We’re Jess and Matt, a professional Design Architect + Build Engineer (yep, a wife-and-husband team who haven’t killed each other after years of working together😂) who serve millions of readers each year via this site, plus thousands of private clients who want tailored, expert support to get their homes right!
We literally do it all when it comes to homes—start to finish, inside and out—and our whole goal is simple:
Make your life easier!
With 50+ years combined residential design & build experience, we get energized helping others with the skills we’ve honed over the years (and can basically do in our sleep by now). Online help wasn’t something we always offered, but that changed a few years ago.
Why?
Because we were tired of seeing people like you
- get taken advantage of
- feeling uncertain, confused, or overwhelmed
- sucked into low-quality DIY freebies with weak, mediocre results
- pushed into a “trendy” or other design they didn’t really even like (but didn’t know what else to do)
- told something “can’t be done” simply because a contractor didn’t want to do it
…and the list goes on! 😉 (Jess wrote THIS post back in 2020 about why we kept flinching at the constantly-suggested-to-us idea of starting our own big design-build business outside of L.A.)
We didn’t want to limit ourselves to helping only the (very expensive) Los Angeles crowd—we wanted to create something 100% available to the whole world! (And now our hearts are full knowing we’ve helped clients across all 6 continents!)
We’re not about chasing trends or cutting corners. (We can, but that’s not our why.) Instead, we’ve been described as
“a rare hybrid of smart function + thoughtful design”
that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
If you’re here, you’re already ahead of the game—you may just need a little extra coaching to help cross the finish line!
No one else out there is offering the kind of help we create for you guys, such as:
- Step-by-step inside looks at how to actually get results
- Clear explanations + insights you can finally understand
- Design secrets pros don’t share (because then they can’t charge you an arm and a leg 😅)
- Our own design strategies that not even the other “pros” have thought of
- DIY Plans & Guides or 1:1 Consults— whichever fits your life and budget
No one looks at things the way we do, showing you examples of our work and processes here on our site…and then offering you our level of expert immediate solutions…
…so that’s why we’re here: to offer help you literally can’t get anywhere else! 🤗
It energizes our souls to help you, our amazing readers and clients. To know we’re helping improve the world one space, one life at a time!
We genuinely love helping you create a home and life that feels better—more ease, more energy, more enjoyment!
In our personal lives, we’ve enjoyed making every home of ours better than the last one, and actually creating TIME + ENERGY for ourselves and what matters most to us.
You can have the same! (And we’re here to help you get it ASAP!)
Wondering where to start? We highly recommend starting with THIS #1 Step!
We didn’t always offer our help to others. We started out working for big companies and being paid well for our expertise.
Fast-forward several years, we started this site simply as a fun way to share the story of our new home renovation in California at the time…
…and it turned into a place where millions of people like you are finding new inspiration and solutions for your biggest home problems!
- Read our posts by room!👈
- Download our design guides!👈
- Get your first Design Mini-Guide here for FREE!👈
From the outside, people couldn’t understand how Matt and I were able to accomplish so much on our house + have fun and travel with limited time. It’s all because of what most people can’t see:
the visible + invisible strategic designs and home processes
we created!
The good news is
we can 100% help you do the same!
Your home should support the kind of life YOU want to live! (100% you means not the same as everyone else.)
We help you accomplish that + create a space you love!
➜ Whether that’s design choices that are gorgeous AND make cleaning go faster, or the exact measurements of your drawers, EVERY decision you make matters!
➜ Get our guides for making life better!
➜ Score help from us on thinking strategically about the why & the how!
Here’s a lil’ more about us…
Jessica (“The Thinker”):
If you ask Jess why she does this, she’ll say, “To help people THINK!”
Incredibly passionate and energetic about the things that matter, one of Jess’ favorite things to do is think! A strategist to the core, Jess thinks about the who, the what, the where, the when, the how, and the why. Her creativity and strategic skills have been utilized over the past 20+ years by some of the biggest-name brands in the world.
➥ If you and Jess could hang out, you’d probably go sip your favorite drinks together and her eyes would light up as she’d ask you questions like,
- “What kind of person do you want to be?”
- “If there were zero barriers, what would you do with your free time?”
- “Where are you most depleted? When are you most energized?”
(Try one of Jess’ favorite Design Guides to start! One, two, three! It’s like going out for that drink together and getting her brain on your home!)
➥ For fun, Jess enjoys dark chocolate (seriously, we can call it a hobby), gardening, cuddling her kids, long walks, and occasionally writing in the third person (A.K.A. entertaining herself!🤗aaand…jazz hands)!
Get your home together today so you can live well now! (Don’t wait for retirement, please.😆)
Matt (“The Doer”):
If you ask Matt why he does this, he’ll say, “To help people DO!”
Not only is Matt’s personality cool, calm & collected, but he genuinely enjoys helping others. He likes to get right on in there, get hands-on, and do it!
After building his first home as a teenager, Matt received his Electrical Engineering degree and went on to become a certified PMP (which officially stands for Project Management Professional, but it just makes Jess want to sing the 50 Cent song). In the past 20+ years, Matt’s roles have led up to his becoming a highly sought-after Senior Project Manager working for some of the biggest-name companies ever!
When Jess brings big, passionate ideas to the table, Matt is the one who first thinks through the logic of it. An engineer at heart, he’s always looking for ways he can make something function better.
➥ If you and Matt could hang out, you’d find yourself doing something more active and hands-on, like playing a sport together (or helping him move furniture for Jess…mwahaha!), and afterwards you’d be encouraged to relax while he cooks up a gourmet treat for you.
➥ For fun, Matt enjoys building furniture, competing against himself in his latest running times, disc golf, cooking, being with his family, and making up the best puns ever.
Together, we make a solid married team that has no shortage of home + adventure plans and no shortage of ability to make them happen.
The shortages we do find are in time (that 24-hr day really gets ya) and energy (we have two young and energetic kids)!
➥ We renovated our famous California fixer upper while working in a lot of adventure with all the free time we’ve created!
- See how we created all that free time by browsing our latest house projects!
- We’ve poured our hearts + expertise into THESE to help you! (Yes, you!) For each one you use, we feel both thankfulness and an almost-giddy excitement that your life at home will be transformed (with us getting to be part of it)!
- Or maybe you’re into how we suddenly quit our high-paying jobs and our first house so that we could move to New Zealand! (Talk about adventure!)
➥ UPDATE: We recently sold our beautiful, function-filled house to do this! Double update: and then we did THIS! (currently going!)
If you’ve made it this far, see which one of us likes tea + who likes coffee! 😉
