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 myself the question, How do you dream big AND keep your feet grounded? How do you cast a wide vision AND practically make possibilities a reality?
{This is exactly why I created Vision AND Planning Sessions, by the way – another creative thing to come out of this year!}
I want to share a few highlights of our year that touch on this theme of brutal/beautiful, dream big/stay grounded. Here are a few of my favorites:
Our project video, Top to Bottom Transformation. I’m so proud of it. We transformed every aspect of all three floors of this house, changing the layout of every floor and creating a masterpiece. I loved working with these clients: they valued Houseplay’s deep experience in this work and knew from the beginning they wanted to hand off this project to a team they could trust. They took the inevitable moments of turbulence in stride. Together, we created something beautiful!
Our information-rich article Avoid These Renovation Budget Pitfalls. We created this article because of a trend we noticed: potential clients were coming to us with budget numbers that were unrealistic, and most of them had done a lot of research on Houzz and HomeAdvisor. In this post, we share how to make sure your information is solid when creating a budget for your renovation. When you have a big dream, it’s important to crunch the numbers to make sure you can create it in the real world.
Our story post Trusting the Process. We share the time that a client visited his investment property that we were renovating, halfway through the project. He completely panicked: Did I make a huge mistake?! But it was just the messy middle – and in the end, the transformation was well worth it.
Our myth-busting video series Reality vs. Reality TV. In this series, I debunk 5 myths of renovation reality TV shows including when you should hire a designer; creating a realistic timeline; reducing sticker shock; and the question of to flip or not to flip.
And finally, my favorite post of 2019 was bud to blossom {a story of personal transformation}. This was the most personal piece I ever shared online. So many of you responded to this piece, and it helped me see how vital it is to share transparently from my own journey to support you in yours.
In 2020, we are gathering 10 clients in Jersey City. If you missed the email about this last week, be sure to go back and read it to find out if one of them is you.
I can feel the magic of 2020 gathering, my friends. I can’t wait to see what this year holds in store.
