2025 was a big year for EHD, full of more “ups” than “lessons” (which is all you can really ask for), and I feel enormously grateful to still be here. We are closing out the 15th year of the blog, which is wild (that’s most of my adult life!). Some of you have been hanging out with me since I was 30 and watched me win Designstar, host a TV show, have two kids, buy our first home (then move three times), write two books, explode the business (in both a good and bad way), reign it back in and y’all, if you read frequently you really do know me. I could cry when I think about it in a macro way. Thank you so, so much. This year felt full of so much hard work and fun, with my team killing it to create so much daily content on so many platforms. We have systems that really work (amid a ton of necessary flexibility), which is remarkable since we are so lean (me + my 5 full-time crew + Kaitlin, who shoots everything, and Arlyn, who freelances and contributes weekly). It was a record year of reveals (forty!) and a lot of personal growth (what else is mid-life for?).

In January, we added our fantastic social media manager, Marlee, to the team, which was the missing piece that we all needed. Marlee rounds out the awesome Portland crew of Gretchen (producer and stellar right hand) and, of course, our wonderful photographer Kaitlin, along with Jess (editorial director), Mal (email marketing and social manager), and Caitlin (partnerships and revenue), who are killing it from LA. Our workflow really fell into place mid-year with the more filled-out team, which felt sooo good to all of us. Our numbers even grew, which is exciting to see after 15 years in. And while there are always some failings and learnings (life inside digital media is wild, folks), we have such a good rhythm with a dialed-in team that cares so much, loves the work, and is willing to pivot or try new things all the time (or support me when I say no to opportunities). I feel extremely grateful for each of them every day and just really hope that I can continue to offer career growth for as long as possible (I want them to stay here! But more importantly, I want them to thrive individually, so I feel lucky every day they commit to me and allow EHD to be where they work). Like Ester Perel says, “the quality of your life is the quality of your relationships,” so the love inside the EHD team really is the biggest highlight:) But let’s wrap up all the other stuff anyway!

Room Service Sofa Shoot

We started the year with our Room Service sofa line shoot, which we did at three different locations, over 8 days. It was A LOT and so fun (Gretch killed it at producing). I learned a lot from this (I probably overshot and overspent – whoops), but loved that we did it all in-house and created such beautiful photos and videos. The tariff situation made us move factories from Mexico to Texas, which required new samples, extra shoots, and more trips for approval. But we are proud they are made in America and can get to you much faster. And thanks to you all who have left reviews – it makes a huge difference in both the Wayfair algorithm and in sales.

Friends & Family Makeovers

What a gift to get to help my friends and family while also doing my “job”. Two of my life-long best friends, Robyn and Nicole, live up here (which was a huge reason I moved back), but we are all so busy with multiple kids and big careers, so by designing their homes, I got an excuse to spend more time with them and really integrate myself into their schedules more often. And I truly couldn’t be happier with how both of them turned out.

Robyn’s living room turned out painfully cozy – I was so jealous. Every time I walk in, I think, “damn, this is such a pretty room.“

Nicole’s home, I mean, what an honor to be able to style and decorate it. They love great design and were willing to do almost everything I said. This is the same team that owns The Carly (which Max designed), so you definitely can tell they care about design.

Seems clear to me from both projects that I’m really into this blue + green + rosey/burgundy color palette. More friends and family projects coming at you in 2026:) But man, those two were so gorgeous.

Renovating The Garages

Probably the most life-changing project we did this year for the business was remodeling our vintage garages, turning them into the most epic prop and furniture storage (and studio).

If you didn’t see that full reveal (with epic before and afters), please go check it out. And a huge thanks to my brother’s company, Afore Construction, for GC-ing this project. It involved far more logistics than I had predicted, and it’s just so rad and functions so well.

Finishing The Backyard

I’m not sure what else to say besides I’m so grateful for this home and property, and I love sharing it. We really pulled the bandaid off and decided to finish (almost) all the messy stuff at the same time (outdoor kitchen, landscaping, pickleball court), and I couldn’t believe it was done in time to enjoy summer.

While I have persistently feared about my kids growing up with this abundance, this yard was used and abused by hundreds of people this summer, and felt like a community hub. And celebrating and connecting with neighbors, friends, and family feels pretty dang good.

Two Epic Team Retreats

Being long-distance is hard no matter what relationship you are in, so I really try to get us all together 2-3 times a year to stay connected. Most of the team came up for the sofa shoot to be a part of it in January (Caitlin couldn’t due to family stuff), and then we headed out to The Carly in May and Manzanita in September (both are rentable, BTW, and incredible places).

Man, I’m getting so sentimental. It was just such a stacked year, and I couldn’t do it without these women whom I care about so much. We vision-boarded, shopped, planned, brainstormed, cooked, drank, and watched garbage TV.

It will never be lost on me how lucky I am to work with these talented, fun women, and for so many years now. Very excited for our 2026 retreats (thinking Joshua tree in winter and who knows where in spring and fall – any suggestions?).

We Finally Started The Guest Cottage

It was time. And at first it felt daunting, but now that I reframed it as a low-pressure, experimental design project where I get to learn (almost) every trade and craft, I’m so excited to get more into it. If you haven’t caught up on this, it’s the 1850s original farmhouse that needs all the things. Read these blog posts if you want to deep dive into the project:

• The First Tour Inside Our 1850s Carriage House – Let The Restoration Begin!!!!!
• DIYing The OG “Homestead” – The Carriage House Exterior “Before” Tour
• Our Guest Cottage Inspection Report – WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER???
• What Are We Really Doing With Our Guest Cottage? Is There A Budget? And Other Burning Questions Answered
• How Big Is The Guest Cottage? All The Dimensions And Floor Plans For Us To Geek Out Over
• How Much Will It Cost To Remove Asbestos And Lead Paint From Our Guest Cottage (+ What I’m Willing To Do Myself To Save Money)
• Our Guest Cottage Update: How Much Will The Foundation Repair Cost???
• Guest Cottage Update – How Do You Design A House If You Don’t Know How You’ll Use It????
• We Demo’d The Guest Cottage Ourselves – Here’s How It Went
• The Guest Cottage – What Do We Do With The Sliding Train Rack Door??
• Why Is The Guest Cottage So Much More Fun To Design Than Any Other House Ever?????

The River House Reveal!! In A Print Magazine!

I worked on my brother’s house for 4 years, and not only is it done, but we got an 8-page spread in a major print magazine, Better Homes and Gardens. Print media is not dead, folks. And I’m honored to be in it. It’s always really great for business (my brand partners really value IRL mentions in print) and just feels special. My parents were pretty delighted to see two of their kids in a magazine together.

It felt like such a great culmination of so much hard work and fun. Now, we still have their sons’ room to do (and maybe the pantry and front patio), and you’ll see some partnership content being published early next year, but for the most part, it’s a wrap. I absolutely loved doing this project, especially with my brother and sister-in-law. I know that it wasn’t terribly relatable (budget-wise), so we tried hard to really show the process, with design content that felt more universal or personal to my brother and his family. I learned so much – about designing a new build, and about my own design process. One of the best gifts of this job (or any creative career, really) is that you’ll never design the same thing twice, so you are always learning, gathering experience, making mistakes (some preventable, some unpredictable), and that process makes the job feel so rich and fulfilling. Especially when it’s over, and you love it (thank god!).

