Our 2019 Design*Sponge team: Sofia Tuovinen, Garret Fleming, Kristina Gill, Caitlin Kelch, Grace Bonney, Kelli Kehler, Lauren Day and Erin Austen Abbott.  It’s been said that if you love something, you have to let it go. And, dear friends, it...

One of the biggest requests I’ve gotten since announcing our closing was: can you suggest some places to read now that you’re leaving" So I reached out to our team to gather some recommendations, as well as share details about where...

It feels like a lifetime ago when I was sitting in the newsroom at my previous job on my lunch break, scrolling through Design*Sponge, relishing in the inspiration laid before me through beautiful home tours, DIY projects, and the like. Two things...

We moved into our condo in December of last year, and I immediately knew the space was perfect for us. It wasn?t until this past July, however, that I truly fell in love with its lakefront location. By then summer had finally rolled in, and I was...

Back in early 2018, art teacher Colin and his partner Matt, a banker, were nesting. They had finished renovating their Toronto loft and were thrilled to be sitting back, enjoying the fruits of their hard work. The second the pair laid eyes on this...

When I feel stuck, uninspired or just isolated in my work, I look to see if there are any conferences coming up. I was at a conference in 2014 when I got an email from Grace Bonney, asking me to submit a second tour sample for a possible interiors...

Pattern above by Deanne Cheuk (download here) This is the final week of Design*Sponge. I’ve been scared to write that sentence all summer, but the time is here, and I want to make these last few posts go beyond products or trends. For me, the...

When I started Design*Sponge, I had no idea just how many times I would royally stick my foot in my mouth. From poor internet behavior (I left my share of anonymous rude comments, like a proper asshole) and self-righteous stubbornness, to downright...

I feel so much gratitude for this site — for the ways Design*Sponge has helped shape other pockets of the internet and for the ways writing others’ stories has shaped me. I can look through the archives and remember working with each...

I started thinking about what my last recipe post would be in January when Grace told the team that Design*Sponge would be closing this summer. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted it to be representative of the work we do on the site, my most used...

I’ve been struggling a lot over the past few years to reckon with how big of a role my work life plays in my self confidence and identity. I don’t think I realized until just a year or two ago that I judge and define myself based almost...

Artwork by Nick Misani When I posted on Instagram about these final essay spots in our calendar, so many of you wanted to know how I knew it was time to close Design*Sponge and what ending a chapter feels like. I’ve been sharing some of the...

A few years ago, I found this amazing woodworker on Instagram and immediately fell in love with her work. I asked my husband for a piece she had created for my birthday that year, and have been following her ever since. We’ve developed a...

When I first learned about vision/inspiration boards years ago, I was a major skeptic. I didn’t see how cutting images out of a magazine could actually lead to any sort of substantive clarity ? until it did. The simple act of letting your mind...

Heather Swallow and Atom Willard are no strangers to exploratory DIY projects — whether they’re reviving vintage pieces (and giving them a totally new spin), building a couch together, or deciding to rip all the upper kitchen cabinets...

Last week I mentioned that I only had a few spots left in our Design*Sponge calendar before we closed up shop. I asked what YOU wanted to hear about ? or if you had any questions left that you wanted answered before I retired my blogging hat for...

So many times on Instagram I’m drawn as much by the images themselves as the enthusiastic writing of someone who genuinely seems to enjoy explaining their craft, whether it is food-related, art-related, sports-related, something technical, and...

It wouldn’t be a proper final month of Design*Sponge (I’m not crying, you’re crying!) if we didn’t leave you with one more knock-your-socks-off DIY project. Today I’m thrilled to be sharing the work of one of my...

Photo by HomePolish One of my earliest Design*Sponge memories involves a bit of unsolicited advice I received from a fellow design blogger. He pulled me aside at one of the first professional events I ever attended and said, “You’re...

After 15 years of featuring incredible homes on Design*Sponge, it can feel like every cool home we see has been featured here or elsewhere. But when this incredible Philadelphia, PA penthouse came across my desk, I gasped — it had all of the...

When I started Design*Sponge back in 2004, I had no idea that city guides would become such a big part of what we published. DS City Guides (we have over 300 in our archives!) came about naturally as people asked for design recommendations. As we...

At our farewell celebration at Philadelphia’s Terrain last week, amidst steady laugher and clinking glasses, I met one of our readers who told me about her work advocating for accessible design. She mentioned her latest projects and the...

As a child, I was fascinated with my mom’s desk. It was a refractory table that was part of our living room. I was usually the first one awake at my house and I would sit in her seat and pretend to type on her typewriter or get out one of her...

This year has been full of big professional decisions. The first was deciding it was the right time to close Design*Sponge ? and then figuring out how we’d like that to go and feel. The second was realizing that, despite our best efforts and...

When I was in college — in the mid-90s — I discovered the art of thrifting. I was working in a vintage store at the time in Tampa, FL called Decades Ago-Go. My bosses Laura and Dan taught me so much about vintage and all the things to...