It’s hard to believe that after nearly three years of work we can finally share our biggest side project to date. We spent countless hours designing a collection of wall storage and hooks, and many of those pieces are now sold exclusively at Target. The full assortment is available right now at Target.com and will be featured on endcaps in most US stores starting March 31.
We created three or four dozen initial designs before narrowing the line down to the final mix. The collection includes practical wall hooks, decorative key holders and creative storage solutions, all priced at $14.99 or less. You’ll find the products in the Home Improvement section where they’ll be displayed for 14 weeks.
Our inspiration comes from a range of things we love — bees, antique skeleton keys and even a certain handsome chihuahua — and we included inexpensive, customizable options so shoppers can make pieces their own.
Among the offerings are two raw wood hook rails — one with a picture ledge and one without — designed specifically for DIY customization. You can paint, stain, apply wallpaper or decoupage, then select from four hardware styles in either oil-rubbed bronze or white and attach them to the predrilled holes.
The project began back in July 2011 when Liberty Hardware, a sponsor of our blog at the time, invited us to participate in research on the DIY trend. That initial conversation evolved into an invitation to collaborate on designing products with their team. We said yes, and over the next two years we worked closely with Liberty on every creative detail.
Design and development were eye-opening. We handled creative direction — from rough sketches and color/finish choices to iterative design feedback. Liberty managed manufacturing feasibility and sales analysis, turning our concepts into production-ready products. Their design team illustrated options based on our drawings, then modeled the best ideas digitally or in clay. Those models were 3D printed, cast, and refined into prototypes and final pieces. There were regular tweaks, occasional back-to-the-drawing-board moments, and even a focus group along the way. Ultimately, we likely explored forty to fifty concepts before settling on the current collection.
Most collaboration was virtual, but we also met in person multiple times. Liberty’s team, based a few hours away in Winston-Salem, visited Richmond, and we traveled to North Carolina and Chicago to work with their designers. We even flew to Target’s Minneapolis headquarters, where we attended meetings despite the surprise of a late April snowstorm.
The photos you see in this post and on the product packaging were shot in our home last November by our brother-in-law, Todd. To create varied backdrops in a room with few painted walls, we improvised with materials like a remnant of grasscloth wallpaper behind the Burger hook. With careful cropping, any visible painters tape and trim pieces were removed from the final images.
After months of meetings, design iterations and photo shoots, it still feels unreal to see the finished products available for purchase. We’re excited to expand the line later in the year and are actively pitching additional designs that go beyond hooks and wall storage. Target prefers tightly curated collections, so we’re exploring seasonal themes and complementary home and DIY products.
We’re deeply grateful to everyone who contributed — the Liberty team, photographers, friends and family who helped along the way, and the team at Target for bringing the collection to market. And to our readers: thank you for sticking with us through this long secret. It’s been an incredible journey from that first blog post in 2007 to seeing our designs on store shelves.
You can browse and buy the collection now on Target.com, and look for it in most stores beginning March 31. We can’t wait to hear what you think and hope you enjoy using and personalizing these pieces in your home.
Update – We often get questions about blogging professionally, including how we started the site, grew traffic and turned it into a full-time job. We’ve shared detailed information about how we built and grew our blog for anyone interested in the process.