I’m back with another round of gifts my 12-year-old daughter thinks her friends would LOVE. But, first, I have to share a disclaimer: I’m buying only a few of these products for my daughter. I’m concerned about these girls’ focus on “skincare” and their desire for extremely expensive creams and serums. I love the idea that they’re taking care of their skin, but influencers have convinced them that they need very pricey products. It’s become a status symbol. I guess it’s no different…
My two girls are now 12 and 13, and it’s pretty tough for me to pick out the perfect gifts for them. They used to be happy with most toys or pajamas or candy, and now they have such strong preferences . . . it’s the way things are supposed to go, I guess, but it sure makes it hard to shop for them. To make things easier for you, my 12-year-old consultant gathered the top gifts that she recommends for girls her age. And because she recommends so much stuff, I need to do this in…
Some dear friends of ours live in a beach town in the south, and they have an adorable house in an artsy neighborhood. They’re raising kids and working full time. Their jobs are extremely important and rewarding — they work with people who are homeless and people who have disabilities — but it’s tough work that can be exhausting. With all they have going on, they haven’t had much time to devote to their home, and the wife asked me to brainstorm ideas. I was very happy to help, since designing on a budget…
This post is a bit outside the box for me, but I thought it would be fun! Over the past year or two, I’ve read some fabulous books that really stuck with me, and I’m happy to recommend them to anyone and everyone. Plus, I’d love to hear what books you’ve enjoyed — I’m always looking for the next one to read. Lately I’ve been loving historical fiction about women during the time of World War II. It’s a very specific genre, I know, but I…
Welcome back! Today I’m sharing how we updated one of the bathrooms at the beach condo. This house has two bathrooms, and we did a huge, expensive overhaul on the other bathroom that took weeks and weeks of my time. (Post on that one coming soon!) So for this bathroom, we wanted to make it look better without spending a lot of money or time. Here’s what it looked like when we bought the house. The room felt dingy and uninviting. And the shower was so old fashioned! It’s one of those full-piece…
I recently read this very fun book about parties — all kinds of parties! From adults’ birthday parties to kids’ parties to wedding showers, and it got me pumped up to host people more often. The book is Celebrate Everything, and the author is Darcy Miller. Here’s a sneak peek to show you how gorgeous the book is! I first read about Darcy’s parties in an issue of Martha Stewart magazine a few years ago, and my sister and I used some of Darcy’s ideas for our parents’ anniversary party. Darcy…
Have you heard of Gretchen Rubin? I’m a super fan of hers — I love the way she encourages her readers and listeners to seek moments of joy in daily life. So many of her ideas and suggestions resonate deeply with me. One of my absolute favorites is her suggestion to design your summer. Many of us look forward to summer — I certainly do! — but at the end of the season I often feel like I haven’t really enjoyed it as much as I’d planned. Daily life and my to-do list…
We finally have our finished photos from the beach place, and I’m so excited to share each room with you! First up is one of the easiest transformations — the fireplace. As you can see in the photos below, when we bought the place, the fireplace was pretty blah. It just wasn’t my style at all. And I felt like the black metal was pretty depressing, especially when compared to the beach decor. I was itching to do something . . . anything! Once we decided on the colors for the condo, I used the couch color and the…
A few weeks ago I was chatting with the guy who works in the framing department at Michaels, and I complained about how expensive it is to get things framed (despite the frequent sales at Michaels). He leaned across the counter and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “You should buy frames off the shelf and spray paint the mats.” Light bulb moment!! What a fantastic idea. I’m happy to report that this hack works really well! I painted the mat on the lower left in the picture above (Deep Forest by Rustoleum), and the final result…
For our beach house reno, our first task was to paint all the walls. Nothing had been painted for at least 30 years — when you removed any framed picture that was hanging on the wall, the square behind the picture was several shades lighter than the rest of the wall! Plus, the former owners had smoked inside, and the smell was ghastly. We thought some new paint might help with the odor. First, we removed everything from inside the house. We donated what we could, but most of the furniture was very dated, broken, or mildewed. We kept a…