Our AI Comment Monitoring

Finally, a reason to celebrate AI! A personal highlight for me was the ability to read and respond to comments again, now that we had AI technology that filtered out anything too mean-spirited. We’ve monitored and approved comments for years, but I would still accidentally see the “unapproved” comments in the backend when I went in to reply to the nice comments (as you do when you are logged in). So this filter put the “mean-spirited” comments in a folder that Caitlin (our non-AI human) would then go in and manually publish (or delete). The filter wasn’t perfect, and many of my replies even got filtered out at first, but it was a night-and-day difference for my anxiety. And I know that not all of you agreed with this, which I get, but what I can’t express enough is that while I’m very not perfect (I’m pretty aware of my faults and my privilege – and the two are very correlated), I try really hard to be a net positive in the world (and so does my team). And if/when I’m riddled with anxiety, this blog suffers – I become so guarded that it’s a shell of what it used to be, or I dive into an avoidance spiral and barely show up at all. There is a reason why most bloggers have moved on or burned out, and the negativity on the internet from strangers is high on the list. So this is to protect our mental health (my team’s included) and keep us focused on the work, connecting with you all, which we enjoy immensely. And don’t worry, I’m not living in a bubble, surrounded by yes people. We receive feedback and shift all the time (and some of it is very, very uncomfortable for me to hear, but I’m always grateful once I process it in a healthy way). But this is a place that I want people to enjoy coming to, including us. We want people to feel better while here, not worse. It’s a home design blog with, yes, a lot of my personal life, which could be triggering (and I get it, I have people on the internet that trigger me, too), so this tech has made me able to enjoy the conversation. It’s like it’s 2010 again 🙂 Anyway, I don’t want to harp on it much more, but it’s so nice to avoid the few bad apples, and so I can focus on most of you are so wonderful, well-meaning, and full of helpful suggestions or constructive criticism. Thank you so much for being here.

Some Learnings…

Sure, our rug-line got cancelled (which I wrote about here), and we got hacked so many times that I had to invest in urgently rebuilding and migrating the site on the fly (which was stressful and costly). I learned a lot about myself and the business from both of those situations, which is very humbling and then empowering. And some content flopped while others went viral – such a mystery! Our YouTube video series on the guest cottage was so good and fun in my opinion (Gretchen and Marlee tag-teamed there, and I LOVED what they created). And yet the views were low (for the amount of time it took to create), so we are constantly trying to understand “why” and improve, pivot, or just let go and move on. I’ll never feel fully like I know what I’m doing, and every year is just so different. And if I’m being honest, I’ve dove even further into spirituality, which has helped me immensely feel more aligned and connected to the world, my family, my creativity, you, and of course, the Universe or God. I’ve felt much more content, letting the other stuff fall away. And let’s face it, the world feels so bleak right now, with so much suffering that not appreciating our blessings and practicing gratefulness would be criminal. But going into a new year, you KNOW I have some resolutions, improvements, things I’m excited to see if I can shift in my life.

Anyway, thank you so much for being here and allowing us to still be here. We really, really love it, and we know that it’s a privilege to love what you do so much. While there is no perfect job (and all of us have annoying tasks that we dread or avoid), we know that being able to create design content for a wide, supportive audience is such a gift. And the fact that we are still here has so much to do with you, the daily readers who help us feel supportive even as the blogging world continues to disappear. We made it 15 years, folks. January 1 marks the beginning of year 16, and I’m really, really excited to see where it leads. So much love, Emily.

Opening Image Credits: Photo by Kaitlin Green | From: Announcing Our First Furniture Collection: ROOM Service by Emily Henderson

This one is for those who want the “hot goss(ip)” – all things behind the curtain and under the hood in the life/business categories. Remember when that’s what blogs were? We just blabbed, stream of consciousness, and people had long attention spans and would read every word? All hail long form content!!!! Anyway, we have finished a few big things (my brother’s house, our outdoor kitchen/garages), so there is a bit of a “what’s next” floating around both internally and externally. The funny thing about being a home design content creator (versus fashion or food) is that you need new rooms to always be designing, new projects to always be announcing and launching. It’s pretty wild and yet just part of the job. Every year, the landscape in digital media feels different – both emotionally, professionally, and financially (not to mention politically) and navigating it is truly a version of The Hunger Games (competing against the algorithms, not each other). And listen, digital/social media isn’t uniquely affected by huge tech and societal swings, it’s just part of the game that frankly I’m grateful I still get to play, but sometimes don’t know what weapon I’m even supposed to hold. But I figured for those who might care (or are just super curious), I’d talk through all the things we are thinking. Here’s what’s up:

The Guest House/Carriage House

As a reminder, this is the 1850s original farmhouse on our property that needs to be restored. This project is moving forward, but has already slowed down due to waiting on foundation quotes. Well, that and I’m terrified at how much it’s going to cost. The first quote came in, and Brian and I looked at each other like, “Are we really doing this?”. We knew it would be a lot of course (and I we are still on the fence about sharing real numbers, TBH) but it’s made us reconsider how we are doing it, and frankly, we have to figure out the best way to pay for this project. We really want to be as smart about this as possible, and I’m genuinely excited to get my hands dirty, experiment, and learn. So we are still going to do it, don’t worry, but it’s not this super easy, fast process for many reasons – both personal and financial. As many of you pointed out, restoring this 1850s fixer won’t necessarily be the best “investment” in regards to resale, but if I can use it as a project house for our business and create content that drives more business, then it could still be worth the investment. It’s certainly a risk (isn’t everything?). I think getting through the first round of major non-exciting expenses will help, and I have to remind myself that we can get a line of credit, pay slowly over time, and leverage my job to help offset the labor costs that we can’t do ourselves. But here’s the official update: We recently went to the Oregon Historical Society to get as much info as possible, and the guy who was helping us hurt his back and has all the info in his locked work computer, so we are waiting and dying to find out. We have 4 foundation quotes coming in, and our asbestos and lead abatement quotes are already in the works. I love my job, and if money were no object, I would be making these big financial decisions much faster, trust me. I am learning so much about the process, though, with the quotes, methods, and “best practices” thus far being so different (and often contradictory). Who do we trust???? Anyway, I’m so glad that we pursued many more foundation repair quotes because the first one was the most terrifying (and I loved the guy so much), and crossing fingers that doing less work is the right move.

More Personal Posts Or Brian’s Substack?

I’ve wanted to write about more personal things (not design-related), so Brian and I have been seriously considering a Substack for over a year now. In fact, we’ve written so many articles already, we shot photos and promo videos for it, and we aren’t settled on the name, but we are so close (What do you think about “The Belly Flop”?). He’s taking the lead on this, and he’s in the final stages of editing his book, so we’ve been in a holding pattern for a bit. He would write about more male-driven topics – i.e., lead parenting, marriage, masculinity in 2025, what it’s like to be married to me, lol, and I’d write more about the insides of this nutty business, Mormonism, sex, social media, motherhood, etc. There are many times when I think “just publish it on the blog like you used to” because I know these juicier posts would do really well here, but unfortunately there are people out there who would weaponize our vulnerabilities, insecurities (and successes) and take things out of context, so having them behind a small paywall makes us feel safer (all of that can and will still happen here of course, but less so). The anxiety that I feel when I almost publish a more personal post is just not worth it to my mental health any longer, so they get stuck in “drafts”. We know that we have perspectives that are relatable and valuable, especially Brian’s, honestly. Would love any feedback on that (and know that for long-time readers who have left positive comments, I can give out coupon codes to read for free). Anyway, it’s happening soon one way or another, so just dropping it here first.

Design Coaching – What’s Up With Pete And Chrissy’s Kitchen?

This was our first foray into coaching someone else through their remodeling stress. We hoped to be there to bounce ideas off or weigh in to help avoid problems. Now turns out Chrissy and Pete were pretty dang capable (and had great design sense/taste), so we kept checking in like “do you need anything from us?” and while we did help problem solve their layout, they honestly did such a great job without needing too much from us. As predicted, there are things outside our control that have affected the timing of the reveal – but they are like 90% done and it looks awesome (we seriously can’t believe they DIY’d so much themselves). Pete has taken a 2-month job in Kentucky, and the whole family (yes, three kids) is headed out there for a bit. They get back in December, but I would never put a huge shoot on a parent’s calendar in December, especially when the house is decorated for Christmas. So our plan is to shoot in January and reveal asap after that. We started a second design coaching client this week – another kitchen in our neighborhood by a reader that honestly just made it too hard to say no to (and the proximity to our house makes it so easy). I’m really enjoying these, and am learning what works content-wise and where our help is most needed. Which brings me to…

Fast Budget Styling Makeovers In 2026 – YES!!!

I joke all the time that my dream job, once I “retire” (likely never), is to do quick, budget restyling makeovers. These rooms would be already “good” or even “pretty good,” but they need my help to make them better. We’d need total creative control (of course), on their budget, and in a few days. Think speed shopping, easy DIYs, thrifting, shopping their home – real people, real money, real time. They’ll give initial ideas/needs/wants of course, but then that’s it – we get to do our thing and “Ta Da!” I’ve done this with so many of my friends as favors over the years on weekends, and it’s incredibly fun, so why not try doing this on the blog? We wouldn’t get paid, but we’d shoot it all and turn it into hopefully fun content here. We are starting our first one soon, and we’ll see how it goes 🙂 My hope is that they are a low lift, but high impact, and they can be consistent. More to come soon.

