place of care, and we want you to know we care right back. We want to do a good job here. We want this to be joyful and inspiring again. We recognize how fortunate we are to have built this over seven years, and we are deeply grateful for the chance to share this journey with you online.
We would never be here without you. That’s why we asked for your feedback last week and read every comment. Your honesty and passion about making this blog better meant a lot. We agree with much of what you said. Lately we’ve felt out of rhythm—like we’re missing the mark for ourselves and for you. We miss the days when this felt spontaneous and fun, when the site was a casual hangout rather than something that felt scripted or overly polished.
Over the years, some amazing opportunities arose—things we never imagined: a book deal, collaborating on paint picks with Benjamin Moore, a product line at Target, participating in a showhouse. We are grateful for those experiences. In hindsight, though, those opportunities sometimes made the site feel more like a business than a personal blog, both to you and to us. Behind the scenes we’ve quietly scaled some of those projects back (we’re not continuing the Benjamin Moore color collection, the Target items have run their course, and the showhouse is complete), but we never made a big public announcement about that. It’s understandable if some of you assumed we’d moved on and left the blog behind.
It’s worth noting that the blog itself still drives the success of any outside project—books, products, or partnerships—so turning away from it entirely wasn’t realistic. But as the site grew into more of a brand, we noticed a change in tone and a shift in how we approached sharing. The blogging world has also become more commercial and sponsored overall, and from a reader’s perspective it can be hard to know when a post is heartfelt and when it’s driven by other incentives. Some readers even assumed giveaways were paid placements; in our case most giveaways were simply our way of saying thanks, not a paid endorsement.
There are other things we wish we had handled better. At times we were too defensive, we over-explained, and we let worry and perfectionism change the lighthearted voice that originally defined this space. We also struggled with where to draw the line between transparency and oversharing—like how we handled announcing our third house; we recognize many of you felt hurt by what we did and didn’t share, and for that we’re genuinely sorry.
It’s frustrating to do work you love poorly, especially work you nurtured from the beginning. This blog has been our creative baby for seven years, and it’s painful to see it feel less joyful than it used to. We haven’t lost gratitude—far from it—but we feel out of our groove. When that happens, publishing can become an anxiety-filled act instead of a joyful one. Instead of pushing through in a way that felt forced, we decided to step back and regroup.
So we’re taking a break. We don’t have an exact return date, though we expect it will be at least a month. During that time we’ll be exploring other ways to support our family and reigniting the creative spark that made this blog fun in the first place. For us, that might mean returning to the mindset we had when this began as a hobby alongside day jobs—when the work felt freer and more playful. We’ll also step away from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for a while, though the blog will remain online so the archives are always available to you.
This moment of pause is entirely our responsibility. Please don’t fault anyone who offered honest feedback last week—that input was courageous and helpful. We asked for it because we needed to know what you were thinking, and your responses made it clearer than ever that if we respect this blog and our readers, we must take time to restore the authenticity and spontaneity that made it special.
In short: we love you, we thank you, and we hope you understand. We’ll be back when we can bring the real, joyful version of this site to you again.
