Welcome to Our New Virtual Home!

We’ve made big changes around the blog, with the biggest being: It’s not just a blog anymore! Keep reading to see our favorite features and how you can more easily navigate our virtual home.

New Year, New Look

We can’t tell you how excited we are to share the Yellow Brick Home site overhaul with you! At the start of 2023, one of our goals was to create a new website that would provide a better experience for you, a website that was simple to navigate, find information easily, and a place where you’d like to curl up with a blanket and dig into the archives. It took every last day of the year to pull it off, but on December 30th, we sneakily hit publish on the new design, and we then spent the next few weeks reviewing each corner of our virtual home to ensure it was ready for you.

We kicked things off in spring 2023, working with my talented assistant, Akiyo, to help us first rebrand. We craved a new logo, fresh colors and a website that better represented the Kim and Scott of present day. I always get butterflies when hiring outside help for creative endeavors, for fear that I have to explain what’s in my head and hope they understand. I realize now I had nothing to worry about; Akiyo crushed it.

For the design of the website, we worked with Sandra at The Flying Muse. She took our vision and ran with it, tweaking every nuance until she could tweak no more. I am so grateful for her!

What’s In a Rebrand?

Before getting too deep into our favorite features (of which there are many!), we first needed a logo and colors that tell the story of Yellow Brick Home. Akiyo sent us a questionnaire that had us looking deep within to understand the why of it all. Who are we speaking to? How would we like to present ourselves to you, this tight-knit community of DIYers, homebodies and renovators?

Community. That was our word for the rebrand. If ‘community’ was a brand that welcomes all, what would that look like? And for a word that both rings true yet is somewhat synonymous with marketing buzz, Akiyo found a way to create an inviting logo and color story that invites you in, keeps things playful, and encourages, well, community!

More Than a Blog

In 2009, we started as a DIY blog. That was it. Facebook was relatively new, Pinterest was still invite-only, and Instagram didn’t exist yet; when it debuted a year later, most of us used it to learn what a filter was! (I was a Valencia girl, by the way.)

In some ways, I miss the sheer excitement of journalistic style writing without a schedule, without rhyme or reason. And part of me will always be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of creator, but as most of you know, things have changed. A LOT. A blog is no longer ‘just’ a blog. It’s crisp photography and dreamy videos, off-the-cuff Stories, newsletters and, well, I could go on. In more ways than not, that’s incredible! It’s an opportunity to find your people, connect, learn and grow. And yet, our former website was a reflection of days of yore, and it was time for change.

What You’ll Find

The blog will always be the trunk of our proverbial tree, but after 14 years of penning an online journal, our housekeeping was getting a bit chaotic. Here’s what you’ll find as you poke around the new design!

House Tours take a front row seat on the home page, for easy access to the homes that this blog has chronicled. As you click from house to house, you’ll see all the before and afters that we’ve documented – and you can go so far back as our 650 square foot condo in that yellow brick corner building (the one that started it all!).

We’re especially excited to introduce our Curated Shopping section, which includes everything from our tool recommendations at every skill level, my favorite skincare, and the style that very much defines us, among other things! You can still shop each house, too, including our Chicago home, Michigan Tree House, and even our Amazon storefront.

Another feature we’re proud of is one we already had on our previous website. The only problem was, no one knew it existed! This time, it’s featured on the home page with the addition of satisfying before and after sliders. You can click on any home, which is then broken into each room, which then shares every project or tutorial that was completed in that space.

New Additions

Did you know we offer design consultations? We do, and we’ve been conducting them virtually for 2 years now! The only issue is that we never had a home base for it, until now. We have had the best time meeting so many of you virtually, helping to tackle your design dilemmas, from furniture arrangements to paint colors to entire kitchen renovations!

We’ve also made it easier to find and book our Michigan Airbnb, read the latest on the blog, and dig through the archives. Oh, and our about page got a big facelift, too!

Can We Be Pen Pals?

Perhaps a feature I’m most excited about (wait, I’m excited about it ALL) is the addition of our newsletter! We’ve been asked over the years why we haven’t started one, and many of you have requested the return of The Weekender. Think of our newsletter as a new version of The Weekender, including behind-the-scenes, first looks, and – my favorite of all – exclusive interviews with the people that build this community.

We want these chats with other creatives to inspire and fuel your own love of design, art, music, food and much more! Sign up to be our pen pal right here! The first edition will hit your inbox next week, and it features an interview from a big hitter in the design industry. Eeek!

Phew!

In summary, we hope you enjoy clicking around every nook and cranny of Yellow Brick Home. If you notice anything funny or any loading issues, please first clear your cache and that should fix most issues. If not, please let us know! We want to ensure the best experience for you. xx