Harold's Renovation Blog: #121: Do We Make Design Decisions Just For The Blog?

It’s a question we’ve gotten a lot over the years: are you doing this for you or for the blog? It’s even one we’ve asked ourselves – and it hasn’t always always been easy to answer – but it’s a lot clearer in hindsight. So we’re diving into what past projects we would’ve done differently without an audience watching and we’re sharing how we keep ourselves in check these days. Plus, Sherry is finally getting the chance to realize a makeover she has fantasized about for five years and we talk through how we decide what home maintenance tasks to tackle ourselves and which to hire out.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

This is the before & after from back when we upgraded both our mailbox & our neighbor’s, which we mentioned in this episode (you can hear more about it in Episode #44).
FYI, this is the metal mailbox post and the black mailbox shown below. It’s been over a year since we made the upgrade and my only complaint is minor: the hawk that lives in our neighborhood treats the ball on top as a perch (and therefore a potty) so it’s not always as clean as I’d like. So if you’ve got large birds in your hood, maybe choose a post with a pointier/less comfortable top.

And, for reference, here’s a current shot of our yard – yes, there’s a yard under there! And can you see how many leaves are still on the trees?! SO MANY.

And just look at our driveway:

This is the current version of the plug-in leaf blower I’ve been using for over a decade.
And this is the battery-operated leaf blower I use for quick and easy clean-ups. It’s great for clearing the driveway or the patio without having to wrangle a long extension cord.

Listener Question

The answer to this week’s question ties in closely with Episode #14: What Quitting Our Blog Taught Us in case you want to dive a little deeper into that topic.
And here are some of the projects we referenced in this discussion, like the sunroom floor stenciling…

…and the cork floor installation.

The penny tile backsplash in our last kitchen is another project that was a fun experiment for us, and was a nice deviation from our previous subway tile tutorial.

We also referred Episode #117 where we discussed the pros & cons of decorating one room at a time and potentially overthinking a lot of the details – like auditioning lamp shades and a kitchen rugs.
Also, if you want to hear more about Sherry’s wardrobe (aka: her “uniform”), that’s covered in depth in Episode #115 and there are tons of photos and even a video in this blog post about her minimal closet.
Lastly, Sherry references how a reader helped change the course of our laundry room makeover (thanks Lesley!), so you can see what changed below:

Here’s the post where we shared our original plans, the revision based on her input, and the final reveal of the renovated space.

We’re Digging

Shown below are some of the peg “family portraits” that Sherry described from various Etsy sellers, including details like the shadow box, the swaddled baby, or pets with ears. Many also show examples of other “family” combos – siblings, couples, etc. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

And we mentioned our friend who does these as well (she just had a baby so her shop is on hiatus) but you can see some of the character sets she does below, like Ghostbusters, Harry Potter, and Breaking Bad.

Below is the $13 slim wallet I’ve been using for around a month now. It comes in around 30 different colors, but I got “Alaska Brown.”
My doesn’t offer personalization, but I’ve found a few on Etsy that throw that in for free (lots of others upcharge that detail, so be mindful of list prices vs customization prices if that’s not included). Here’s the top right wallet ($20), middle right wallet ($25 marked down to $15!) and the bottom right wallet ($18)

You can hear about my quest to simplify my keys and the leather key holder I bought in Episode #113. Its marked down to $16 now and personalization is free.

If you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Agility Bed for sponsoring this episode. For Cyber Monday you can get $200 off your hybrid mattress order and a free sheet set with the code BLACKOUT at AgilityBed.com. They’ll ship it to you for free and if you don’t like it, you can return it within the first 100 nights, no questions asked!