Living Room Reveal When Dave and I were imagining the Babbling Brook spec home, we wanted to be able to offer more than a nice shell. We wanted to offer potential home owners the option to "take a home to the finish", if they wished. That's why today I'm sharing the living room, which was given the full designer treatment. Almost everything … Read More »
Blog
Respect What Is
Remodeling is a different animal than new construction, at least in the beginning. There are two wild cards to deal with: the surprises and the restraints. Sometimes they are one in the same. The surprises are self-explanatory. Case in point: in our last home, we ripped off a wood wainscot and there was no sheetrock behind it. It's never fun … Read More »
Who Will You Be, Even if it Doesn’t Work Out?
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.Marcus Aurelius I've noticed life is more about letting go than becoming. Probably because I have pushed so hard all my life to become. In high school, that meant practicing … Read More »
Unearthing
The artist is not the book. Or the movie. Or the startup. The artist learns that she is not to be held accountable to her first "you," but to her second.Steven Pressfield Interior design work is ramping up around here, so this week I found it funny and hard to try and get back into the creative mindset required to make art. I've been doing a lot … Read More »
Kitchen Renovation
Project Babbling Brook Hi everyone! This week I promised I would dive into my plans for the kitchen in our spec home. While we are carefully considering what should stay and what should go in the old part of the house, the kitchen was non-functional. The fridge was slammed next to the oven, and even though we assumed there was a dining table … Read More »
Project Babbling Brook
Building a custom home isn't for everyone. Initially the idea sound fantastic, right? We imagine the joy we'll feel each time you walk through our dream kitchen and how wonderful it will be to finally have "x". Out of the gate, however, you realize that your budget requires adjustments to the dream. That's disappointing, and by the end of … Read More »
Monogram
I know that the majority of this year has been spent writing about my painting journey, but I am going to break from that for a few weeks and talk about what's happening in the design world. Building season is starting, and we have a few things that I think you'll like to hear about. If you have been following me for any amount of time, you know … Read More »
Finding Time
The secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard.Tim Ferris This week I've been pushing my normal assumptions regarding time. I have swung from one extreme to another in different phases of my life. In college, I went through a period where I was getting about 3 hours of sleep to keep my grades high. That later came back to bite me. I … Read More »
Love the Plateau
Life is not designed to hand us success or satisfaction, but rather to present us with challenges that make us grow. Mastery is the mysterious process by which those challenges become progressively easier and more satisfying through practice. The key to that satisfaction is to reach the nirvana in which love of practice for its own sake (intrinsic) … Read More »
On Losing
Losing sets you up for winning. Losing makes you think in ways victory can't. You begin asking questions instead of feeling like you have the answers. Questions open up the doors to so many possibilities.Maria Sharapova, from Tribe of Mentors Meditation, 9x12 watercolor and ink This week I dove into (or rather, was thrown into) dealing with … Read More »
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 26
- Next Page »