Jess’ and Caitlin’s Makeover Takeover!

Ok, you guys are being super patient here, but you also have to remember that people have personal lives that they may not be sharing, which affects their design time and reveal schedule. But I get the excitement to see what they’ve done – I want to, too!!! Good news, Jess shot her living room and bedroom last week!! Caitlin’s is scheduled for October. Gretch has a super fun guest room update coming soon, too. Its all in the works! Just takes time and resources (we have a new program to help get them executed more swiftly).

Kaitlin’s Bathrooms

They are ALLLLMOST done, I promise. This one falls more in the design coaching category – We are just helping Kaitlin out with product and any design advice she needs (as well as publishing and creating content). She has great taste and style, and she hired my brother’s company, Afore, to execute it all. They are able to use the bathrooms now, just waiting on the glass doors to go in and the skylights to be finished. They are looking extremely cute and just so “her”. We are shooting mid-October for a reveal asap after that.

The Rest Of The River House – Are We Done??

Yes! and …. no. We still have to reveal a few of the rooms that I’m so excited to show you (living room, game room, and dining room), and we haven’t touched Frank’s room (their 7-year-old son) or the pantry, which we still want to do (and Frank is definitely like, “what about me??”). Both are great January projects. Technically, they have a basement to turn into a rompous room/gym, and we’ve never shot the front of the house, which has a huge patio so there might be some more River House reveals in the future (and honestly they are just really fun for us because we have complete creative/shopping freedom to spend someone else’s money:))

The Future Of The Blog (And Some Drama)

We are currently in the beginning process (again) of redesigning and rebuilding this site. Last year, we had some pretty devastating hacking that occurred over and over and over, which was a massive problem for many readers and cost tens of thousands in security repairs for my IT team. So behind the scenes, my IT team rebuilt the site without redesigning it for it to be safer, but it had to happen really FAST so no time to redesign or rebrand. Basically, I was told that our former version of WordPress (the blog platform) was so old that it was like having a vintage car that you can’t find the parts for, and it was so easy to hack. So we did a fast and dirty rebuild, migrated everything over with the intent of a full redesign/rebrand in 2026. As my team knows, this is not my strength (which is why I let it go for so many years) – it’s just so intimidating, daunting, expensive, and frankly, the way media is going, it’s hard to know how much to invest in a “website”. But during our retreat, we brainstormed the site, how to make it the best for daily readers, and how to make it the most useful and reader-friendly for people just dropping in when they need help with design, renovation, or shopping. It really helped to narrow it down, hone in on priorities, and then organize the site based on that. I’m finally so excited about it. Turns out that while daily readers like process posts, the new person who lands here randomly will rarely seek them out. So we had to cull through so much data to know what really needs to stay, how to categorize, etc. It’s not going to necessarily change the content much, just where it lives permanently after it’s not that day’s post. We are also optimizing more for efficient renovation guides and clear shopping for those just in search of the best counter stool. A huge thanks to Paul and Flywheel Agency for helping us navigate it all the last 8 years, and to my team who hold my hand and give me confidence through all the stuff that is just not my strength. But sites as big as ours aren’t built in a few weeks for a few thousand dollars – nope. They take months and months and cost more than you’d ever want to know 🙂 So, crossing fingers you’ll love it!!! (Obviously very open to suggestions/ideas!!)

Love For Portland!

Portland has been in the news a lot lately due to Trump calling it “war-ravaged” and “like living in hell,” and subsequently calling in the national guard to help quell some ICE protests. I’m not here to talk politics, but you should know that there was nothing violent happening in Portland that warranted this action last week. And sure, in 2020 (before we lived here), there were some serious problems with protests. But it’s not a thing right now (at least wasn’t when he announced it). Trump has admitted to looking at outdated footage that isn’t accurate or current. Everyone in Portland was honestly so confused about what he was talking about. My friends drove by the ICE building to see for themselves and sent photos of 8 peaceful protestors (this was on Monday). I’m not saying its perfect here, but no where is. Our public schools are underfunded, our small business taxes are high, and yes, we’re also suffering from the nationwide housing crisis. But Portland is such an incredible place to live, raise our kids, in a vibrant community full of creativity and acceptance, near world renowned nature, and still with big city culture. Living here is wonderful and beautiful, and I sincerely hope that this activation doesn’t actually cause the violence that he hoped to quell, misguided as it was.

Media – What A Mystery You Are!!!??

We know that every few years things change, and you really have to embrace it or you’ll spiral into an existentialist pit where you question your relevancy and purpose while crying in the shower (for instance). AI and TikTok disrupted our lives so fast, like in one year, things drastically changed. And listen, we’ve been here before. Magazines were killed by blogs, blogs were killed by Pinterest and Instagram, and Instagram was almost killed by TikTok (turns out too many consumers like me don’t want to be on TikTok, so thank god there is still a huge audience and brand money on IG). We are still here and thriving (thanks to you and my team). But now with AI scraping all our years of educational design content (not to mention my two books – and yes I’m part of that lawsuit) our numbers are being challenged because what used to be a big “Google hit” (like how high to hang your curtains) is now being answered by an AI bot before they scroll down to find the original writer of the content. And people are more easily entertained on their phone than on a website. All things I get!! It is what it is, and we saw it coming and have diversified enough to be a healthy, robust business. And honestly, I’m just still so grateful to be here doing this, while raising my kids, and if I only got to do 50% of what I’m doing now for the rest of my life, I’d still feel lucky. I tell myself all the time that after the kids go to college, I really think I have a third act in me, but right now, the opportunity cost of trying to grow the business, while not seeing my kids, is just too great and not worth it.

But What About Product Lines??

I’ve loved doing the rug and sofa line. They really pushed my team and me to grow in ways that were so fun. New muscles to flex, etc. And will always pursue the right opportunity should we feel compelled – both emotionally and financially, or if we see a clear hole in the market. But it’s not always seamless behind the scenes (lol). With the sofa line, we had to move the entire operations from Mexico in April when the first tariffs were announced, making them now in Texas. This obviously created a decent amount of stress (not to mention shifting the revenue while trying not to raise the prices). I flew down multiple times to tweak and approve, tweak and approve, and I’m so grateful that they were patient with me and they did an incredible job. I’m so proud of them and so grateful for my team’s talents. With the latest high percentage tariff gauge on upholstered furniture, I guess we are as grateful as ever that they are American-made. That’s all to say that we are continuing to expand the line and see where it goes! We are in talks with another rug manufacturer whom we love, and hoping it’s a good fit for all, but if it’s not, that will be ok, too. The world is full of so many opportunities, some we earn from and others we learn from (ideally both).

Meanwhile, on the Henderson family front, Brian and the kids are healthy and thriving, which is honestly all that matters. Most nights and weekends are us doing sports, playing pickleball, or watching Survivor after dinner. They are truly my favorite people to hang out with, which I honestly didn’t predict (I knew I’d love my kids, but I didn’t know that we’d have so much fun together). Elliot is my life-buddy (I won’t say best friend because it’s too cringey, but y’all, we are totally best friends). We have so much in common, and we really, really get each other, which makes parenting pretty enjoyable right now. Recently, we were both sick all weekend, and we binged “My Life With The Walter Boys”. I was secretly like “this is my favorite day ever – being sick with her was so cozy and comfortable” and then got nervous that I was being a little Munchausen-y (if you haven’t watched Unknown Caller yet – OOF). Charlie worships Brian (in the best way possible), and they connect in ways that I only get to admire (sports, comedies, and so many farts), but Charlie and I play chess every day, and no one can tuck him in like a burrito like I can. So thankfully no serious drama here yet 🙂 The kids are unhappy with our family media policies, and frankly, if you asked them, they would love more sugar. LOL. Brian and I just celebrated 25 years together (19 years married), which is increasingly incomprehensible. How is that even possible?

