Seventeen years ago, I sat down at my computer and started a blog called In My Own Style.
At the time, I had no idea where it would lead me. I simply wanted a place where I could share my love of decorating, DIY projects, making things, organizing, and finding creative ways to make a home look and feel good without spending a fortune.
I certainly never imagined that 17 years later I would still be here, writing posts, taking photos, working on projects and sharing my home and ideas with all of you.
But after much thought over the last year, I have decided that the time has come for me to retire from blogging.
And even as I type those words, they feel a little surreal. This wasn’t an easy decision, but one that feels right and you might have seen coming as I have not been posting very much.
A New Chapter for In My Own Style
While I am retiring, In My Own Style is not going away.
I am very happy to tell you that a lovely couple will be taking it over with new ideas and energy. All the decorating ideas, DIY projects, organizing tips, seasonal inspiration, printables and everything else I have shared over the years will remain here for you to find, use and enjoy.
Knowing that the site would continue was very important to me.
There are 17 years of my life within these pages. There are projects from the two homes I have lived in, decorating experiments that worked beautifully and probably a few that didn’t. Holiday ideas, furniture makeovers, organizing solutions and hundreds of little ways I found to make my homes feel more like the way Ed and I wanted to live.
I love knowing that those ideas aren’t disappearing just because I am ready to move on to the next chapter of my life.
What Started as a Blog Became So Much More
When I started In My Own Style, blogging was still new and the internet was like the wild, wild west. We learned as we went and bloggers all helped each other make the blogging world what it became.
I never could have predicted all the bloggers and people I have met and the places having a blog would take me or the opportunities that would come my way simply because I decided to share the things I loved doing.
And some of those opportunities were things I never could have dreamed up!
Because of this blog, I once got to dance with the Radio City Rockettes along with a group of other bloggers who were part of the Swiffer blogger team wth me.
I got to ride around a high-speed test track at Ford Headquarters in Detroit in a Ford race car with a professional driver behind the wheel, definitely not something I ever expected to be doing when I started writing about decorating and DIY projects. I was chosen to go to the event because the wife of one of the Ford event organizers liked my blog and recommending inviting me.
I also had the opportunity to meet Martha Stewart more than once. As someone who has always loved decorating, creating and making things, that alone was pretty exciting. On one visit to her New York City office, I even got to sit at Martha’s desk. That was certainly a pinch-me moment.
Another opportunity that became a big part of my blogging career came from Glidden Paints. Early on in my blogging journey, they selected me as one of seven decorating and painting bloggers to write for their My Colortopia website. I was paid to create and write a new post for them every month. What started as an opportunity turned into a relationship that lasted seven years.
And another event I will never forget was when I won the Better Homes & Garden’s Makeover Madness contest that was all about making over an IKEA dresser.
There were many other brand collaborations, trips, events and experiences along the way, but these are a few that still make me smile when I think about them.
Who would have thought that sitting down at my computer and starting a decorating blog would one day would have me dancing with the Rockettes, speeding around a racetrack, sitting at Martha Stewart’s desk and writing about color and decorating for a major paint company for seven years?
Certainly not me. 🙂
I also learned more than I ever expected to know about photography, writing, websites, social media, technology and running a business. When I started, I certainly didn’t know I was signing up to learn all of that!
And through it all, I kept doing what I had always done, looking around my house and thinking…
How can I make this better?
Could I paint it?
Could I use it in a different way?
Can I figure out how to make it myself?
Those simple questions ended up taking me places I never could have imagined when I sat down at my computer 17 years ago to start In My Own Style.
But as wonderful as all those opportunities and experiences have been, when I look back now, they aren’t what stand out the most.
You do!
To Everyone Who Has Read In My Own Style
Some of you have been reading this blog almost from the beginning.
You’ve followed along through different houses, room makeovers, furniture transformations, paint colors, organizing projects, holidays, family milestones and all the little bits of everyday life that found their way into my posts.
You’ve left comments, sent emails, shared my projects, pinned my photos, asked questions and told me when something I shared inspired you to try an idea in your own home.
I cannot adequately tell you how much that has meant to me.
Blogging can look like a one-person job, and for all of these years, I have been the person behind the computer doing all of it, but it never felt as though I was creating in a vacuum because I knew you were on the other side of the screen.
You gave me a reason to keep looking at ordinary things and thinking, What could I do with this?
You encouraged my creativity simply by showing up to see what I was working on next.
For that, I owe you the biggest THANK YOU.
17 Years of Making a Home In My Own Style
If there is one thing I hope you take away from all the years you’ve spent here and I hope will continue to do so is the idea behind the name of this blog.
Your home doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.
It doesn’t have to follow every decorating trend. It doesn’t have to be filled with expensive things. And it certainly doesn’t have to be perfect.
Sometimes all it takes is paint, fabric, a thrift-store find, something you already own used in a completely different way or simply the willingness to try an idea and see what happens.
Make your home a reflection of you.
That was what In My Own Style meant to me when I chose the name 17 years ago, and it still does today.
I’m sure I’ll still decorate, rearrange furniture, paint things, organize closets and look at perfectly good objects and wonder what else I could turn them into. I don’t think that part of me knows how to retire. 🙂
I’ll just be doing it for myself now, without stopping halfway through to take photos and write a tutorial for it.
One Last, Very Big Thank You
So rather than ending this post with goodbye, I want to end it the same way I feel when I look back over these 17 years… with an enormous amount of gratitude!
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for commenting.
Thank you for sharing my ideas with your friends and family.
Thank you for pinning my projects and coming back years later to make them.
Thank you for trusting me enough to bring some of my ideas into your own homes.
Thank you to those of you who discovered In My Own Style only recently.
And an especially heartfelt thank you to those of you who have been coming back for years and years to see what I was up to and will continue to as the new owners of the blog begin to share more inspiration, ideas and projects with you.
You helped turn a little blog I started 17 years ago into a career, a creative outlet on the internet and an experience I never could have imagined when I began.
It has been one of the best things I have done with my life.
And I will always be grateful that I got to share it with you.
With much love… my very best to each and everyone of you.
