I don’t know why I always feel compelled to begin these holiday house tour posts by shouting “SMILING’S MY FAVORITE,” but there it is. ‘Tis the season. Here’s how we decorated the house for Christmas this year. As mentioned on last week’s podcast, we’re continuing our mission to simplify holiday decor: festive but not overwhelming, … Read more

Like our previous gift guides, we’ve gathered all three of our lists into one handy post. Here are the three categories we cover every year: Gift Ideas for Grown-Ups Gift Ideas for Kids Gift Ideas Under $12.99 We love creating these guides and include items we actually own, use, or plan to give to family … Read more

Last year, Lilly and her husband Markus spent Independence Day remodeling their tiny half bath, so we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of the makeover. Here’s Lilly’s account of the project: After living in our 1952 house for three years, I was thrilled to finally remodel the small but quirky powder bathroom that connects to our … Read more

First up: a free download for all of you lovely readers. We’ve made a little tradition of designing a homemade calendar each year, and even with our kitchen renovation underway we squeezed in a quick project while the wood putty dried. In past years our calendars were primarily text-based. For example, our 2010 calendar gathered … Read more

Remember when Clara was queen of the jellyfish? Good times. She has always loved pretend play, and we enjoy making things for her for birthdays and holidays—like a play kitchen, a dollhouse, a latch board, a figurine cubby, a patterned doll cradle, a colorful quilt, a cuckoo clock, and a beanbag pouf—so for her fourth … Read more

Drywall mudding and taping in the laundry room is progressing well. We’re two coats in and past the first round of sanding — we tried wet sanding this time and I’ll share how that went soon — but I’m still holding my breath until the third (and hopefully final) coat and primer are complete. That … Read more

A few years ago we started an exciting design project with a local builder that ultimately unraveled for reasons we hadn’t expected. It was disappointing then and still stings now, so this week we share what happened and what we learned. We also talk about a surprising secondhand score Sherry found for the beach house, … Read more

Today we kept working on removing the old balcony where the new deck will be installed (we were rained out yesterday), so we hope to have more progress photos to share soon — likely by Monday if all goes well.   In the meantime, we wanted to share a smart, budget-friendly kitchen idea that caught … Read more

As our demo made painfully clear, putting an old bathroom back together is a lot of work and full of surprises. We handled them all, but the project definitely kept us on our toes. My dad had recently completed two DIY bathroom remodels in his own home and generously volunteered his time, experience, and tools … Read more

Just like last year we decided to answer a bunch of random and personal questions from friends on Facebook and Twitter to celebrate our blogiversary. You all sent in over 200 questions, so we couldn’t answer every single one, but we picked a wide variety. Here are the responses — honest, imperfect, and true to … Read more