Nobody talks about how hard long living rooms are to decorate. Every layout guide, every design tutorial, every “how to arrange your living room furniture” article on the internet is written for a roughly square room with reasonably proportioned walls and a sensible relationship between width and length. They show you where to put the…
There is a color that has been appearing on my saved folders, my screenshot collection, and my mental list of things I want to do to my own house for going on three years now. It is sage green. Specifically that particular version of sage green that is not quite grey, not quite green, not…
Let me tell you something that will save you a weekend of regret. The accent wall is one of those ideas that sounds straightforward until you are standing in the paint aisle holding fourteen sample chips, your phone showing you seventeen conflicting Pinterest boards, and a sales associate asking which wall you are thinking about…
My father-in-law pulled into our driveway two summers ago with four pallets sticking out of the back of his truck. “Saw these behind the hardware store,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “Thought you could use them.” I had no immediate plan. I just smiled and thanked him and stacked them against the garage wall,…
Getting ready in the morning should not feel like a battle against your own space. But for most people, it does. The makeup is in three different drawers. The mirror has one light source that casts shadows in exactly the wrong direction. There is nowhere to sit that is actually the right height. Products crowd…
The question I kept asking myself was: what actually makes a room Nancy Meyers? And more importantly — can an ordinary person with an ordinary budget in an ordinary house actually achieve it? The answer, I am happy to tell you, is yes. Mostly. With caveats. Read on. What the Nancy Meyers Aesthetic Actually Is…
Three summers ago, we had a 24-foot round above ground pool sitting in our backyard like a giant blue science experiment. No landscaping around it. No deck. Just the pool, some sad-looking grass that refused to grow around the base, and a plastic step stool my husband had rigged up that wobbled every single time…
I did not expect a book about tidying to make me cry. But there I was, sitting on my kitchen floor surrounded by everything I owned, holding a spatula I had not used in four years and genuinely asking myself whether it sparked joy. And it did not. And I put it in the donation…
We went back and forth on our driveway for probably three years. Our existing one was cracked asphalt, heaved up in two places by tree roots, and had developed this particular shade of tired grey that made the whole front of our property look a bit defeated. We knew it needed to go. But the…
There is a wall in my house that stared at me for almost two years. You know the one. That expanse above the sofa, or along the staircase, or across from the bedroom door that you keep meaning to do something with. You pull up Pinterest. You screenshot forty-seven things. You feel overwhelmed. You close…