Well, we made it through mountain house reveal week and boy do I hope that you enjoyed it
So what’s next? Are we going to rent it out? Sell it? Move in permanently? Let’s debate:
BUT FIRST, a huge thanks for coming and reading and sharing. It honestly means so much to have a community of people so engaged in what we do. We had the reader event last Saturday where we got to meet 30 of our most dedicated readers (and their plus-ones) which was incredibly fun and fulfilling. We’ll be doing a whole post about it this week, but hopefully you saw it on Stories (we’ll keep it as a highlight so if you missed it head to Stories and see it there). Stay tuned for the master bed/bath reveal Tuesday September 3rd (the day after Labor Day), as well as the upstairs guest bedroom and attic soon after.
First off, we are DEFINITELY not going to sell it. I love this house so much I can’t even tell you, so as long as we are in LA (and potentially even longer), we will have this house. We want to appreciate all the work, as well as let it appreciate so we can potentially ever get out of it what we invested into it.
We are open to renting it out for photoshoots, catalogs, and corporate/creative retreats. We are still debating if we will put it on high-end vacation rental sites, but if we did they would need to be highly vetted and frankly worth it financially. As of right now, we do plan on coming up at least two times a month, and every three-day weekend so I’m not sure there is much availability on weekends and less interest during the week. Plus, my team and my friends have first dibs if we don’t go up there.
Will we move in? We are debating and very open to it. We LOVE living in Lake Arrowhead and our family is very very happy here both in this house as well as away from a major city. We have a lot of friends that have weekend houses (it’s blowing up up here and yet still really affordable less than two hours away from LA) so weekends are so fun. But the actual population is pretty small with what seems like 80% of the houses vacant during the week. Of course, we love the lack of people, but to actually live here we’d want friends and we aren’t seeing very many young families. We also aren’t sure about the schools and would need to check them out. Could we actually LIVE in a town with a population of 7k year-round? We don’t know. And if you are wondering what I’d do with the business, I’d simply commute a couple of days a week, possibly stay overnight and then work from home the other two. We’d likely try to find a fixer that Brian and I can do ourselves—all budget and cosmetic changes, focusing more on DIY than reno, and of course a totally different style than this house.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We aren’t even DONE with this house yet. Hard to believe, I know. Here is what we have left:
The exterior: We need to plan and save for this so while it pains Brian to not have a hot tub, we might not until next summer. But we have a lower patio and upper deck to show you as well as hopefully a hot tub room someday, we have the doors leading out to it from the downstairs guest room, but it’s just a pile of dirt. We’ve nixed the idea of a full outdoor kitchen to save some money, but would like to have the bbq and a prep area that feels more custom and built-in. The kitchen is so close that it just doesn’t make sense to put another kitchen so close outside.
The master closet: It’s going to be finished THIS WEEK, so we’ll reveal it soon. Yay!
The attic playroom: We decked it out a bit for the reader event this last Saturday and it looks pretty darn cute. So we’ll shoot it and post about it ASAP, but this is what it looked like most recently when we showed you the two designs we were playing around with.
The kids’ room. This room is being reworked a bit because having two twin beds meant that I was basically either crammed with one of them or on the floor. So we shoved them together and threw a king topper on top of them. Why? Because we like to lay together and read as a family and couldn’t in the twin beds. I also decided that the white headboard fabric wall was a missed opportunity to do something more playful and fun. So we are putting a pattern back there. Stay tuned.
Laundry room: You may remember or not that we had a large laundry closet downstairs, and opted for a small one on the bedroom floor. As of right now, we’ve only installed the upstairs one and are currently shopping for the lower washer and dryer. We designed that space with storage for front-loading, but have recently been told that top-loading is just better in every way (mostly because front-loading can be harder to drain and creates mold).
Garage: Right now, it’s too small to put in any modern cars, so it houses our golf cart and so much garbage. But it’s actually really cute: it has super high ceilings and a window. It could absolutely be a game room. Maybe we’d build a carport (or should I say a golf-cart port) and then put a ping pong table or pool table in there. No rush on this, but in a fantasy world that could happen.
So many thanks are in order. My editorial, social, photo and design teams worked their behinds off to not only design the house, but create the posts and link up every single resource. THANK YOU. I wish I could properly explain to you how much work it takes to do this, but it would be so boring. But yes, it takes 12 people to properly document a renovation from beginning to end: 12 VERY talented, creative, hard-working and fun to be around people. The team grew A LOT this year as my workload (and stress load) reached far overcapacity. A huge thanks to Arlyn for leading the editorial, marketing and social teams (Jess, Ryann, Caitlin, Carolina, Mallory, and Chandler) and Sara for leading the production and design teams (Julie, Emily Bowser, Velinda, and Veronica).
So what’s next for the blog besides all the mountain house things I just walked through? Well, we have new projects that we are announcing in September that we are all very excited about. It’s a new strategy and I think one that you will love. Announcement coming soon…
The post What’s Next With the Mountain House (Other Reveals & Upcoming Projects) appeared first on Emily Henderson.
