“Coming home is one of the most beautiful things.” -Andre Rieu Our client for this condo renovation in Edgewater, NJ, inherited the space when her mother passed away. The building is right on the water, overlooking the city. She loves the city, but has been living in the condo since last year. Her original plan [...]
I am SO excited to welcome in a brand-new year and a brand-new decade. The past few years for me have been about letting go of what isn’t working. This year I’m getting ready to welcome in lots of brand-new things that are AWESOME. It’s sort of like how you have to let go of [...]
Did anyone else have a big, beautiful, brutal 2019? For me, it was a year of big change. Beautiful transformation. And yes, many brutal things - brutal honesty, brutal growing pains. But as Glennon Doyle says, life is brutiful. The brutal and the beautiful often go hand-in-hand. This year has been a year of asking [...]
I’m gathering 10 clients for 2020 in Jersey City who are ready to transform their homes from top to bottom and are prepared to partner with a team they can trust. Here’s the letter I wrote to these 10 people I have yet to meet - maybe this is you. Read on to find out. [...]
Have you ever held on to something that wasn’t working? We see this often in renovations: people plan to do a big renovation project, but they want to hold on to an element that isn’t working. They want to keep the layout of a bathroom that’s not functioning well, or they want to reuse an [...]
Have you ever stopped yourself from asking for help because… I should be able to do this on my own. No one else will do it right. Good [moms/employees/entrepreneurs/daughters] don’t ask for help. Or maybe you’ve thought that if you ask for support you’re a failure. That needing help means you’re not good at what [...]
In 13 years of helping homeowners renovate (and hearing horror stories of projects gone wrong), we’ve seen and heard it all. But the #1 mistake we see homeowners making in the renovation process isn’t choosing the wrong contractor, or going off-budget, or trying to do the work themselves. The #1 mistake we see is failing [...]
Here’s what I know to be true: the two things that make life worth living are beauty and connection. Beauty in your physical space: design choices that make your heart smile; artwork and photos that showcase your true personality; mementoes, flowers or candles that add the perfect finishing touch. Connection with your fellow human beings: [...]
The Houseplay team transformed this Jersey City home by creating a stronger connection between the indoor living space and the outdoor garden. Here’s what our client had to say: I cried happy tears the day my project was complete — it is just stunning. I had a vision for what I wanted to do, and [...]
Have you ever panicked halfway through a project and tried to back out? Maybe you wanted to drop out of that graduate degree program because it just felt too hard. Exit a new relationship because you felt too vulnerable letting someone in. Refuse a promotion that felt too stretchy. Or … cancel a home renovation [...]
