About 2 1/2 months ago I asked you fine folk what changes you’d like to see on the blog in the form of content, appearance, etc. The comments I got were awesome (both on the blog and our Facebook page), and mostly it was centered around making things more streamlined and having bigger pics. It’s taken me a long time to get around to it (damn busy schedule), but I’ve been making changes slowly but surely, and I wanted to check in to see what you guys thought!

The most obvious changes have been these 3:
#1 – A wider template
#2 – A wider/redone header (though the small pics in the middle still look a little grainy)

#3 – Bigger pics (yay!)

I really like the bigger pics (so thank you, you smarty pants readers :). Making the template wider allowed for bigger photos and especially when doing more complicated projects it’s nice to have the photos so much bigger so that you can actually see what the hell is going on.

Then there are some other changes that aren’t necessarily as noticeable, especially if you’ve been reading the blog for a while.
#1 – I cleaned up the sidebar a bit, added a small “About Us” blurb under our photo, and added a gadget that shows popular posts people have visited
#2 – I updated nearly all the pages at the top of the blog. The About Us page isn’t really much different, but  I did add a page for cool places we’ve been lucky to be featured on

The Source List page got updated with a photo of the rooms we’ve completed so far (which is still only about 1/2, sigh…) The Before and After page got an update with new photos – now the before and after images are side by side as one composite

The How To page got updated with a small photo of each project

Annnnnd lastly, we used to just have a brand review page, but now it’s Brand and Tool reviews. Chris and I are really brand loyal and Chris loves tools, so even though I know that’s not a frequently visited page, I still think it’s a really helpful resource.

Okay, 2 things I couldn’t update that I wanted to:
#1 – I took away the label list because I wanted to make a label cloud (so it took up a lot less space), and now I can’t find the stupid label gadget. Does anyone know where the hell it went?
#2 – I wanted to have a clean, simple gadget with a button to follow us on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook , etc., but I couldn’t seem to find that either, grrr. Anyone got suggestions?

Now for a couple of content updates:

Now that I’ve finally been about to rope Chris into writing on the blog (hooray!) I think his greatest asset is just the fact that he knows so fucking much, so Chris will start a couple of series, and the first one – his Tool Obsession – already started. Chris seriously has so many tools it’s ridiculous. And I think one of the biggest things we’ve come to realize while renovating is that it always pays to have the right tool.

He’s also going to start a cool series called “DIY 101” just about simple tasks and skills that it’s good to have that you maybe never learned how to do. (I always tell Chris the top two reasons I keep him around are that he’s so smart and so cute. Really, you can’t go wrong with those two traits 🙂

And STILL we’ve got to start the “Ask Meryl & Chris” series (thanks to wonderful Miss Heather‘s suggestion). The idea behind that one is to maybe write an intro once a month and get comments or emails on projects that people might be having trouble with and write 3-4 posts a month answering their questions or writing a how to post about it.

Despite a few new series, we’ll still of course be blogging about all the current projects we work on day to day, but I think it’s really nice to be able to share some of Chris’ building knowledge in a helpful way.

So what do you guys think? Any more suggestions?