***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries*** Sherry and I have a routine when it comes to painting rooms. She takes care of the edging—what painters call “cutting in”—and I handle the rolling. We like to argue, half-seriously, about which task is tougher. Some surfaces, like textured brick or high ceilings, make both jobs feel … Read more

Continuing a recent house-wide trend, Clara is the latest family member to get a ceiling fixture in her room. The new chandelier feels playful enough that Sia could probably break into song about it (“from the chan-de-li-eeeer!”). If it looks familiar, that’s because a previous version of this chandelier hung in our dining room. It … Read more

It’s Tuesday afternoon, so it feels like the perfect moment for a little honest overshare. Yesterday the very first copy of our book arrived via FedEx, and I’m still trying to process it. We were grinning like fools—“It’s real! It has pages! It has a cover! It has our names on it!”—but alongside the excitement … Read more

How I Fixed a Dead Pendant Light Without Calling an Electrician The other day I flipped on the kitchen lights and noticed one of the two pendant fixtures over the table wasn’t working. At first I assumed it was just a burned-out bulb — the previous owners left a spare bulb in the cabinet — … Read more

Our master bedroom already has a large, floor-length mirror—one of John’s surprise wedding gifts so I could check myself before stepping out the back door to get married—so the smaller mirror to the right of the bedroom door felt unnecessary. We decided to take advantage of the extra wall space and swap the mirror for … Read more

For nearly a year we’ve been reimagining our pool area to create a larger, more multi-functional outdoor space. You may remember seeing the pool installation a couple of years ago when we shared behind-the-scenes photos of putting in a pool. We absolutely love our pool and it quickly became the family’s favorite outdoor hangout. In … Read more

We always imagined modern, cheerful green leather parsons chairs around our chunky wood table from the moment we moved in. When we found cheap chairs and matching slipcovers, dyeing them green felt like an easy way to get that look. We tried it on two of the covers and quickly realized it wasn’t what we … Read more

Several people have asked how we’re preparing Clara for a new baby brother. Beyond giving her a baby boy doll when we learned it was a boy, most of our preparation has been simple and conversation-based. We’ve talked a lot about what it will mean to be a big sister, and she’s genuinely excited to … Read more

We usually keep up a little Thanksgiving ritual: filling our homemade Thanks Jar with notes of gratitude all through November. This year, our book tour kept us away for most of the month and we almost missed it. So this past weekend we squeezed the tradition in at the last minute and gave it a … Read more

Are you surprised we went thrifting again? I’m not. These chairs originally retailed at $90 each — $180 for the pair — then were marked down to $70 apiece. With an additional 50% off at the register, we ended up paying just $35 per chair, $70 for both. Considering similar metal versions at Ballard run … Read more