That’s the update. As always, THANK YOU for being here and hope you’re excited for what’s coming up. xx

So so so many of you have DM’d or commented asking a lot of questions about what happened to our rug line – why am I not on the site anymore, and do some of our rugs have a new name? It’s been confusing, so here goes!

Why Aren’t You On The Website Anymore?

Well, I’m no longer collaborating with them – they cancelled the collaboration. After 2 lines with Rugs USA (2 years), the second one in particular selling very well, they made the decision to break it off.

Why Was It Cancelled?

I don’t totally know, but there has been leadership change and financial shifts. Different CEOs get to change the direction of the company under their watch to meet their goals (usually under pressure from their board of directors, debtors, and investors). Essentially, financial shifts changed their marketing budgets, and collaborations are always part of the marketing budget, so we are always vulnerable to this when there are large leadership changes (this isn’t the first time this has happened). Pretty standard business, honestly. The line was doing very well, but Rugs USA needed to make some changes, and so I’m sure a lot was on the chopping block, including their influencer/designer collaborations.

Did You See It Coming?

Kinda. Again, when we heard about the changes at the top, you always wonder if they’ll retain the relationship – its their call and again, I’ve been through this before with new CMO’s at other brands. Different visions = different strategies. At first, we were told about the marketing personnel changes, then bigger marketing shifts. I knew could happen. A week later, decisions were made.

Are You Bummed?

Sure. We worked really hard on these, and the revenue was great for EHD – myself and the team. We were really proud of them, and the entire process was a super positive experience. Had it been fraught, we would likely have had a different reaction, but it was really great, so we are sad to not work with them anymore. But I also know that businesses have make hard decisions at times (all the time, really). Zero hard feelings – it’s just business.

Was It Because They Didn’t Sell?

Nope. The sales were high. But listen, Rugs USA brought a lot to the table, including in-house designers and a massive population of people who shop from them regardless of them knowing me or not. It was great marketing for us. I get the need to cut costs in hopes of retaining more of the profit. I’ve done similar moves in the past when I was in had skyrocketing overhead – you hope you can do the same volume with less costs (and sometimes you totally can). I have no insight into their business beyond what I read in a Wall Street Journal article. Everyone is vulnerable and hard decisions have to get made at times, so I really do understand the reaction, and only time will tell if that was the right thing to do.

Do You Regret Doing It?

No! We learned so much, met such awesome people (their marketing team was so incredible – totally changed the brand to be way more design forward, cool, stylish), and my team got to develop and flex different muscles. Plus, we made money, so it really was a win, regardless of how it turned out.

Are You Looking For Another Rug Partner?

Yes!… As of today. Because it was such a success, we feel confident that we can work with another company we love and produce as good, if not better, rugs for us and you. We have a lot of revenue streams, thank goodness, so this is just one that is down for a bit, but we are genuinely excited to find the right partner and give it another go.

The Biggest Bummer…

I designed (and already shot) my brother’s river house to highlight these rugs. It’s going to be in a big magazine spread (with rooms you haven’t seen yet), so not making any money off of that design and marketing work on our end is a huge bummer. Sure, we can link to them and make a tiny affiliate commission (usually 3-5% of the retail cost, depending), so we’ll still link to them. But when you literally design a house based around your own designs, excited to show people how good it looks in this home that you’ve spent 4 years working on, and then it’s no longer your line…well, yeah, that’s a bummer. I still stand by the rugs – they look so good in my brother’s house, and I’m not changing them out.

Can They Still Use Your Photos And The Names Of The Rugs?

Yep. People are extra confused by this but If they paid for the shoot and the production of the rugs, they own usage (even if it’s in my home and named after my kids or my maiden name – Starke!). So if you see photos of them at the mountain house or our house, it’s all legal and on the up and up!

If We Buy Them Does EHD Benefit?

Kinda? We can still use affiliate links when we feature the rugs here or on social (links that pay out the influencer a tiny percentage of the sale price from the retailer, at no cost to the consumer). So we’d be silly not to link to the rugs when we feature them on past or my brother’s project, but it’s not the royalty that we used to get, it’s pretty minimal. I still think they are great rugs, and right now they are on a massive sale (they might be discontinuing them, which is why they are on such a huge 40% off sale).

Man, it’s fun to see them all together like this.

I’m seriously so proud of my team for their hard work on this, especially Jess, who helped lead the design process. The line did really well, we had a ton of best sellers that we loved, and again, we learned so much about the design and manufacturing process. RugsUSA was a fantastic partner, the design and marketing team particularly rad. And listen, running a business, especially a business rooted in digital marketing, we have to be fluid and willing to pivot pretty quickly (lord, we know how much TikTok and AI are disrupting otherwise historically solid platforms – ha, I use the word “historically” very loosely). It requires us to be nimble, not sensitive and also to have a lot of different revenue streams, so if a solid one (like this) gets cut in one day, we are totally fine. It’s always a great reminder to stick to our core values and audience, and while growing forward is great, growing bigger comes with its own risks. A huge thanks to all of you who bought the rugs, love them, and cared enough to ask.

We’ll keep shopping from Rugs USA when we need a great affordable rug for now. 🙂 Onward and Upwards!!

Unless Otherwise Noted:
*Styled by Getteline Rene
**Photos by Mark Weinberg

Oh, how I love a team retreat – I get both excited and nervous and afterwards feel both so full and exhausted (in a good way!). Like all aspects of our lives, Zoom is never a substitute for in-person (IRL) connection. I have found that, like a long-distance romance, the more time we go without seeing each other, the harder it is to stay healthy and connected. We have multiple big shoots a year that most of us need to be on, but this year, someone was missing from all of them – in fact, this was the first time that Caitlin (LA) met Marlee (Portland) outside of Zoom. The LA team flew up and we went out to Oregon Wine country for three wonderful nights and today I’ll tell you all about it if you want 🙂

How I Plan Retreats…

Being a Virgo/Enneagram 7 is a real dangerous combination – I’m REALLY into having fun, but I fear that I’m also a bit controlling and rigid about how, when, and where we have said fun (and plan it down to the hour to ensure it’s ample, but not overwhelming). I always ask their input, but once they agree, they are mostly held hostage by my planning, which I personally think is a strength of mine (but, of course, I would think that). I really try to pack it in with unique, memorable experiences you can only get at the location we are in, and I splurge a lot to make sure we do it right. …And yet I had some real bossing to do this time. I needed to present my new employee handbook, with new PTO policies, updated bonus and commission structures, reworking a lot of workflow for efficiency, setting big and small goals, and lots of macro and micro brainstorming. Leading a team, running a company is so much like parenting for me – extremely fulfilling and gratifying, but not all parts of it come naturally to me. I can see my bad personality and management tendencies so clearly on a daily basis, and I actively have to fight against them. And yet other parts of the business I can sink so easily into and flow so well. At times I wish there was someone in operations, or HR, or finance (my “integrator” if you have read Rocket Fuel, a great business book for creatives) and yet, I want to stay a very lean company so I’ve made the choice to mostly take on those roles – for better or worse. Which brings me to this…

The A Team!

I am seriously so lucky to have ladies who have dedicated their work life to this company (to me and to YOU) for so long. As a reminder, I have 3 employees in LA still and 2 in Portland, with Kaitlin (our freelance photographer) being an honorary Portland team member. Jess, my editorial and creative director, is celebrating 9 years soon, Caitlin (queen of partnerships and revenue) and Mal (social media + marketing) celebrate 6 years in a few weeks. Gretch (my right-hand producer/creative ride or die) just celebrated her 2nd workaversary, and adding our newest social media manager, Marlee, is 4 months in and a much-needed final puzzle piece (Like finding a GD needle in a haystack!!! We found her!!! ). They are all so talented and creative and care, bringing different strengths to the team, and I consider being their boss/leader one of the greatest responsibilities and privileges of my life. Being so small means that we can all have deeper relationships with each other, which takes more work to remain connected and healthy, but so much more rewarding than typical coworkers. I know I can absolutely drive them nuts, frustrate them constantly… I mean, I act like a boomer with IT and violate my own HR “policies” LOL way too often.

Where We Stayed…The Carly FTW

The reason we even came to wine country is to stay here, after years of remodeling, The Carly was ready. My best friends are about to open this boutique estate hotel in Carlton, OR, called The Carly, designed in collaboration with my friend Max Humphrey, and we got to be the first guests to test it out. It’s a highly luxurious mini Soho House that has 5 suites in the main lodge (where we stayed) and was PERFECT for a warm, cozy, luxurious retreat. But then on top of all that, it’s filled with incredible design details and not an inch of drywall (so much tile, marble, paneling, awesome lighting, and art). They did such an incredible job, and every single thing was thought about. Here are some sneak peeks:

What We Did On Our Retreat

We attempted 4-5 hours of work both days, around the dining table, balanced with fun the rest of the day. On day one, we went to Red Hills Market for lunch (delicious) and then had a car service pick us up at The Carly to go wine tasting at two different vineyards – Soter and Radio Hills, both beautiful with exceptional wine. We ordered pickup from Wooden Heart for dinner (awesome pizza and cocktails), then with enough wine in our bloodstream some of us plunged in the pond before hours of talking about the pros and woahs of social media (and we may have gotten in a heated debate about the state of men in America right now) 🙂 Team bonding!

The second day, some of us did a workout on the deck (mostly for brain endorphins) and after a few more hours of work, headed to McMinnville (adorable) for lunch at Cypress (delicious) and to pop into a bunch of shops.

Downtown McMinnville is pretty dang cute, and we also went to the Lafayette Antique Mall in an old school. I’m not pregnant, despite that photo hoping to cause a rumor! Then we headed back to The Carly (because we mostly wanted to hang out there by the cozy fire in the rain), and while we worked for a bit, a private chef, Brittany Baldwin, prepared our four-course customized spring meal. Like we sat and worked/talked, and had a happy hour while someone else cooked for us.

I’ve only had a private chef in a group once before, and it wasn’t the best experience, so I was nervous, but we literally couldn’t have been more delighted by her vibe and her food. Extremely delicious, with so many veggies coming from her own garden, the most scrumptious chicken and dessert (that we still talk about), and she even set the table and did all the dishes. Such a splurgy treat that we all agreed was 15/10.

The next day we woke up, had coffee and then I had to drive back to be with Elliot who had stayed home for the third day sick and was begging for her mama while my team got breakfast on their own (which I think is fun to have some time without me) before flying out.

I think the highlights for all of us were staying at The Carly (so beautiful and well done) and the private chef (we could get used to that) but we all also felt that the teamwork we did together was super productive and left feeling inspired and with a lot of clarity on how to approach this next year (rare for me). I don’t know what I would do without Brené Brown, y’all. Her leadership books are so clear, instructive, and inspiring. Running a thriving creative small business has been almost impossibly challenging for me at times. I’ve learned so much, grown so much, failed so much, and am really, really appreciating however much wisdom I feel like I have 15 years in (which is about 1 million times more than I had when I started, but still could use more).

So grateful for these beautiful ladies in my life (Kaitlin, you too!), for giving of their talents, brains, creativity, intelligence, expertise, and extreme thoughtfulness to me, you, and this company for days, months, and so many many many years. It was such a reminder of the importance of in-person connection and how much it really feeds our inner lives. And honestly just makes all the challenging work/digital/social media BS tolerable and worth it 🙂

Where should we go in September, ladies???? It’s our birthday month (we are almost all Virgos), so I figured it’s a good time to get together and gear up for Q4 (aka “finals week” for creators – work gets NUTS for a bit). If you want to rent out The Carly for a group/corporate/family retreat in Oregon’s stunning wine country, head here (you won’t regret it).

*Photos by Kaitlin Green

Our annual retreat is RIGHT NOW (as you may have seen on stories) where we are staying at two of my best friends’ new wine country retreat space in Oregon (it’s incredible, think a teeny tiny boutique Soho House that you can rent with 10 of your friends). We have posts this weekend, then back next week to usual programming 🙂 Good news for a lot of you – due to the amount of hacking and malware, our IT team has been rebuilding the site to mimic what it currently looks like, but be WAY more efficient and shielded from hackers. While I want to redo the design of the site, right now we have a real urgency of making the site actually work, so starting next week, hopefully the “new” site (which again, you might not even notice) will run faster and stop being so unbelievably glitchy. Then over the next year, we’ll be refreshing it, but it will be just a newer, younger model.

So much brainstorming this week, with a huge thanks to you guys for filling out the survey (we are listening, I promise!). More to come 🙂 And we’ll recap our wine country retreat soon, too! Truly so grateful for this crew – it’s been so fun, productive, and we all so lucky to be doing this job together and for you 🙂 x

*Photo by Kaitlin Green

It’s no secret that one of the most fulfilling parts of my life is leading this crew of incredibly talented, smart, and creative women. I often feel like we are colleagues and friends instead of me being their boss because I love hanging out with them so much (let’s just say there are a lot of HR violations in the way of conversations during photo shoots or retreats). So last year when we were in Mexico we did a thing that for the record was NOT my idea, but when they got all worked up about getting matching tattoos I was three margaritas in and overwhelmed with love for them – I was NOT going to be the one to say “no”. I waited to see if anyone hesitated and everyone really, really wanted to do it. So with the enthusiasm that only comes with inebriation, we found a tattoo parlor in Todo Santos (outside Cabo) and sat down.

Luckily the EHD logo is really simple, so once we showed it to the tattoo artist (who should have been more skeptical about our inebriation level) we figured that even if someone does eventually leave the company, it’s just a simple circle with some lines in the middle that they can add to. Everyone agreed that regardless of what happens in their career this tattoo would represent a time in their lives, a really special era that meant something monumental to them. I couldn’t disagree.

So like the enneagram 7 that I am (enthusiastic! wanting to be popular!) I was THRILLED with this tattoo, knowing that at least I wouldn’t have any regrets because it’s my own logo. Did I worry they would? Not at the time.

Some of us have a lot of tattoos like Gretchen (which I think looks pretty great with hers). Caitlin also has a ton of awesome ones. And while Marlee wasn’t on the team during our Mexico trip, she has a few tattoos already and was really down to get another since we’ve all bonded so quickly. It seems like once you have a few most people are pretty down to get more.

While others (myself) this was my first one and it hurt! Luckily that 4th margarita kicked in just as any last hesitation of “bad judgment” slipped away. Funny how that works. Inebriation = adios inhibition.

It is quite possibly the best feeling in the world knowing that your team loves you so much that they’d tattoo your logo on their bodies, permanently. I received it as such an honor, truly.

When we got home Brian saw these all, was absolutely shocked, laughed a ton, and made fun of me, naturally. But listen, that guy has so many sentimental tattoos each one representing someone he loves. He has the plane his dad flew in Vietnam, the oak tree from his backyard (for his mom), a bear for Charlie, and a bird for Elliot. He claimed that the moon was for me because our song is Dancing in the Moonlight, but it felt like a copout to me.

So after guilting him a teeny tiny bit (“My team loves me so much they got our logo on their bodies, you can’t even get my initials!”), he surprised me with his new ink. And I was FLOOORED. After 25 years together, it felt enormously loving to see this on his shoulder.

So thank you to the best team and husband for doing this life with me. I hope this isn’t our last tattoo together 🙂 I love you all so so so so much. xx

Also…April Fools 🙂

That is certainly the question du jour in our industry and this is one soup I do not want to eat. My book, Styled, was included in the now-infamous Books3 data set – It was one of the 183,000 books that were used (stolen?) by multi-billion dollar businesses like Meta and OpenAI to train their AI models. The entirety of Styled was ingested so these language models could, you know, learn about design and styling.

Last week I went to New York with Raptive, our programmatic ad network, and partnered with 33 other content creators to launch a campaign to regulate AI online. You see, these major tech companies have built tools that have scraped (and memorized) the contents of the entire internet. These large language models, as they’re called, have ingested every publicly available photo, every paragraph, every recipe, every instruction, and every DIY; now, with the simplest question typed in a search bar, the AI model will regurgitate a generic response, without crediting the sources of its information. This isn’t just a problem for those of us with internet jobs, though – if you’ve ever shared anything online publicly (a photo, a video, a comment to a friend), it has already been used to train at least one AI system.

