As many of us look for ways to tighten our budgets, it’s easy to forget a simple tactic: just ask. By making a few phone calls to the companies behind our three largest monthly bills, Sherry and I were able to save $590 over the next year. Here’s what we did. It began when our … Read more

We’re about 90% packed, which feels great with moving day right around the corner. We plan to load the truck on Sunday and officially move Monday afternoon, assuming the closing doesn’t get pushed to Tuesday. Fingers crossed! Here’s our progress on the to-do list we shared earlier: Remove every item from the walls and patch/paint … Read more

Woo-hoo! Our bedroom horse art finally arrived, so here’s the condensed how-to on attaching posters to canvases. It took two tries for a durable result, so I’ll walk through both methods and what worked best. My first attempt used spray adhesive from JoAnn (a cheap option that’s often labeled “all purpose” and “permanent” and is … Read more

With so much happening right now, house updates may seem small, but we’re keeping our podcast going as a little escape for anyone tuning in — it’s a welcome distraction for us too. This week we answer the most common question we’ve received recently: how the coronavirus is affecting our move to Florida and our … Read more

I’m writing this post under the pretense that I’m sharing great deals for you, but honestly I’m adding half of it to my own cart and whispering, “Should I just click buy? These prices are so good!” So whether this is truly for you or for me (let’s agree: BOTH), here are the best sales … Read more

Late last week we finally began installing our hardwood floors at the new house. The project is going well — we’re doing the work ourselves — but it’s proving to be time-consuming. That’s not ideal when you’re on a tight schedule: we’re scheduled to move in this weekend and hope to finish four bedrooms and … Read more

Some of you have asked how Burger is settling into the new house. Short answer: great. A slightly more whimsical answer: simply splendid. It only took him a day or two to find his food bowl and learn which door to wait at when he needs to go out. Otherwise he’s been happily exploring (and … Read more

Our built-in wall-to-wall desk made solid progress this week after we painted and extended the cabinets, but it still lacked one important element: a proper countertop. We needed a desktop about thirteen feet long, which narrowed down our options since most kitchen countertop suppliers stop at twelve feet before a seam becomes unavoidable. At first … Read more

Last Thursday I turned 27 and my family and friends made it a wonderful celebration. My husband surprised me with dinner at a delicious Mediterranean restaurant, Cous Cous, and the next morning we left for a birthday weekend at his parents’ beach house in Delaware with my mom, stepdad and the in-laws. Before I knew … Read more

Here’s the second half of Farah’s home makeover (read the first part to see how we started). HomeGoods generously offered merchandise to refresh a space, and we asked to pay it forward by transforming someone else’s home. They agreed, and when we saw Farah’s family room we couldn’t resist tackling that space as well. Below … Read more