As many of us look for ways to cut expenses, it’s easy to forget a simple strategy: ask. By making a few phone calls to the companies behind our three biggest monthly bills, Sherry and I were able to save $590 over the next year. Here’s what we did. It began when our Comcast bill … Read more

We’re excited to share our Cincy adventures (we laughed, I cried, and yes — something got confiscated at the airport) and to show a few projects we’ve already started. We’ve kicked off a Pinterest challenge, have a before-and-after just about ready to share, and plenty of other projects happening around the casa — some duck-related, … Read more

If you’ve followed along, you might have seen our bedroom fireplace in Instagram Stories as it got a few updates. Today I’ll share the full story of how our plans went off-course and how Plan B ended up being even better than we expected. When we last posted about the space on the blog, it … Read more

We painted our front door a new color when we refreshed the brick on our house in October. For the doors I used a specialty product made for entryways: Benjamin Moore’s Aura Grand Entrance in the shade Tranquility. It’s available in satin or an ultra-high-gloss mirror finish, and I opted for the high gloss. Photos … Read more

From the moment we painted that brick wall in our sunroom, we couldn’t wait to get art up. After a whirlwind trip that had us taking six flights in four days, we finally found time on Friday to hang everything. It’s surprising how much more “lived in” a room feels once you put art on … Read more

We knew from the moment we decided to add secondhand cabinets to our kitchen that matching the doors would be a challenge. Although only five doors were missing, achieving a seamless look was important—no one should be able to tell we had thrift-store cabinets mixed in. These are the five doorless spots we needed to … Read more

When Kim sent dramatic before-and-after photos, we were eager to share her bedroom-to-bathroom conversion. Here’s her letter: Okay, Youngsters… I’m biting on your quest for before and afters. I’m not sure if it’s quite drool-worthy enough, but I wanted to share my favorite room makeover in our house – our upstairs bathroom. We bought a … Read more

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And our lucky (and friendly) winner this week is… Jennifer M (her best friend is her husband — they met in college studying architecture and now work together). Congratulations! If you read the title and thought of the Bestå storage system from Ikea … Read more

Whether you plan to paint a chair, a table, or any wooden furniture, the basic steps remain the same. For example, this table we built and later painted, along with the matching white chairs (which were once a golden blond wood), transformed quickly with a few simple techniques. A fresh coat of white paint took … Read more

Short story: we bought a bedroom rug! Now for the long version. Our new bedroom is huge and needed a large rug to anchor the main pieces, like Ed the Bed and our oversized pendant light from Ikea. A small 4 x 6′ rug with faux sheepskins beside the bed no longer worked for the … Read more