Obviously, AI is here and certainly playing a victim to it isn’t the answer – we aren’t crying and obviously continuing to just work harder to innovate, diversify, and keep long-time readers coming back. So last week, in NYC, I joined a panel with Tieghan of Half Baked Harvest, Kaitlin of Woks of Life, and Kevin of Country Rebel – representing all of the content creators out there whose businesses are being directly impacted by these large language models.

You see, AI is capturing new readers that historically have stumbled upon our human-led sites by typing in “how do you make hummus” or “what size for living room rug.” Now most of us are getting ahead of this already (we’ve been trying to create non-AI-able content for the last two years which I wrote about here), and it’s our job to create such compelling content to keep readers coming back HERE every day – “direct traffic” is our north star.

But what our digital media industry is seeing, as a whole, is a newfound inability to turn searchers into readers. Said another way: let’s pretend that you’re just getting into design. Maybe you’re decorating your house for the first time, and you Google a question like “how high should I hang my curtains?” In the past, a reader might click on a link to our site – and maybe they’d like it, and they’d sign up for the email list, and we’d earn ourselves another regular reader! But now, Google’s Gemini model is serving up our words in a very generic form – the searcher is never even given the option to check out our site.

Ironically, EHD’s search traffic is up in 2024 – our team has been working really hard to make sure that readers can still find us in a sea of generated answers, for which I’m so grateful. But that’s not the case for many other online digital media companies – there are major drops in traffic to more evergreen (year-round, year after year) posts because of AI. We can all see the writing on the wall, so I’m honored to be part of the group working to find solutions on behalf of thousands of small web businesses out there.

Will we be fine? Well, ask print magazines (gone due to blogs – mine included), local news and newspapers (gone because of podcasts and digital media sites), and the early 2010s design blogs (killed by social media and Pinterest). The “information industry” always changes, staying ahead of it has been a very exciting challenge over the past 15 years and it’s just part of social evolution. Being a large player in this industry for this long is remarkable on its own. And listen, I’ll write this blog until I die because I love the hell out of being right here. 

As the quantitative futurist Amy Webb recently said on Brene Brown’s podcast – navigating AI is like driving on ice, slamming on the breaks will kill you, you have to steer into the spin. Control the chaos and remain calm. The ice is cold and hard, but it’s here, and unless you want to get out of your car and walk you better learn how to drive on top of it to get where you want to go. I feel confident that Raptive – the tenth-largest digital media company in the world, with an online reach that’s larger than that of Hearst, Twitter, Fox, Reddit, etc. – is well-equipped to negotiate an agreement with AI companies that preserve the richness of humanity on the internet. 

What happens if they don’t?

Well, what I warned last week (and what I firmly believe) is that the following three things will happen in this order: 

1. Food, parenting, decor, lifestyle, and fashion blogs will lose traffic and revenue. Creators and our teams will have to find new revenue ASAP. If we can’t, our businesses will close. All doable, but sad for true followers. 
2. The internet will become wildly uninteresting. AI will essentially be its own parasite, sucking the entertainment and fun out of digital discovery.
3. As lifestyle websites powered by humans disappear, so will the quality “answers” that the AI has been scraping. Instead, it’s likely to serve up inaccurate and certainly un-nuanced answers to your questions. (This is already happening in a small way – like when Google’s Gemini suggested that searchers eat glue and rocks – but researchers know that it has the potential to get much worse, too. When AI models run out of information and begin ingesting AI-generated answers as a new data source, the models break. The entire internet, as we know it, would be rendered unnavigatable and unusable.
4. Bored by the now generic internet, people will simply pick up their phones and go to TikTok – the platform du jour that has been engineered to be quite an incredible search engine (Instagram, less so). Do I think that Google will disappear? Nope. Those folks are genius and they’ll figure it out, as long as they’re not eaten by a skilled AI model (like Claude, by Anthropic) or a rival search engine (like Perplexity, which functions exactly in the way you probably imagined Ask Jeeves to work about 25 years ago).

What do I think should happen? Glad you asked.

The legal landscape here is fraught, which makes this tricky: tons of AI companies have been sued for copyright infringement and it’s unclear how those court cases will shake out. But I do think that the current business leaders in AI – Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, etc. – have an opportunity here to partner with human creators who have been and hope to continue to create real original content. Serve human responses higher in the algorithm, above the AI-generated answer. Pay us directly for our work, or license it, instead of stealing. Work directly with digital media experts, like the team at Raptive, to identify creators who are adding value to the internet ecosystem. To be fair, there is also some hope here! Caitlin has had some great conversations with startups like ProRata.ai, who are working on attribution technology – basically ensuring that creators are credited (and compensated) when their information is used to power profits for a multi-billion dollar AI business.

I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom. AI has some incredible applications. It can sort through extraordinary amounts of information and it can make connections that seem invisible to humans. It can (and will) radically transform medical diagnosis and treatment. It can empower human learning, creativity, and exploration.

But in the digital media space, it falls short. So I’m advocating for the creators who add richness to our lives – creators who bring us killer dinner party recipes, creators who help us feel more comfortable in our bodies, creators who take us behind the curtain and make us feel less alone. I’m advocating for my fellow authors, whose books were stolen and whose words now shape every answer spit out by a generative AI model (including mine). And I’m advocating for you, too: AI companies have trained models on information stolen from all of us, without offering us an option to opt out. I think we all deserve better. Let’s keep the humanity in the internet – we all know that’s more interesting to read about, anyway 🙂 What’s your take?

(If you’d also like to help keep the internet interesting, you can sign Raptive’s open letter on AI here. Every signature helps as they continue to advocate for a human-first internet.)

Also, here is a list of all the creators that attended the conference! Please check them out, enjoy their real content, and give them a follow if you like their stuff:)

*Photos via Raptive

Y’all. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who gave feedback on our latest reader survey. While we get a lot of Google hit traffic or people who just come for the reveals (or the hot personal goss) knowing more about you (and your needs, wants, and constraints) is incredibly valuable and really does change the business for the better. Some things didn’t surprise us (we all love a MOTO over here) but so many of the answers we were like, “REALLY?” or “OK, wow”. Like all digital businesses, we are at an inflection point and personally, as a business owner and mom (who still loves being a design blogger), I’m always juggling how to grow and progress the business while maintaining solid connections with my husband, kids, and team. It’s not always easy (and nearly impossible without a good team) and I’m so excited to figure it out. This year we are going to rebrand and rebuild the site – not a cheap, easy, or fast feat. It’s time for a fresh look, sure, but what about the site do we want to lean into, not to mention what type of homes, stories, and styles do we want to tell and explore? What is the real purpose and the big old question of “WHY?” And so many of the answers really rely on you, our daily readers. Those of you who check the blog like the news – I truly can’t thank you enough for being here. While we want new people to drop in and stay, of course, just programming the blog for clickbait has never been our MO and this survey was once again so enlightening.

The last site rebuild was big and cumbersome as I wanted the blog to be more of a design resource – a go-to place for all things design, decor, shopping, tips, community, etc. I’m sure many people found it helpful at times (including myself) but ultimately a lot of those pages went less clicked and then as things shifted with my team we stopped updating them. So as I was being asked all these questions about what I wanted the new site to be like, and what changes do I really want to make, I felt lost and confused. Your survey shed so much light and more importantly, gave us more confidence and clarity. THANK YOU. Ok, onto the survey – here are some of the highlights that I thought would be fun to chat about:

