We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has encouraged us to “go rest” or who has told us it’s okay to catch our breath after the showhouse marathon and before the baby arrives. Your kindness means a lot. We’re still on-site every day, photographing each remaining room for the after photos and source lists, and we hope to record a video tour soon. Once we’ve finished documenting everything, we fully intend to take that long-overdue sit-down-and-breathe moment.
Amid the final chaotic week of showhouse work, something else happened that we had to mention: seeing our line of hooks and rails in the real world. It has been surreal and incredibly exciting to spot them on store shelves, in your hands, on your walls, and beside your dogs and babies. After living in our own little product bubble for so long, seeing your Instagram posts, tweets, and Facebook photos was a thrill. We can’t thank you enough for supporting this latest adventure of ours.
The collection began rolling out in Target stores last week and will be carried in most U.S. locations for a limited run. Fans started sending photos of the end cap before we ever saw it in person, which was a wild experience. When we finally found our products on the shelf, it felt like our brains exploded in the best possible way.
The home improvement aisles have a few new DIY items as well, such as paint and removable wallpaper. Target is even carrying our book in stores for the first time as an exclusive paperback edition, which was another meaningful milestone for us.
We also wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at a part of the process that surprised us: packaging design. We had focused so much on how the products looked that Liberty’s request for input on packaging caught us off guard. But once we began collaborating with their graphic design team, it turned out to be a fun and creative assignment.
The Liberty designers drew inspiration from the colors and themes that frequently appear on our blog and presented thoughtful options. We made a few deliberate tweaks together, such as removing a small gray heart pattern we typically use as a backdrop in favor of a cleaner, solid gray, and adding a wood-grain detail to the sides of the boxes to introduce texture and warmth.
That wood-grain detail has a little story: it wasn’t meant to be a stock image. During our product photography last November, someone suggested we photograph our actual kitchen table and use that image. Since the table had already become the de facto backdrop for other shots, using it on the packaging was an easy decision. So yes—what you see on the side of each box is a photo of our real kitchen table.
We were also involved in choosing the photos to appear on the back of the packages and in writing the accompanying copy. That allowed us to share personal inspiration behind a few pieces—like a child’s octopus painting paired with a ceramic octopus we gave Sherry years ago, or Burger, our four-legged muse, who makes his way into a few visuals. The same product descriptions appear in the “Overview” section for each item on Target’s website if you want to read them there.
Now that we can use the hooks without spoiling anything, we’ve put them to work around the showhouse, which is receiving most of our attention right now. We installed a wood hook rail in the girl’s bedroom after painting the room Blue Lake by Benjamin Moore and added mix-and-match oil-rubbed bronze hooks for contrast. That version includes a ledge, which provides useful extra storage.
In the boy’s room we used the rail without a ledge and added a diagonal band of Citron yellow along the bottom, applied with painters tape, while leaving the top edge as raw wood for a simple, playful look. In the master closet we installed a trio of doorknob hooks—two larger beaded knobs flanking a smaller hex knob—but we still need to photograph that room for the site. We’re working on capturing more after photos today and hope to share them tomorrow.
We’re still kind of in awe that these products are out in the world after nearly three years of development, and we’re deeply thankful for your support. On a personal note, if everything goes according to plan and our son arrives on Wednesday the 16th—Sherry’s scheduled date—that would make this the last Wednesday we have as parents of one (two if you include Burger), which is both thrilling and surreal. Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Update – Some of the most common questions we get are about blogging: how we started, how we grew our following, and how we turned it into a full-time job. We shared the full details about how we started a blog, grew our traffic, and turned it into a career.