So its official, we’ve been blogging for a whole year and over 200 posts! I know, time flies! Our Blogaversary also happens to fall on our summer vacation. So although we’ll be taking a break from the blog for a week of sun and fun, we will have a few new things to share with you.
First up, THE TRUTH!
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and blogs skew our perspective of other peoples lives. You don’t see piles of laundry, their kids screaming, couples having arguments, bills, stress and chaos. The internet is like a magazine, only the most flattering parts of something are shown.
I know you see El Granto & I working away on projects every weekend, but here’s the truth. It doesn’t always go as planned, sometimes we screw up, and big. When were in the middle of a project, our house is in chaos, the laundry un-done, a dust bunny rolling down the hallway gathering size, and sometimes we have cereal for dinner.
So here is a post about the truth. The good, the bad and the ugly, but all of it true.
- Every single photo on the blog is taken with a cell phone. When we started the blog, I didn’t want to drag out our DSLR for every photo. I didn’t want to shoot raw, process, retouch and re-size. The blog is a hobby, and as such, it needed to not take up all of our time to maintain. So we shoot every photo on my iPhone, export it as a medium res image, and upload. No color correcting, no retouching. What you see is what you get.
- I write all my blog posts on the bus. I have a long commute, and between my 9-5 day job, commute, life & our projects it didn’t leave much time for blog writing. I would rather spend my evenings cuddling on the sofa with husband and puppy that stuck in the office writing. So I have found time during my commute to write my posts. I write everything as a draft in my email (again on my phone!), then when I’m at a computer I copy and paste and upload the photos.
whats that? oh you know, the dog ripping a hole in our $150 douvet cover - We argue. We are both very stubborn and passionate people. We have opinions and like to do things our way. We argue over how to do projects, how much money to spend on them, and when things go wrong we can be not so nice to each other. I think the key to out working together is to know our strengths, to listen to eachother and to take a break when things aren’t working right. Usually a few minutes away (most likely with a drink on the deck and a game of fetch with the dog) and we are relaxed to give it another go.
- DIYing calms and relaxes me. I know that sounds crazy, as normally DIYing stresses people out. They do call it Divorce Dust after all. However building takes me to my happy place. If I could quit my day job and build things all day I would be happier than a pig in s#!t.
- I dream about reno projects. I often have trouble falling asleep at night, and to calm my brain I think about projects I’d like to do, and how I’d do them. I think planning is half the fun in a project (nerd alert).
- I am the spastic one, and El Granto is the calm level headed one. I have crazy ideas, and he brings me down to earth and keeps me sane. We are both creative types and feed off eachothers ideas. One of us can have a great idea and then the other one will chime in to make it even better. This is both a good and a bad thing, as it usually means more work or more money to spend on a project!
- El Granto built and maintains the site. When I said I wanted a blog, he set it up on a site we already had, and gave me one month to blog. He promised if I stuck with it, he’d give me my own domain. Well one month and 19 posts later, he realized that I wasn’t joking, and really wanted to do this. So that day he signed me up for a new domain, and www.storefrontlife.com was born.
- Ever wonder what we do for (real) jobs? I work in the photography industry, and El Granto is a web developer.
- A lot of the time we have no idea what we’re doing. We research things and watch YouTube videos like the rest of you. We’re not experts, and a lot of the time we’re just winging it. Most importantly we read the instructions. Most of the time there’s an expert telling you EXACTLY how to do something, you just have to follow the instructions.
Yep, that’s a burn in the shape of a comma, forever scarred into my arm - I use all the tools, and pull my weight in projects. Ours isn’t a house of “honey-do lists”. Everything is a group effort, and each of us pulls our weight in projects. We both have strengths and weaknesses, and things we like to do more than others. For instance, I usually let El Granto do most of the drilling, as for the life of me I cant hold a drill straight. I also am not the biggest fan of the table saw, and usually let El Granto do most of the cutting on it. El Granto hates sanding (I could probably trade him bathroom cleaning duty for sanding) but I don’t mind it that much, so I usually sand while he continues to build. However, I love the miter saw, and my anal retentiveness usually has me doing the measuring and finishing cuts.
- We have not made a penny off the blog, and our intention was never for this blog to make any money. We were doing the projects and sharing them with friends and family on Facebook already, and thought maybe someone else out here would like to hear about them. We also have went a year without ads or sponsors. That’s not to say that we wont consider that in the future (cause hey, this blog does cost $ to run!) but we want to share what we do, and hope you get some inspiration out of it!
So that’s us, in all our flawed glory. Thanks for spending the time with us for the last year, and hopefully we can get into some more fun in the years to come. Ohh snap, sh$t just got sentimental.