• We received thousands of responses – 4x more than our last reader survey. WOW. THANK YOU. As a perpetual “suggestion box” person, I thank you 🙂
• 88% of those surveyed are homeowners. This surprised us, too – I guess we thought that since our audience is so big in NYC and LA there were more renters (and maybe there are) but at least those who filled out the survey own homes (which also makes sense since you tend to really care about remodels and decorating if you feel ownership over it).
• 55.5% of readers visit daily; 4.1% of those surveyed only follow via social. WOW. It’s SO hard to keep up with content on all platforms so we often have to prioritize (and de-prioritize) our time. Now, of course, this was a survey on the blog so naturally, it’s going to be blog-heavy, but y’all this pleased me GREATLY. I’m a blog reader with so few daily reads left out there. While I know that my IG has 1 million followers, we honestly value and will continue to value the daily blog readers here so much more, just as you’ve prioritized us.
• Our top 5 most-beloved post types are: before-and-after transformations (loved by 86% of the audience); renovation tips, shopping guides, and easy updates (72%); farmhouse updates (70%); DIY projects or tutorials (60%); roundups (60%). On the other hand, seasonal trends/holiday decorating ideas are the least popular type of content (favored by 10%). This is funny since I spend so much time and money decorating for holidays and they never truly “hit” which is fine, I enjoy the heck out of doing it. But the survey confirmed that.
• Series-wise, MakeOver TakeOver (MOTO) is your favorite with 56% of the vote. SAME. 🙂 Close runner-ups are Design Agony (34%), Fix it Fridays (32%), and Flea Market Finds (30%). I mean, you don’t have to ask me twice to do more flea market finds posts:)
• On a scale of 1-10, the overwhelming majority of you rated your design enthusiasm/knowledge between a 5-8 (72% total). The most popular rating? A 7, selected by 25% of you. AMAZING. You know, you care, you love design, and want to learn more (SAME).
• You are overwhelmingly interested in living and family rooms (88%), with kitchens taking second place (63%) and bedrooms in a close third (62%). NOTED. I would have definitely thought kitchens would be #1.
• 70% of you cited “budget constraints” as your biggest challenges when it comes to designing their spaces (understood). 40% cited choosing the right products as a challenge (we can help!); 36% cited lack of time (we can’t help with adding more time – but maybe we can highlight more quick transformations? On it).
• 89% of you prefer consuming interior design content in blog format (hooray!). 51% enjoy static photographs on Instagram (compared to only 30% who enjoy reels, and only 4% who like TikTok!); 35% enjoy scouring Pinterest. 19% prefer to watch long-form video content. There’s lots of room to grow here – YAY.
• The style preferences were surprising! Our audience prefers Scandi (47%), Mid-Century (44%), and Traditional (38%) design styles. The least favorites? Maximalism (.3%), Transitional (.4%), and Eclectic (.5%). Crazy, right?
• Color-wise, we saw a few patterns: 36% of the audience decorates with earthy tones; 22% with bold/vibrant colors; and 22% with neutrals. We’ll keep a variety of color palettes coming – I love them all in different ways.
• Moving forward, you would like to see more vintage and antique furniture (65%), budget-friendly pieces (64%) and eco-friendly/sustainable pieces (45.3%). Only 10% of you want to see high-end pieces, but 28% are interested in custom/hand-made design. This is very exciting to me personally and this feedback is absolutely going to shape a future project that I’m dripping with excitement to start.
• When selecting furniture or decor, 80% of those surveyed prioritize functionality and comfort; 77% prioritize aesthetics or visual appeal; and 59% prioritize price/value for money. (Only 5% prioritize brand and only 17% prioritize sustainability, which is surprising). In response, we’re focusing more on in-person reviews, testing products, testimonials, and really trying to illustrate when and why a product is really, really good.
• When it comes to DIY, 71% of readers want to see small-scale renovation projects. 70% want to see how we solve tricky home organization problems, and 55% want to see more DIY outdoor or landscaping projects. While we aren’t a huge DIY blog (god bless those people, so much work), I always want to do more so this is helpful to know where we should focus when we dabble.
• Only 13% of those surveyed spend over $4,000 on sofas and or sectionals, while 70% spend between $1,500 and $4,000. That is a big margin, but y’all there are so many good sofas for under $2500 (but very few under $1k) so this is good to know that we are aligned.
• More than 50% of readers said their typical budget for a dining chair is under $200 per chair. 29% said they’d pay up to $300. 1.8% of readers said they’d spend $600 or more per chair. AGREED. Dining chairs (because you need so many of them) add up too fast.
• Coffee tables had the widest budget distribution, which we expected. 24% of the audience would prefer to spend under $250; 31% name their budget between $250-400; 18% say they’d pay between $400-$550; 12% suggest they spend between $550-$700; 7% look for tables between $700-850; and, surprisingly, 8.2% are willing to pay over $850 per table. SO INTERESTING.
• How Often Do You Change Your Home? 10% of readers update their homes monthly; 27% update quarterly or seasonally. 22% invest in new products only when necessary, 18% swap annually, and 20% update their home every few years.
• We were genuinely a little surprised by your top furniture and decor retailers! In the last year, 67% of our audience has purchased home goods from Target (as expected), but 51% purchased from Amazon! This is interesting because the feedback we get in the comments does not match reality here. Shows that convenience is winning in a lot of ways. Rounding out the top 10 retailers: Wayfair Brands, Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Etsy, Anthropologie, Pottery Barn, World Market, and CB2. This tracks with the budget info provided above and we’ll be sure to highlight more of these affordable brands moving forward (they are our favorite as well).
• For those who enjoy our lifestyle/fashion content – 56% say that product reviews or recommendations are most helpful for them, followed by quick and easy mirror selfies from me (40%), and outfit ideas from the EHD team (36%).

There was a lot of nuance in the responses that we were able to distill into actionable, bigger-picture stuff (spoiler: more relatable projects). January marks 15 years of being on the internet, (which is about 60 in blog years) and I’m always so grateful to be here, that my team is here, and that you are here. THANK YOU and exciting things to come I promise. xx

Opening Image Credits: Photo by Kaitlin Green | From: A Quick Trip To Target: The Little Things That Make Me Feel Good And Pulled Together

I closed down the LA office in July of 2020. Obviously, we all went remote at that point and Brian and I weren’t locked into Portland yet, but pretty close. I was SO relieved to not have that $5k a month overhead. But being 100% remote can be hard! All the research shows that hybrid work is the healthiest and most productive, especially for a job that requires a lot of creativity. But with our team in two different states that’s obviously not possible. Jess, Mal, and Caitlin are 100% remote, working from home in LA, with a handful of in-person lunches or dinners to connect. Then up in Portland, we have Gretchen and myself, of course, and our wonderful photographer/friend, Kaitlin who is freelance but we shoot together weekly so she’s adopted as a team member for our retreats. Gretch and I work from home most Mondays and Fridays, then prep and shoot together Tuesday – Thursday. It all works because my LA team has been with me for so long so we have a real rhythm and routine, not to mention so much consistent communication and extreme trust. They are real pros and need no hand-holding. But after a few months without seeing each other outside of Zoom calls it’s like any long-distance relationship – you just really need to connect in person. We try to see each other once a quarter at least, – whether it’s up here for a retreat, in LA, or more of a destination (Like Nevada City/Grass Valley two years ago, Long Beach, Round Top, the mountain house, etc).

So Where Are We On This EHD Retreat???

MEXICO!!! We all arrived in Todo Santos, Mexico, last night for a three-night hang session (and they are staying after without “mom” :)) We usually prep out blog posts and schedule them so you don’t miss any content days when we are out of the office together (you guys don’t even realize we are OOT). But trying to keep up with daily content and prepping for the upcoming weeks while also trying to be present and connect, is soooo HARD. Jess ends up staying up late to make sure we are dialed in or we end up phoning it in because we are writing with cocktails. Then after we are back, everyone suffers trying to catch up on emails AND prepping the next few weeks’ posts (while likely being depleted from traveling). As the business expands outside of the blog, I love that our team remains this lean. But if we don’t take some time off here and there from the daily content we won’t have time to think creatively, and we can’t create space for new ideas. That’s all to say that for the first time in EHD history, there will be no blog posts this week until FRIDAY (so taking off today – Thursday). But what we are doing this time is real-time social stories of our trip (not banking it to align with a blog post – which we will, of course, publish after we are back).