#MountainHouse #TheMountainHouse #Update
BUT FIRST, a huge thanks for coming and reading and sharing. It honestly means so much to have a community of people so engaged in what we do. We had the reader event last Saturday where we got to meet 30 of our most dedicated readers (and their plus-ones) which was incredibly fun and fulfilling. We’ll be doing a whole post about it this week, but hopefully you saw it on Stories (we’ll keep it as a highlight so if you missed it head to Stories and see it there). Stay tuned for the master bed/bath reveal Tuesday September 3rd (the day after Labor Day), as well as the upstairs guest bedroom and attic soon after.
First off, we are DEFINITELY not going to sell it. I love this house so much I can’t even tell you, so as long as we are in LA (and potentially even longer), we will have this house. We want to appreciate all the work, as well as let it appreciate so we can potentially ever get out of it what we invested into it.
We are open to renting it out for photoshoots, catalogs, and corporate/creative retreats. We are still debating if we will put it on high-end vacation rental sites, but if we did they would need to be highly vetted and frankly worth it financially. As of right now, we do plan on coming up at least two times a month, and every three-day weekend so I’m not sure there is much availability on weekends and less interest during the week. Plus, my team and my friends have first dibs if we don’t go up there.
Will we move in? We are debating and very open to it. We LOVE living in Lake Arrowhead and our family is very very happy here both in this house as well as away from a major city. We have a lot of friends that have weekend houses (it’s blowing up up here and yet still really affordable less than two hours away from LA) so weekends are so fun. But the actual population is pretty small with what seems like 80% of the houses vacant during the week. Of course, we love the lack of people, but to actually live here we’d want friends and we aren’t seeing very many young families. We also aren’t sure about the schools and would need to check them out. Could we actually LIVE in a town with a population of 7k year-round? We don’t know. And if you are wondering what I’d do with the business, I’d simply commute a couple of days a week, possibly stay overnight and then work from home the other two. We’d likely try to find a fixer that Brian and I can do ourselves—all budget and cosmetic changes, focusing more on DIY than reno, and of course a totally different style than this house.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We aren’t even DONE with this house yet. Hard to believe, I know. Here is what we have left:
The exterior: We need to plan and save for this so while it pains Brian to not have a hot tub, we might not until next summer. But we have a lower patio and upper deck to show you as well as hopefully a hot tub room someday, we have the doors leading out to it from the downstairs guest room, but it’s just a pile of dirt. We’ve nixed the idea of a full outdoor kitchen to save some money, but would like to have the bbq and a prep area that feels more custom and built-in. The kitchen is so close that it just doesn’t make sense to put another kitchen so close outside.
The master closet: It’s going to be finished THIS WEEK, so we’ll reveal it soon. Yay!
The attic playroom: We decked it out a bit for the reader event this last Saturday and it looks pretty darn cute. So we’ll shoot it and post about it ASAP, but this is what it looked like most recently when we showed you the two designs we were playing around with.
The kids’ room. This room is being reworked a bit because having two twin beds meant that I was basically either crammed with one of them or on the floor. So we shoved them together and threw a king topper on top of them. Why? Because we like to lay together and read as a family and couldn’t in the twin beds. I also decided that the white headboard fabric wall was a missed opportunity to do something more playful and fun. So we are putting a pattern back there. Stay tuned.
Laundry room: You may remember or not that we had a large laundry closet downstairs, and opted for a small one on the bedroom floor. As of right now, we’ve only installed the upstairs one and are currently shopping for the lower washer and dryer. We designed that space with storage for front-loading, but have recently been told that top-loading is just better in every way (mostly because front-loading can be harder to drain and creates mold).
Garage: Right now, it’s too small to put in any modern cars, so it houses our golf cart and so much garbage. But it’s actually really cute: it has super high ceilings and a window. It could absolutely be a game room. Maybe we’d build a carport (or should I say a golf-cart port) and then put a ping pong table or pool table in there. No rush on this, but in a fantasy world that could happen.
So many thanks are in order. My editorial, social, photo and design teams worked their behinds off to not only design the house, but create the posts and link up every single resource. THANK YOU. I wish I could properly explain to you how much work it takes to do this, but it would be so boring. But yes, it takes 12 people to properly document a renovation from beginning to end: 12 VERY talented, creative, hard-working and fun to be around people. The team grew A LOT this year as my workload (and stress load) reached far overcapacity. A huge thanks to Arlyn for leading the editorial, marketing and social teams (Jess, Ryann, Caitlin, Carolina, Mallory, and Chandler) and Sara for leading the production and design teams (Julie, Emily Bowser, Velinda, and Veronica).
So what’s next for the blog besides all the mountain house things I just walked through? Well, we have new projects that we are announcing in September that we are all very excited about. It’s a new strategy and I think one that you will love. Announcement coming soon…
The post What’s Next With the Mountain House (Other Reveals & Upcoming Projects) appeared first on Emily Henderson.
#MountainHouse #TheMountainHouse #Update