My recent trip to IKEA left me giddy — they’ve rolled out a lot of new pieces — so I took photos to share. This wasn’t sponsored; it was just a fun shopping excursion. Here’s a quick virtual tour of what caught my eye. First up: this gorgeous chair. I’m obsessed. It’s the Storsele at … Read more

Meet my incredibly smart little brother, Dan. Growing up I was always labeled “the creative one,” which in our family translated to “not the prodigy,” because my brother owned that role. It wasn’t that I wasn’t bright — I often made the honor roll and was accepted early into a competitive art program in New … Read more

Cha-cha-cha-cha-changes. Some of you may have noticed that after Friday’s new house announcement, we updated the tagline in our blog header. Calling the site “two young people falling in love with their first house” no longer felt accurate. A longer alternative like “two young people making the emotional decision to leave their first house so … Read more

We’re back with another practical tutorial—this time showing an easy way to refresh an old chair by reupholstering the seat. The point: this is a simple, fast project that can completely transform a piece of furniture. Let’s get started. The original white fabric on this antique chair had yellowed and picked up stains over the … Read more

It’s October 15th, and once again we’re sharing eco-friendly tips from Almost-Doctor Dan for Blog Action Day 2009. Since we regularly cover practical ways to live greener and give back to the planet (we even have an Eco Living section on our How To page), this online event was a natural fit. But instead of … Read more

We’ll admit it: we were relieved when the holiday season finally ended. December is fun, but it also brings last-minute shopping, long-distance travel, family gatherings, and unpredictable weather — all of which add stress. So yes, many people thought we were a little crazy for moving into a new house during the holidays. It was … Read more

We’ve all developed a serious soft spot for pink in recent years — from Millennial Pink to a broad spectrum of peachy and rosy tones — and it’s showing up everywhere. In this episode we talk about that pervasive pink trend, how it played into choices for our beach house, and the danger of letting … Read more

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** This week’s prize is a custom painting from Swedish-born, Virginia-based artist Erica Eriksdotter, valued at up to $350. The winner will be able to work with Erica to choose colors, composition, and size so the piece fits their home perfectly — … Read more

If vaulted ceilings, fresh air, and a little DIY excitement sound appealing, you’re in the right place. We’ve shown a few photos of the sunroom ceiling progress already, but here’s the full story of how we got from boxed-in to open and bright—no graphing calculators required. We left the structural decisions to a pro. The … Read more

Crack is still whack. I couldn’t resist that Whitney Houston-inspired one-liner, even though we’ve used it before. This time the joke refers to a long crack running across the laundry room ceiling. Here’s the before: And the much cleaner after: During inspection we had that crack evaluated and were relieved to learn it wasn’t a … Read more