So if you want to watch the 6 of us connect, hug, laugh, ride horses, drink margaritas, and “boat brainstorm” in Mexico, then head over to the IG account this week and show us some “likes” if you are into it. We are staying at a beautiful Airbnb built and designed by the owner of deKor, one of our favorite design stores in LA (and Ojai). We’ll of course tour the whole thing for you. The goal of the next three nights is just to connect, laugh a lot, and probably tell inappropriate stories that any HR team would be appalled by. Hell maybe we’ll even come up with some great content ideas or a way to reinvent the holiday gift guide (LOL), but for me, I will be taking off my boss hat and hoping to connect with these wonderful friends who work so hard for EHD and show them a percentage of appreciation they deserve. Come back Friday for a great design post, head to stories to see what our Airbnb looks like, and see me gallop on a horse like Jessica from The Man from Snowy River. 🙂

Opening Image Credit: Photo by Kaitlin Green | From: Farmhouse Front Porch Reveal

We knew it was going to happen, but it’s all of a sudden HERE and NOW. Like most human beings, I have mixed feelings about Artificial Intelligence taking over the world (and my job). By “mixed” I think it’s mostly going to be pretty bad socially and culturally, but it also feels rather inevitable so we need to accept, pivot, and figure out ways to adapt and enjoy our lives while we are here (and pay our bills). Being a digital creator is now being highly challenged as a lot of the information that I try to give as design education, can now be asked to AI instead of Google (which would historically send us traffic). Creativity can be copied, just not as good, and figuring out what holes can NOT be filled by AI is the new challenge. It’s all ok, I PROMISE and we are trying new strategies to stay alive/relevant and stay definitely 100% human:) But first, out of deep curiosity, I asked ChatGPT a few questions based on our most popular posts – the ones that send us “Google” traffic (versus people that come every day as true followers – thank you). These posts are what we call “evergreen successes” and we update them yearly to make sure they are still relevant as they continue to get traffic every day. Historically these posts have brought a lot of revenue as apparently, people are googling them a lot. But as more and more people use AI and TikTok as search engines these posts could get less and less traffic. So here’s what I asked ChatGPT.

My Question For Chat GPT: How High Should You Hang Curtains?

AI answer: The height at which you should hang curtains depends on several factors such as the height of the ceiling, the size of the window, and the overall aesthetic you are trying to achieve. Here are some general guidelines to follow:

1. Hang the curtain rod as close to the ceiling as possible: Hanging the curtains higher than the window frame creates the illusion of taller ceilings and makes the room feel more spacious. Ideally, the rod should be at least 4-6 inches above the window frame.
2. Length of curtains: If you want your curtains to just touch the floor, measure from the bottom of the curtain rod to the floor and subtract 1/2 to 1 inch. If you want your curtains to pool on the floor for a more dramatic look, add an additional 2-4 inches to the length.
3. Consider the style of curtains: The height at which you hang curtains also depends on the style of curtains you have chosen. For example, if you have full-length, heavy drapes, you may want to hang them higher than if you have shorter, lightweight curtains.
4. Take into account any furniture or decorative elements: If you have furniture or decorative elements below the window, such as a sofa or a console table, you may want to hang the curtains just above them to create a cohesive look.

In summary, it is generally recommended to hang curtains as close to the ceiling as possible, with a length that either just touches the floor or pools on it depending on the desired look, taking into account the style of the curtains and any furniture or decorative elements in the room.

GAH!!! That’s all pretty correct! Now, of course, what ChaptGPT can’t yet do is add photos, personal anecdotes based on experience with things to avoid, etc. There isn’t a voice that is entertaining, but y’all the information is accurate. Of course, the irony is that it’s searching the internet for this information that is gathered from this very site. It scrapes the world wide web which includes all our past posts. HA! Jokes on us!!!

Question For ChatGPT: How Do I Lay Out My Living Room Furniture?

AI Answer: Laying out your living room furniture can be a challenging task, but here are some general steps and tips to help you create a functional and aesthetically pleasing space:

1. Determine the focal point: The focal point of the living room is usually the television, fireplace, or a large window with a view. Once you have identified the focal point, arrange your furniture around it.
2. Create a conversation area: The living room is often used for socializing and entertaining guests, so it’s important to create a conversation area. Arrange your seating options (such as a sofa, loveseat, and chairs) in a way that encourages face-to-face conversation.
3. Leave enough space for traffic flow: It’s important to leave enough space for people to move around the room comfortably without bumping into furniture. As a general rule, leave at least 2-3 feet of clearance around the seating area.
4. Consider the size and scale of the furniture: Choose furniture that is appropriate for the size of your living room. If your room is small, choose furniture with a smaller scale to avoid overcrowding. If your room is large, choose larger pieces of furniture that can fill the space without looking out of place.
5. Add accent furniture and accessories: Once you have the main furniture pieces in place, add accent furniture and accessories such as a coffee table, side tables, and lamps to create a cohesive look.
6. Experiment with different layouts: Don’t be afraid to experiment with different furniture layouts until you find the one that works best for your space. You may need to move furniture around several times before finding the perfect layout.

In summary, when laying out your living room furniture, consider the focal point, create a conversation area, leave enough space for traffic flow, choose appropriately sized furniture, add accent furniture and accessories, and experiment with different layouts until you find the perfect one for your space.

Again, their response is good and correct. Is there a lot missing? Of course. Pictures, nuance, a distinct voice, humor – none of that is there. After thinking about this for months and months and months, I’ve come around to the idea that this is just a new inevitable creative challenge for us to solve. And solve, we will. So what is our strategy moving forward to ensure that we don’t all get taken over by robots and lose all our traffic to AI? Well, it’s actually super simple. We’ll lean into our human-ness. I’m actually really excited. You’ve already seen it roll out a bit, but essentially we need to be more of a platform of opinions (yes, please), trust (via actual design expertise), humor (which is more and more challenging these days TBH), connection (relatability, vulnerability, and nuance), and very specific projects (like mine, Bowser’s, Orlando’s, my team’s MOTOs, etc). It’s not that any of these things aren’t already here, but it actually gives us more permission to do them more. More journal entries and thought pieces, less tutorials and shopping roundups. Will we still do some design educational posts? Yes, but we have a new goal of making sure that how we position these posts won’t be AI-able or even something you can find on TikTok (which is also taking down Google and Instagram rapidly). I’ll be writing way more posts and we have the data on what posts by what writers you feel the most connected to so we’ll be hiring and publishing those voices the most.

I’m also excited about a new video strategy (with a new local videographer) that will hopefully create some fun ways to learn/share and connect. I have all these super juicy posts in my head, maybe not fully formed but ready to be written – stuff about social media, marriage, feminism, parenting – pieces that I think I would have been scared to write the last couple years but more and more it’s what I want to read, and therefore it’s what I want to write.

Anyway, as always I want to know what you are reading and loving (and coming back for). We can see the evidence through the analytics and the backend – some posts get great traffic, but less engagement (time on site) and others do the opposite. Some both:) We love them all for different reasons, but the goal now is to engage who is already here or here frequently, and not try to necessarily get all those Google hits because as this new tech rolls out it might be a fool’s errand (or one where I’d have to hire a full-time SEO person to execute which I’m not really interested in doing). More and more blogs are dropping like flies (this is also due to many lawsuits from photo agencies about usage – myself included) and the online and social media “competition” is undeniably fierce – just too many people, on too many platforms to follow, and you have to be posting obsessively – practically 24 hours a day – to be favored in the algorithm. But it’s not a zero-sum game and it’s actually not a competition with each other. The only way to not burn out or fold altogether is to try every single day to have a healthy relationship with the shared foe (social media algorithms and now AI) and know that the only thing you can control is your reaction to it.

I paid for five new Substacks last month that I’ve enjoyed reading. Each one is highly opinionated, personal, and mind-broadening. It seems like there is a renewed hunger for the longer form writing as long as it’s, well, really really engaging, compelling, personal, and entertaining. So does that mean that blogs are dead or are the OG personal journal-style blogs actually back? It seems to me that the “design website,” something that we claimed to be might have to shift. And if you know me (which you do), you know that you don’t have to ask me twice to be more personal. I’m excited. We have a big summer of reveals planned (shooting is currently on pause to finish everything) as we “wrap up” this house and I get to move on to documenting two other big projects.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please, sound off in the comments. We’ve thought about text notifications for farmhouse content so people don’t miss it (and still might but the idea of someone asking for my number feels hilarious, while I guess it’s successful for others). Lots of ideas floating around my head and in our brainstorming sessions. Digital media has always felt like the wild west, but now it’s gone full futuristic/sci-fi, where robots could take over creative jobs if we don’t assert ourselves and take control. RIGHT??!!!

Opening Image Credits: Photo by Tessa Neustadt | Styled by Brady Tolbert for EHD | From: Custom Framing For Our Home Office With Framebridge