DIY Projects

DIY

The Best Raised Garden Planter You Need To Own Right Now

New planters, heyyy!

By (astoundingly) popular request via IG, today's post is about...my planters. It turns out that everyone in the world has decided to become a gardener in their abundance of spare time.

I have, in the course of my years, proven myself to be an astoundingly poor keeper of indoor plants. When you see a lovely, thriving plant in my house, be assured: It is fake. But for whatever reason my black thumb turns green (or, ok, perhaps something more like chartreuse) in the presence of vegetables: In our San Jose house, our tomatoes and cucumbers were actual legend. I never bothered to garden in our last place because 1) I was kinda in crisis last year and tomatoes were not my priority, and 2) I wasn't inclined to put even more work into a rental place than I already had (and I'd already done a lot).

DIY Projects

Today In Questionable Decisions: Why I Renovate Rentals

My daughter, painting her bedroom

In the month or so since I moved into the new place, I've painted my daughter's room, put down floor tiles in the kitchen, patched the ceiling, painted the front door, installed kitchen drawer pulls, and added lighting both indoors and out. Tomorrow, I have "replacing the iffy doorknob" on the schedule, and blackout blinds are in my future. So it didn't surprise me when a reader asked why in god's name I would do so much work on a house that I don't even own - I'm saving up to hopefully buy in the area within a couple of years, because the owner has eventual plans to build a new structure on this lot.

There's a simple answer, and a more complex one. The simple answer to "Why put so much work into a rental?" Because that's what I do. It's what I've always done, even as far back as college, when I spruced up every single one of my dorm rooms to the point that they looked like (teeny-tiny) twentysomething apartments.

DIY Projects

How To Fall In Love With Your Contractor

Meet Audrey, RG’s brand-new Home contributor. You've actually seen her here before - she has the single best home decor taste of any human I've ever met, and I featured both her home's interior and its exterior awhile back. She recently sold that house and bought a new one, a 100-year-old place in one of L.A.'s most historic neighborhoods that she's renovating from top to bottom...so obviously I had to ask her (pictured above with her impossibly adorable family) if she'd give us all a chance to share in the gloriousness.

Audrey's also a virtual dictionary of home renovation and decor knowledge (seriously; I vet most of my home purchases through her) - so if you have any questions, now's your chance! – Jordan

Before & After Renovations

A Full Bathroom Renovation…For Less Than $700

One of the major things I miss about living close to my friend Erin is our little (and big) projects. We were just constantly deciding that we wanted to try things, and then doing them. All by ourselves. And they usually worked out! (I'd venture that our success rate has far more to do with Erin than with me, but I'm happy to bask in the residual glory.)

Like remember that time we just went ahead and transformed the exterior brick on my house?

Decor

Magic Makers

My kids, enjoying the Moncton sunshine

I love my Canadian family so. much. It's been nearly impossible to get up here - New Brunswick, where I am now - for a few years, because flights from California to the East Coast of Canada are both epically long and epically expensive. But it's just been too long, and so my mom and I decided to make it happen.

Now I'm here, in Moncton, sitting at my Aunt Jo-Anne's dining room table while my Aunt Trudy reads to my son and my mom pours a glass of wine at the kitchen counter. It's been too long, but apparently that doesn't matter; this place is as familiar to me as the bedroom I grew up in. So many years later, everything is somehow still the same - except now it's my children running through the grass I ran through almost four decades ago, dodging bees and trailing bubbles. I've moved on to the grown-ups table, where I sit now, and it feels like the conversation we're having on this cloudy afternoon is the same one that's been happening all along, for centuries, in my family and others.


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