We need your opinion! Jacques the Rhino told us he’s sick of the yellow paint in our entry and we agreed. First we tried the same grey we used in the kitchen, but it looks super dull and boring in here with essentially no natural light. But what do you think of this blue? Too bright? Too crazy? Super fun? Love it? Hate it? We need your help to decide!!

(If you need a reminder, the layout of our first floor with all our colors is HERE.)

This has been a fun week for house projects. The biggest news is that our painter started working on the exterior of our house yesterday! So far it’s just gotten a good (much-needed) power wash and he said to expect several days of prep before any actual paint goes up. We’re super excited/anxious/nervous because we’re making some BIG changes to the colors. Watch for a sneak peek on our instagram and/or facebook sometime soon, if you want to follow along! I’m also in the middle of the 3-day online blogging conference Alt for Everyone, so I’m getting inspired and having a lot of fun.

Here’s a few things Andy and I have been talking about lately…

Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent. I grew up in a tech house. My dad had his own Apple computer shop from the very beginning of Apple, so our house was kind of like the original Apple store. From the time I could reach the keyboard, I was sitting in front of a computer. But that was looong before there was an internet and iPads and constant access. Nowadays, I think if I were a parent, I may want to implement a partial technology ban, too. Any parents out there have an opinion on this? I’d love to hear it.

When Blogging Becomes a Slog. Eesh. I keep writing and deleting things to say about this article because I could go on for a week straight, as I’m sure all bloggers could. It’s the age-old problem: how do you grow your hobby into a business without becoming so big it’s no longer fun and it’s just another job, but a job that you can’t leave at 5 p.m. and a job that literally is your life and your home? I love our little blog and our 3-times-a-week schedule. I love that sometimes we just don’t have any projects to talk about because we decided to watch TV all weekend instead. But on the other hand, I’d also love if we made money from it to do more projects or even to support our family — so how do you draw that line, and once you cross the line can you ever go back? I miss Young House Love and wish them the best. I really hope they are able to come back to their blog someday on a smaller scale, maybe just to share silly pictures of Burger the dog.

Want to help the Great Lakes? Change your soap. This is great info from my old hometown newspaper. I went through my bath products and threw away a face soap that had those microbeads. Now I know not to buy that again!

Speaking of hometowns, this is old news now, but I don’t care. My little tiny high school in a little tiny town (less than 4,000 people) was named one of the best in the country!

This Ikea ad is hilarious. Well done, Ikea.

And, finally, some eye candy. It looks like Will of Bright.Bazaar was in Portugal right around the same time as us (with better weather), and his gorgeous pictures make me want to go back all over again!

Have a great weekend, guys! Don’t forget to give us your opinion on the blue paint!

— Kerry