Delivering The Washington Post was my first real job — what 6th grader wouldn’t enjoy waking up at 5 a.m. every day? So it felt surreal and full-circle when this blog ended up featured in that very paper. My dad, who was my delivery partner back then, was understandably proud. We didn’t expect such a sizable feature, complete with a large cover photo in the Local Living section. After the initial vanity checks (“Is my hair weird? Does Clara look cute?”), we were thrilled and a bit stunned. Who are we, and how did this happen?
Below are a few shots of the newspaper from that issue (you can find the article online through The Washington Post archives). The piece ran in three parts and some pictures in the online versions differ slightly from those in the print edition.
We especially loved the call-out they created showing our old den with notes on where we found pieces and what we paid for them — it was such a thoughtful detail.
The Post even beat us to photographing a few projects we had been planning to share on the blog; because it takes us a few days to complete a project, photograph it, and write it up, they caught some things we were about to post. That was both funny and flattering, and it gave us a sneak preview of what to publish next.
We owe a big thank-you to the writer who covered us, Terri Sapienza. Terri was wonderful to have over — the interview felt relaxed and fun, not at all the intimidating experience we had imagined. She was a great guest, and we discovered some amusing overlaps between her family life and ours.
One of the most surreal moments was seeing that the paper quoted Nate Berkus about our work. We had met him previously and even appeared on his show as DIY experts and judges for a design challenge, so his endorsement meant a lot. His words about our approach — that it’s charming, smart, and could translate to television — left us speechless for a while. That reaction was mostly Sherry being utterly giddy; she literally couldn’t speak for ten minutes.
As flattering as the TV comment was, we’re not actively pursuing a television career. We love watching TV, but we’re not comfortable being television personalities. We prefer the relative anonymity and creative control of blogging. Also, putting the blog on hold for weeks of filming would leave us all suffering from withdrawal — and as Sherry likes to joke, we don’t want to “Jon & Kate” ourselves. The blog will remain our top priority.
Another piece of news revealed in the article is that we’re in the early stages of writing a book. It’s been a long process: after receiving interest from agents and publishers more than a year ago, we worked tirelessly on a proposal that eventually topped 150 pages. We sent it out, nervously waited for responses, and were thrilled to be signed by Artisan/Workman. For a while we worried they would change their minds, but the deal is real and we’re excited to move forward.
There’s still much to do — a full manuscript needs to be written — so we can’t describe the book in exhaustive detail yet. We do know it won’t be a glossy coffee-table design book or a scandalous tell-all. Our aim is to capture the approachable, don’t-take-yourself-too-seriously DIY spirit of the blog while offering fresh content that doesn’t simply repeat posts readers have already seen. It will include budget-friendly ideas and simple, fast projects that most people can tackle in their own homes.
Because book publishing takes far longer than blogging, we’re aiming for a fall 2012 release. We’re thrilled to finally share this news after months of keeping it quiet, and we’ll post more about the book-writing process for anyone interested in how proposals and publishing actually work.
That’s the big news on our end for now. We’d love to hear what’s new with you these days.
UPDATE: See our later post about the book-writing process for more details.