Hosting people when your home design isn’t “done”
We recently collaborated with Underground Goods, a D.C. based vintage shop specializing in curating home, and tableware (they ship!) They curated the most epic House Friends collection for us to shop and gave our members a special discount.
As we prepared our mood boards, see below, inspired by their beautiful collection, we thought about hosting and the mixed feelings that come with it. It’s of course fun to bring your people together, enjoy delicious food, and have an excuse to pull out your cute thrifted wine glasses. But there’s also the feeling that comes with slow design…my house isn’t finished yet. It can leave you feeling a little apprehensive about inviting people into your home when it’s still in process.
The reality is it will probably always be in process or at least could feel that way for a while. Both Claire and I have moved into our homes recently and even though we believe it’s important to enjoy it at every stage, we wanted to share the tips from our community to help you get there:
No judgey friends - our friend and talented interior designer, Megan, shared with us that she has a strict no judgemental friends at the house policy. If they might judge her in-progress home, she’ll meet them at a café.
Share in the process! Celebrate each stage with your people. You have a home dammit! Home bloggers Chris Loves Julia coined the phrase “don’t wait” after their cabin sadly burned down mid - renovation. It was a huge wake-up call to them and their followers to enjoy your home at every stage because who knows what’s going to happen.
Use hosting in your unfinished space to your advantage! Ask for help!! When we first moved into our home, we formed a “design council” with our good friends who had just bought a house nearby. It was so fun to take turns weighing in on big decisions for each other’s places and have people who totally understood the whole concept of the journey, there was no pressure for things to feel polished, we were all along for the ride. I loved this so much it was one of the many pieces of inspiration behind our House Friends community.
Our favorite piece of hosting advice came from one of our members, Missy. Her advice is to “host often and imperfectly! The more you practice, the less it becomes about every detail being perfect and more about the ethos created. Things will go wrong, guests can still be wowed.” I mean that just about sums it up.
