If I had a dollar for EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON that told me that I was certifiably insane for the amount of work I was putting into my rental apartment, I could quickly move out of it and into a penthouse that looks over the Pacific Ocean, while sipping mojitos and staring at the pool boy below in his red speedo. But – as reality has it, I am still single, elbows deep in DIY and decor projects in my current apartment, and I could not be happier (unless, say, that poolboy came over to help me with my projects – I digress).

A new kitchen project (three of them, actually) is underway. A lot of you are fans of ‘The Lorey’s house’, as are we. We’ve done their master bedroom, tween daughter’s bedroom, son’s room, dining room, family room and guest room/office. They always had intentions of finishing the house and renovating the kitchen so 6 months ago they called us up and said it was time. It’s going to be absolutely beautiful if I do say so myself. Ginny is the lead designer on this project and she has done such a great job of designing and project managing this job.

A couple of months ago I had a rather interesting kitchen design challenge, with a capital C. I was hired by LG to promote their new Black Stainless Steel series at an editors event in New York – that wasn’t the challenging part. The challenging part came later (keep reading). The ask: Design a kitchen on Pinterest then, weeks later, install said kitchen in one day/night in an event space, in New York (with lots of help from a strong design/build team). It was insane, and was full of fixable bumps and exciting problems to solve.

Progress has been made in the guest room and I’d say its 72% done. It’s certainly habitable, but since I’m trying to make every room in my house/life a portfolio piece it’s not quite there yet. Let’s recap and break it down… When we bought the house this room was a terrifying mess – totally unfinished, full of storage, with layers of carpet. It’s about 400 square feet and we knew that we wanted to utilize that space.