After my tile-laying extravaganza, the remaining tasks—grouting and sealing—seemed small by comparison. I had taken the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s off and planned several days to finish them, yet I found myself dreading the grouting. My dad called it “the pits,” and friends admitted it was the hardest part of tiling for … Read more

After sharing our guides for Charleston with kids and Palm Springs with kids, we received a lot of requests for more family travel ideas. So here’s a recap of our three-night trip to New Orleans. It was our first visit to the Big Easy, and we were pleasantly surprised by how family-friendly the city is—there’s … Read more

Back in 2006 we named our first dog Hamburger — aka Burger — when he was a tiny puppy. That moment sparked a long-running obsession with creative pet names. Over the years I’ve worked as a product namer, offered to name babies and pets for friends, and compiled lists of favorites like 200 Girl Dog … Read more

We enjoy sharing small household traditions because they’re an easy, inexpensive way to celebrate special dates and give your home a more personal, meaningful feel. Simple projects can turn everyday memories into visible keepsakes. For example, we once created vacation jars to hold little souvenirs and ticket stubs, a tidy way to display the highlights … Read more

Picking the perfect white paint can feel overwhelming. After testing many options, we settled on our one true favorite: Sherwin-Williams Pure White (SW 7005). It delivers the crisp, clean white most people want without common pitfalls like appearing too bright, too gray, or too yellow. Pure White is versatile enough for almost every surface in … Read more

We learned the hard way after our first house purchase, so this time we decided it was worth spending a few hundred dollars to have radon testing done as part of the home inspection. A local radon company performed a multi-day test to check for hazardous levels. We deliberately chose a tester that only conducts … Read more

Discovering a 1950s Dryer Manual During Spring Cleaning What began as an ordinary session of spring cleaning unexpectedly turned into a small archaeological discovery when Sherry found a relic from the past tucked away in a filing cabinet. Buried among papers and paperwork was an installation manual that turned out to be much older than … Read more

We’re back to share the results of the big cabinet clean-out we announced late last week and tackled over the weekend. In case you missed the starting point, those two chaotic double cabinets that held almost every non-refrigerated edible item in our kitchen were impossible to forget. After a few hours of sorting, purging, and … Read more

We have so many things to be thankful for this season, and you — our readers and friends — are right at the top of that list. Thank you for taking the time to stop by and see what’s happening at our place. Your curiosity, encouragement, and interest mean a lot to us, and we … Read more

We’re sharing a spontaneous pop-in episode to tell one of the most mortifying stories Sherry has ever shared on the podcast — of course it happened in the nicest house we’ve ever been in and in front of one of Sherry’s design heroes. We also cover what remains on our to-do list, answer the frequently … Read more