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What’s Up With My Brother’s River House? When Will The Rest Of It Be Revealed?
Well, I’m pleased as punch to say that we have *almost* fully finished decorating, styling, and shooting my brother’s house. We spent a week there two weeks ago and styled the heck out of all the remaining spaces. Since the living room, kitchen, dining room, library and entry/staircase are all in view of each other it required to properly destroy that whole floor to make sure it all looked good (and balanced) together. I wanted it to be curated and edited, but still so homey and layered which was not hard, just very time consuming (and required a lot of shopping).
For example we needed so many pillows that you would see at the same time to style two huge living room daybeds/benches, two huge sofas, a huge chair then in the dining room – two huge dining benches/daybeds, then more on the the library sofa and the entryway sofa. Imagine the amount of pillows you need to “play with” in order to make them all look cohesive and balanced (like 50). This was incredibly fun, BTW. My favorite part of the job (I think?) So with my brother’s fam out of town Monday – Friday, we really ripped the house apart to finish her up.
So When Do We Get To See It?!!
Well, two things are holding us up – 1. A potential magazine feature, so I’m waiting on the editors to see what rooms (if any) they want exclusive to the magazine (i.e. we can’t publish til after). This might fall through as it’s not confirmed so we’ll know more soon (but we are excited – its always such an honor to get into print). And 2. We have a product launch that we shot heavily in this house and due to the tariff situation (that is changing daily) we have had some timing delays on the launch. Ideally, these photos would help launch that collection so we don’t want to publish them without actually having a link to purchase our new pretty things (that we are low-key obsessed with and very proud of).
Additionally, one of our pieces has to be reshipped with some design changes so we have to wait to shoot the family room until that comes in which might be 6 weeks from now. So technically, we are going to have to go back in July to get that last room.
Next week we are going back to get a bunch of family/kids/me + Ken shots and videos for all platforms so we can wrap up all our social footage and partnership deliverables. It’s been four years of partnerships on this house and I’m so excited to be able to put this content out there.
I think we’ll release the powder bath soon and technically we could show you the dining room (no EHD product in that one to wait for), but since it’s open to the kitchen/living room we also can’t really show you all the angles, so we might just wait til we can show you the whole thing (thus the update).
It feels VERY weird to be done with the house, and also I’m relieved. I was looking at our calendar for this summer which is usually full of river house and farmhouse shoots, but it’s kinda empty. So yes, I need a new project:) We will be starting the 1850s house soon, but that one is such a long game that requires inspectors and permits and so much heavy construction that it won’t really be the fun stuff for a while. So looking into what friends and family projects I can tackle for design/styling in the interim (and yes, I have a lot of other reader ideas, too). Regardless I want to balance these more high end remodels with some more fun budget or DIY stories. More to come:)
What I can tell you is that once we were done styling my brother’s house, it looked pretty incredible. I wanted to cry. In person it reminds me of a better mountain house – just warmer, more layered, more colorful but with the same wood/natural light vibe. I’m so thrilled with how it all came together and some of the shots really kill me, in the best of ways. I wish I could show you everything now but I hope you enjoy the sneak peeks:)
If you are new to this project here you can head to this landing page where every river house post lives – all the befores, process, and reveals.
Well actually here are all the reveals thus far:
Fun update. Sounds like exciting things are coming (EHD product launch!?!?!).
A post/series I would love to see is how people are rethinking/transitioning their spaces as they become empty nesters (or other life changes).
For example, we are about to start transitioning the prime real estate of my daughter’s childhood room into the “lady lounge” so I can have my own dedicated wardrobe/yoga/office room in the house (don’t worry-she still has a great space when she comes home to visit, just not in the highly coveted location of her previous room). I would love to see inspiration for what others are doing with spaces that are now able to serve a different purpose as their family ventures into new stages of life.
Love this idea! Also in the same boat as a newly empty nester. Hoping to downsize as well, to make it less costly/time consuming to manage a house.
“Pleased as punch” :)
Thanks for the update, the future reveals will be great. Just curious, has your brother actually moved into this house yet? Seems like a very long haul to get to the finish with this property.
If you’re looking for content ideas, I know many of us are really looking forward to the long promised reveals from Jess and Caitlin. And always love Arlyn reveals.
I’d love a Velinda update too – she must have done heaps of new work – or a guest post from Orlando.
Now that your brother’s house is fully kitted out, (and the farmhouse too presumably) I’d love some slightly less sponsored reveals where the rooms look more organic and eclectic, and less catalogue-y (which are still beautiful, of course).
I do understand that this is a business but I think it would be fun to have some homes or reveals that are decorated more the way it happens IRL where not everything is from the same shop.
Yes to all of this! I’d truly love to see Velinda’s recent work. Every time she shares her work, it blows me away and ends up on so many mood boards.
It might be just me, but the text in the comments are too small! It’s fine in the blog itself.
No, the comment font is way too small and too light. I am really struggling with it.
Oh, and any way to add back the YEAR on post dates? Clicking on the River House landing page linked above makes it seem the very first post about the River House was done recently when it was years ago. Seems a shame to lose all that hard earned EHD history!
I’ll take the seat next to the dog, please. 🥰 Can’t wait for all the reveals! Thanks for the update.
I would really love to understand why some comments are not approved. As a regular reader, I comment frequently but am sometimes perplexed as to why my comments are not approved. I never troll but I also don’t fulsomely and obsequiously flatter either and I’m wondering if this could be why.
I try to be thoughtful and considered in my comments and in this current environment where there seems to be a move towards thought policing and silencing of dissenting views, I very much hope that of all places, this doesn’t have to occur on a design blog!
I notice a distinct fall off in comments from previous years and can’t help wondering if this reflects a fall off in readers due to the high commercialisation of the site, a distinct lack of interest in dialogue, and over-censorship (I am in favour of disallowing abusive comments but not of disallowing critical comments and in this context, I mean critical thinking.)
Feeling very disenchanted after many years of readership and can’t help questioning the integrity in such an approach.
we have very finicky spam filters – just rescued your comment from the abyss :)
I miss hearing about the rest of the team’s spaces the most.
Caitlin — how goes designing for two?
Mal — how’s the brand new apartment coming along?
Jess — how’s the living room going?
Those have been true highlights for me over the years — I’d love to see updates.
you’re in luck – we literally met about shooting these projects earlier this week :) lots of team reveals to come in the back half of 2025! (but designing with den is SO FUN, he really brings a more adult, more elevated vibe to our house! i can’t wait to show you our bedroom – it might be the most “grown up” room i’ve ever done. shooting next month!)
I love hearing these details! Also, bring on all the posts about permitting and pre-construction, there is very little of that available and those are the posts that originally brought me to this blog.
This house looks like it’s going to be just stunning but, particularly as a non-American reader, I am just so amazed at the size of a house like this. With genuine curiousity, I would love to know how a typical family of 4 would actually use this much space, let alone clean and maintain it! Would really love some insight into this as someone who sees these houses with 3-4+ bathrooms and can’t help but wonder who is responsible for the cleaning!