Beau Ciolino - Probably This Housewarming: A Guide to Creating a Home You Adore

DEDICATION

To Meme, Rene, and both our moms, whose love, support, and expertise made this book possible.

Welcome to an all-encompassing guide to casual domesticity, by the lovable gay couple who has built a career out of making homemaking approachable. Thats us! On our blog, Probably This, and now in this here book, we give you all the tools you need to make your home feel full of life (no matter how vacant you may be on the inside!). If youd told us when we first started our adventure together nine years ago that people would be reading a book about innovative homemaking that we wrote, wed have stared blankly at you from our messy, leaky attic apartment and rolled our eyes. But a lot has changed since then, and we want to share all of that growth with you!

So, what does all-encompassing encompass? We think of attainable homemaking as having three major tiers: putting intention into your homes aesthetic and function (Part 1: Design), using your own two hands to make your place uniquely yours (Part 2: DIY), and honing your hosting skills to make your guests say, Wow, thats thats really nice (Part 3: Entertaining).

Interesting spaces, handmade and heartfelt touches, and a table set with good food and drinksall of that comes together to support the memories we make with friends, family, andhell, maybe even strangers, were not your parents. Were here to show you how to live your best, most beautiful, and fulfilling home life while dealing with the limitations that come with renting, working long hours, and/or not having a lot of expendable incomeall of which applied to us when we first started. And even if it doesnt apply to you and never has, we think weve still got some tips you could use.

We wont be giving long dissertations on color theory, impractical DIY projects that no normal human wants to do, or lengthy cocktail recipes where you have to, like, flamb something. Were cutting the fat and getting straight to the basic needs of a homethat its comfortable for you and suited to welcome the people you love, with, okay, some wow factors here and there.

The projects within this book are curated for renters and homeowners alike. Some of our projects may not be realistic for everybody or every home, but where possible weve offered alternatives for people who are limited by either budget or lease restrictions.

Were oversimplifying basically everything we tell you here because, well, were self-taught jacks-of-all-trades, not specialists. If youre an expert in any of the fields were covering, thank you for joining us, and were sorry for whatever thing we bastardized, but please do not worry about sending an email.

To keep this journey into the world of homemaking as approachable as possible, were introducing you to some key terms that will be useful in further exploring the projects and concepts this book touches on. Whenever you see something STYLED LIKE THIS, thats lingo you can easily research online or use in conversation with a professional in that field, such as wine terms like CTES DU RHNE and paint finishes like SEMI-GLOSS.

Now if youre along for the ride, it feels like a good time to tell you just a little more about us and the places weve called home, which have each shaped our approach to homemaking.

We started dating in college (Beau saw Matt first; Matt said hello first), and we moved in together irresponsibly fast. Our first place was Beaus small apartment just off campus that had musty stained carpet and a sloped ceiling that made you feel like you were in someones attic because it was actually an attic, haphazardly renovated by a money-grubbing real estate development company. Everything between us was just dandy, but everything around us made us want to die. We made the most of what we had, reorganizing our Target throw pillows, carefully building cheese boards from the under $4 bucket at Whole Foods, and tinkering with cocktail recipes.

As much as we tried, that first home together was pretty unremarkable. We had a lot of growing to do if we were going to blossom into the domestic angels wed always dreamed of being. Beau, growing up, would waltz down the aisles of Michaels crafts store to attend baking and cake decorating classes. When he was a preteen and his parents remarried, he put his skills on display by making his moms wedding cake and his dads groom cake. Each was a hit. Matt always had an interest in decor and design, solidified by a childhood trip to Graceland and an argument with his grandmother (a lifelong antiques collector and interior designer) about the merits of the green shag carpet in Elviss Jungle Room. She expressed physical discomfort at the gaudy design choices there; Matt had a minor epiphany that decor boundaries existed to be broken.

We took on extra shifts at our jobs (late nights in swanky restaurants) and ditched the dingy apartment. Our next home was a modern apartment that felt fresh and new with an industrial edge to it, with a small loft bedroom and a large, high-ceilinged entertaining space. It became the perfect place for us to really dive into our interests in decorating and hosting. We curated our first home bar and then drank through it way too fast. We planned small, cozy gatherings and threw the occasional partyexperimenting with tablescapes and mood lighting to set the tone for a relaxing evening of gossiping about all the people we didnt invite.