F#%! Trends. Your House, and All Your $hit, Should Grow Up With You

It’s your home, not a four-star hotel lobby for drunk tourists.

Somewhere along the way, we bought into the lie that a home should be done within two months after moving in. Done enough to show off. Done enough to impress people. Done enough to look like the perfectly curated homes from an influencer Instagram, designer’s Facebook page, realtor listing, furniture company showroom, or once upon a time: a lifestyle magazine, an HGTV reveal, or a perfectly curated movie sets. The story is all the same: buy a house, move in and get it show ready, and then invite friends and family over to show it off. A house warming. It has been beaten into us for decades.But that pressure has done more harm than good. It pushes families into massive debt just to look finished. It convinces people that if their house is a work in progress, they are somehow falling behind. Someone might ask why this is that way, or the dreaded, “oh, y’all aren’t finished getting settled in?”I, quite frankly, am tired of this b.s. I don’t buy it. You shouldn’t either. Don’t fall for the trap.A home isn’t supposed to be a static lifestyle gallery frozen in whatever trend is dominant this Tuesday. It’s supposed to be a living thing. It grows as your family grows. It shifts as your needs shift. It adapts as life changes. And that means your projects, big or small, can happen in stages as your life evolves.

Trading Convenience for Freedom

If you want to beat the system, you do it in pieces.Need built-ins? Start with one wall. Just one. Ehhht! I said one… Or even half of one.

Dream dining room? Get the table now, add chairs later. You heard me.

Want to renovate? Focus on the bones, start with what gets the most use.Doing things in stages spreads the cost out over time. It keeps you from piling on high-interest debt, and maybe most importantly, it gives you the space to be highly intentional.Yes, the main cost of a phased home is inconvenience. Two months of cooking dinner in a microwave is a pain in the backside, but do-able. We might just be gluttons for punishment, though.

Maybe a room isn’t “complete” for a while. Maybe you’re using folding chairs for six months. Maybe you’re staring at a subfloor or a blank wall longer than you planned.

That’s okay. That’s life. If you are pulling up to a beautiful custom oak table in a Cosco chair, you should be proud of the accomplishment. People can judge. Truth is they aren’t judging, they are really jealous that they don’t have that table. You can tell them we built it. I appreciate the referral and will probably give you a hug and a discount on the next piece.

We’ve been told for decades by corporate marketers that every ten years we need to gut everything and start over because the trend has shifted. But homes aren’t trend cycles. They’re stories. They should reflect the people living in them, not whatever a design catalog says is the flavor du jour.

Your home can be minimalist, monotone, or clean and simple. Or it can be colorful, layered, eclectic, and full of history. There’s no wrong answer. It should be a reflection of you and your clan, Pez dispenser display case and all.

There are only two rules:

a) you do not have to have it all at once, and

b) you do not have to have it all figured out now.

Lessons from House Number Three

My wife and I have built our life around this exact philosophy.We’re on house number three now. To the casual observer, every single one of them started the same way: not perfect, not polished, and definitely not “ready for public viewing.” But they had solid, good bones, and potential. They were the kind of places most people overlook because they can’t see past the cosmetic imperfections.But that’s the exciting part.Because we chose to live in the space before changing it, we learned how our family actually used it. We felt the morning light. We saw how traffic flowed. Which spaces people gravitated to, and were worthy of deep investment. Time gave us the breathing room to figure out what needed to be functional before it needed to be flashy. Mistakes were made along the way, but the lessons learned have been invaluable. Hopefully for us, guided by this experience, we sculpt this one into something that truly fits us…third time’s the charm. But don’t swing by, we’ve got a pile of laundry and a mess in the study that hasn’t been cleaned up in….six months?Over time, piece by piece, project by project, a house stops being a house. It becomes yours. Your home.

Furniture Like a Well-Tailored Suit

This slow, deliberate evolution is exactly why I approach furniture the way I do.I have zero interest in building disposable, flat-pack placeholders meant to last three years before heading to a landfill. We’ve become habituated to buying those cheap, quick fixes because we panic when we see an empty room, or need that one thing for that one thing today.But there is a quiet joy in waiting for the right thing. Personally, I like it that way. I would rather wait a year to get the exact piece that is needed, rather than rushing to fill the void with something temporary. As a finance guy, I’ve kept track of the “buy the temp thing three times, instead of the durable solution once” trend. We end up paying more buying the cheap option multiple times. But over the span of years, we rarely reflect and tally the final costs. We hit our 40s when the kids are moving out and say, hey, maybe we should invest in a couple of nice pieces only to do the math and conclude, “damn it, we should have gotten that nice table set 15 years ago instead of the TrIkea junk three times every five years.”I build pieces that act like a well tailored suit. Furniture that is crafted precisely to embrace your unique style. Fits your space perfectly. Serves your family daily. And acquires a beautiful patina as it evolves with you over time.

So you’ve read this far…let’s stop for a minute and picture what room or space you want to make yours. Let’s meditate on it for a bit. Got that spot in your mind?

Now, lets step back.

Whether you know exactly what you want or just have a rough sketch and a blank room, click here and let’s schedule time to talk about it. I want to know about your space, your style, and your vision. Even if you might not be ready to pull the trigger.

Let’s start with one idea. One piece. One project. One corner.

We will build slowly. Build intentionally. Build for the long haul.