Homes & Spaces

My frugal side and aesthetic side are always at odds. What's the right balance between budget-friendly and beautiful? How much is too much to spend on a house project? And on the flip side, will I regret being a cheapskate if I make too many decisions based on price? I often look to value for an objective measuring stick: if I can be confident that we've added more value to […]

This is a collaborative post. All opinions are my own. Ben and I were reflecting the other day on how we lived in a small, short-ceilinged basement apartment for FOUR years in Edmonds. In hindsight, I'm not sure how we did it; but at the time, our home didn't actually feel that tiny. I think it's because we made a lot of good design choices that made our small space […]

I'm starting this week with more kitchen talk...are you sick of it yet? Sorry. I have all these possibilities swirling in my head and writing them out helps me process and make decisions! In this post, I talked about a bunch of ideas we were considering for our cabinets. Well, I got a quote for painting them and it was a LOT ($2900, yowza). I could get more quotes, and I know […]

This is a collaborative post. All opinions are my own. I have a friend who recently got into home staging, and I've been having fun talking to her about her business. It's got me thinking about how staging a home to sell is very different from decorating it to live in. Staging is not about your own personal style--it's allll about making your home appear cleaner, grander, more spacious, and […]