Battery Lights Outside: A Weather Reality Check
I own eleven sets of battery powered string lights. I counted them for this piece, on purpose, and then immediately regretted counting, because eleven is not a number a rational…
Charcoal in a Fire Pit: Not What It Was Built For?
I’ll tell you the honest version of this story, not the version where I look competent, because that one’s a lie. Two summers ago I bought a fire pit off…
Not Every Light Belongs Near the Shower
Everybody’s got an opinion about bathroom lighting, and the opinion is almost always the same one: it’s complicated, it’s dangerous, don’t touch it, call someone. I spent years believing that…
Any Headboard, Any Bed? Not So Fast
I get called out to fit a headboard onto an existing frame somewhere between ten and fifteen times a year. That’s not a guess, I actually started keeping a rough…
An Outdoor Rug Straight on Dirt
Everyone acts like “outdoor rug” is basically synonymous with “throw it wherever, it’s outdoor, it can take it.” That’s the whole marketing pitch, right there in the name. Outdoor. As…
Layering a Rug Over Carpet the Designer Way
I own eleven rugs. Eleven. I counted them properly last week while looking for a runner I was sure I still had, laid them all out mentally room by room,…
Rug on Top of Carpet: Layers Done Right
I own six rugs sitting directly on top of wall to wall carpet right now, in an apartment where every single room already came carpeted before I moved a single…
Area Rugs in a Home Washer: Probably the Wrong Tool
Okay so it’s a Tuesday, I’m doing normal human laundry, and I’m standing in front of my machine holding my kitchen runner going “this is basically a big towel, right?”…
Wardrobe Against a Radiator: Warmth Stolen
I own six wardrobes. Not six wardrobes’ worth of clothes, six actual pieces of furniture, three of which are currently doing absolutely nothing except taking up space in a storage…
Tatami on a Western Bed Frame
I bought a tatami mat off a marketplace listing at eleven at night, half asleep, convinced it would function exactly like a very expensive mattress topper. It arrived four days…