Who doesn’t enjoy a long story about searching for the perfect dining table? Here’s ours. We’ve been hunting for a large round table almost since the day we moved in. When we first toured the house in late fall of 2010, John immediately suggested converting the small formal dining room into an office and adding … Read more

Call it a small step, but we’ve just completed our first project in the nursery. And yes, that was a pun. The room has had a dimmer switch since its days as a dining room, but for as long as we’ve lived here it never actually dimmed. It only turned the light fully on or … Read more

We’re thrilled to share that our home was recently featured on Canadian House & Home’s website. They contacted us to include our before-and-after photos in an online gallery showcasing inspiring projects from designers and bloggers, including well-known names like Grace Bonney of Design Sponge and Courtney Barnes of Style Court. We were delighted to be … Read more

When we discovered that Katie at All Bower Power drew inspiration from our bedroom makeover, we were excited to see how she put her own spin on the project. Katie took her room from this starting point… …and transformed it into this refreshed, inviting space. The result is a calm, stylish bedroom that balances comfort … Read more

We’ve had a lot of fun planning kids’ birthday parties with offbeat themes like worms and dragons (complete with a fire-breathing kid photo). After our last party post in 2014 — the “Pink & Gold Everything Party” — we took a year-long break from blogging. During that hiatus we wondered whether our enthusiasm for doing … Read more

Our new home has quite a few bi-fold doors. For example, there’s a pair separating the future dining room from the main hallway (refer to the floor plan to get your bearings): Nearby, another set closes off the hallway that leads to most of the bedrooms (we removed one of those doors to fit the … Read more

The weekend after we finished our big bathroom makeover, we drove up to the family beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware for a quiet, low-key getaway. It wasn’t that we were tired of looking at the new bathroom — we kept popping in just to admire it — but after so much hard work we wanted … Read more

Since many of you enjoyed that American accent quiz, we wanted to share another online linguistic tool that’s been getting attention — and with good reason: it’s quite accurate. This version comes from the New York Times and is based in part on linguistic data from Harvard, so the results feel well grounded. Like the … Read more

I’m back to share my monthly grocery-store bouquet—a sweet little tradition from the hubs. This month’s bouquet didn’t come from the store at all. We didn’t splurge on a florist; instead we wandered into our own backyard and clipped a dozen giant wild irises that have been popping up among the old boxwoods. Zero dollars, … Read more

After spotting a rain barrel at Matt & Kristin’s bungalow last fall, Sherry and I were eager to capture and reuse rainwater at our own home. We signed up for a local rain barrel workshop and are sharing what we learned so you can build one yourself. Why install a rain barrel? Positioned under a … Read more