I am, shall we say, particular about my light bulbs. After recently converting our entire house to LEDs, I wanted to get it right — especially since one major advantage of LEDs is their long lifespan. In this article I’ll cover our favorite everyday LED bulbs and a few specialty options that have worked well … Read more

When Emily sent us photos of her china cabinet makeover, we had to share the before-and-after shots. Here’s the note she included: I’ve been following your blog and felt inspired to move away from a house full of dark furniture and lighten things up a bit. We had some dark clearance dining chairs that we … Read more

John’s close friend and cousin Travis is marrying my best friend Cat, which means my longtime buddy of nearly nine years is about to become family. It’s hard to believe, and the thought of seeing each other every Christmas fills us with excitement. John and I are thrilled to attend their wedding this weekend. When … Read more

Raise your hand if you think I’m obsessive about cleanliness. (I’ll pause while you do that.) I’ll admit I’m definitely Type A, but there’s a misconception that our house is always spotless, every faucet shined and every mirror pristine. In reality, we live like most people — clothes on the floor, mail in a pile … Read more

Some places simply aren’t suited to full-length curtain panels. When a panel can’t hang all the way to the floor, it can look awkward or out of scale. While short café curtains can work in certain settings, most of the time we either go all-in with floor-to-near-ceiling drapery or skip curtains altogether for that opening. … Read more

As we mentioned yesterday, it’s Blogiversary Week — we can hardly believe we’ve been at this for five years. To celebrate, we recorded a typical day from both of our perspectives so you can see what each of us (and even Clara and Burger) are up to at different times. Here’s a look at our … Read more

We love sharing small household traditions with you. There are so many inexpensive, simple ways to mark special dates and display meaningful items that make a home feel personal. For example, a while back we made vacation jars to save little mementos from our trips. We also like sending a postcard to ourselves after trips … Read more

Ok, here it is: the long-awaited crib post. First, we have to share how thrilled we are to be putting a mini-me mattress in the nursery. A little backstory: John and I started saving for an organic mattress last year because we were tired of sleeping on a hand-me-down. We actually kept a “mattress fund” … Read more

Many readers have asked—here, on Flickr, and on Facebook—how we create the weekly photos that document Clara’s first year. After answering several messages individually, we decided to write a concise how-to so anyone curious about our process can follow along. We love step-by-step projects, and photographing your family is an easy and rewarding DIY art … Read more

“Not funny.” That’s what I said when a tree branch across the street fell and took out our power yesterday, just two minutes before Richard the mason and his crew arrived. Fortunately, widening a brick wall is mostly manual labor—chiseling out bricks and cinder blocks didn’t depend on electricity. When the power came back about … Read more