Well, I’m pleased as bunch to say that we have *almost* fully finished decorating, styling, and shooting my brother’s house. We spent a week there two weeks ago and styled the heck out of all the remaining spaces. Since the living room, kitchen, dining room, library and entry/staircase are all in view of each other it required to properly destroy that whole floor to make sure it all looked good (and balanced) together. I wanted it to be curated and edited, but still so homey and layered which was not hard, just very time consuming (and required a lot of shopping).
For example we needed so many pillows that you would see at the same time to style two huge living room daybeds/benches, two huge sofas, a huge chair then in the dining room – two huge dining benches/daybeds, then more on the the library sofa and the entryway sofa. Imagine the amount of pillows you need to “play with” in order to make them all look cohesive and balanced (like 50). This was incredibly fun, BTW. My favorite part of the job (I think?) So with my brother’s fam out of town Monday – Friday, we really ripped the house apart to finish her up.
So When Do We Get To See It?!!
Well, two things are holding us up – 1. A potential magazine feature, so I’m waiting on the editors to see what rooms (if any) they want exclusive to the magazine (i.e. we can’t publish til after). This might fall through as it’s not confirmed so we’ll know more soon (but we are excited – its always such an honor to get into print). And 2. We have a product launch that we shot heavily in this house and due to the tariff situation (that is changing daily) we have had some timing delays on the launch. Ideally, these photos would help launch that collection so we don’t want to publish them without actually having a link to purchase our new pretty things (that we are low-key obsessed with and very proud of).
Additionally, one of our pieces has to be reshipped with some design changes so we have to wait to shoot the family room until that comes in which might be 6 weeks from now. So technically, we are going to have to go back in July to get that last room.
Next week we are going back to get a bunch of family/kids/me + Ken shots and videos for all platforms so we can wrap up all our social footage and partnership deliverables. It’s been four years of partnerships on this house and I’m so excited to be able to put this content out there.
I think we’ll release the powder bath soon and technically we could show you the dining room (no EHD product in that one to wait for), but since it’s open to the kitchen/living room we also can’t really show you all the angles, so we might just wait til we can show you the whole thing (thus the update).
It feels VERY weird to be done with the house, and also I’m relieved. I was looking at our calendar for this summer which is usually full of river house and farmhouse shoots, but it’s kinda empty. So yes, I need a new project:) We will be starting the 1850s house soon, but that one is such a long game that requires inspectors and permits and so much heavy construction that it won’t really be the fun stuff for a while. So looking into what friends and family projects I can tackle for design/styling in the interim (and yes, I have a lot of other reader ideas, too). Regardless I want to balance these more high end remodels with some more fun budget or DIY stories. More to come:)
What I can tell you is that once we were done styling my brother’s house, it looked pretty incredible. I wanted to cry. In person it reminds me of a better mountain house – just warmer, more layered, more colorful but with the same wood/natural light vibe. I’m so thrilled with how it all came together and some of the shots really kill me, in the best of ways. I wish I could show you everything now but I hope you enjoy the sneak peeks:)
If you are new to this project here you can head to this landing page where every river house post lives – all the befores, process, and reveals.
Well actually here are all the reveals thus far:
