Category: Farm House
-
Guest Cottage Update – How Do You Design A House If You Don’t Know How You’ll Use It????
You guys. I’m having so much fun with the design of this house (our guest cottage). We don’t even know what it will be used for, but I do have some ideas on future function, which are informing our decisions. So if you want inside my brain (not sure I’d recommend it), here is what…
-
Farmhouse Living Room Update: The Sofas I Designed For The Space Are Here (And So Many Changes)
I “finished” the living room over 2 years ago, and while I was never 100% happy with it, I couldn’t put my finger on what/why, and loved it enough (and we had to shoot it for a magazine, so yes, I might have chosen some things based on timing). Now I want to be clear…
-
Our Guest Cottage Update: How Much Will The Foundation Repair Cost???
Happy national “Reveal Your Foundation Repair cost” day. Brian advised against “cost honesty” (because he is my ultimate protector, which I appreciate), but I’m going to share some real numbers, similar to the asbestos and lead removal quotes (thanks for the feedback there). My hope is that these numbers can provide educational information for others…
-
A Genius New Design Product: Introducing Quilt Mini Split
Every few years, a product explodes into the marketplace, and you can only say “finally” with equal parts relief and enthusiasm. Quilt is that for me this year. Mini-splits are famously huge and bulky, look like plastic, and are such an eyesore (and impossible to disguise, especially in an older style home!). Quilt not only…
-
How Much Will It Cost To Remove Asbestos And Lead Paint From Our Guest Cottage (+ What I’m Willing To Do Myself To Save Money)
OK, lead and asbestos info coming at you – and before you click away, I know this stuff might sound boring, but it’s actually riveting because I can see all the dollars we are saving. I’m GIDDY. In past gut renovations, I would have just relied on our professional contractor to hire the experts to…
-
How Big Is The Guest Cottage? All The Dimensions And Floor Plans For Us To Geek Out Over
I honestly had no idea what the square footage was of our 1850s guest cottage on the property. My guess was around 2k, so I was super eager to find out how close I was. Gretchen did us a solid and took ALLL the measurements, and while it isn’t perfect and I wouldn’t hand it…
-
Emily Henderson’s FULL Farmhouse Property Tour
—
by
Well, summer 2025 is almost a wrap, and we used the heck out of the yard since we finished in spring. It’s a pretty ridiculous property at this point. We know how lucky we are, and it feels most like the home we always dreamt of (when we lived in NY and LA) when there…
-
All Your Burning Questions, Answered
A few people keep asking the same questions about this project, which made me realize that I don’t think I’ve talked about them. Maybe this project came out of nowhere, like, there is another house on the property? A guest cottage?? So it seems like all the whats, who for, whys, and hows (and how…
-
How We Built Our Pickleball Court
I definitely didn’t envision a pickleball court here when we bought the property 4 1/2 years ago. Sure, I knew we’d make improvements to the broken tennis court we inherited, but I don’t think I had even heard of this “pickleball” then (now the #1 growing sport and so much fun, TBH). The whole thing…
-
What’s Wrong With Our Guest Cottage
Ok, first off, yes, I think we are calling it The Guest Cottage now. Too many people were confused about “carriage house”, wondering where this is, why it is, what it is – and everyone gets “guest cottage,” aka on our property, but not where we live, and she is old. As a reminder, we…