If you had asked me a year ago if I thought Brent and I would be standing in the checkout line of the grocery store looking at ourselves and one of our favorite Gray House Studio projects, our industrial shelves, in an issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine I would have asked you, “What the heck is Gray House Studio?” Yes, it is true but hard to believe that this time last year our home renovation blog did not even exist.
But since we started in December we have poured so much of our energy and free time into our DIY projects and our blog so to see our hard work in such a well known and loved magazine this week has been incredibly surreal and overwhelming (in the best of ways).
So much so that we totally played it uncool and when we heard the issue was out, we rushed to the grocery store and had my brother take lots of photos of us posing with it in front of the magazine rack while shoppers looked at us like we were total goofballs. But we were just so happy and excited to see our Better Homes and Gardens {I Did It} Feature! There was no way you could wipe the smiles off our faces that day.
Behind the Scenes of our Photo Shoot
It is crazy to believe but this awesome adventure started all the way back in February of this year. A few weeks after finishing and posting our industrial shelves we received an email from Kit Selzer saying she thought our industrial shelves looked amazing.
To hear that kind of encouraging feedback felt outstanding. I mean sure our parents tell us our projects look great all the time but they also said that about the macaroni art we did in Kindergarten so their biased positive response doesn’t hold quite the same weight as an unbiased opinion that comes from a senior editor at Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Sorry Mom and Dad. We are still appreciative you are our biggest fans.
That wasn’t even the best part. She wanted to feature the shelves in an upcoming issue of the magazine in the I Did It! section and send a team to our house to photograph them and us. After reading the e-mail I immediately called Brent at work and started talking in my “super excited, high pitch voice” that somehow only my easygoing husband and dogs can comprehend. He was equally as enthusiastic.
The photo shoot was scheduled for the last week of April and when two large boxes filled with the magazine files and stationery boxes ordered for the shoot were delivered two weeks prior, it started to sink in that this was really happening. And then panic set in that while our shelves might be ready for BHG, the rest of our house…umm not so much. I’m just going to keep it real and say we needed to do some MAJOR cleaning.
We managed to get our whole house looking cleaner than it has ever been since we moved in because of all our renovation projects just in time for Monday morning when Shelley, the art director and Janna, the photo stylist arrived to preview our space and our wardrobe for Thursday’s shoot.
Once we got talking about outfits and I admitted to having pretty much zero fashion sense outside of shorts and solid colored tank tops (my uniform of choice in Houston for spring, summer and fall) they asked to see our closet to get a sense of my style. While I was more than happy to show them my wardrobe, I cringed at the thought of them seeing our less than organized closet.