Lessons from an Uber-Minimalist Kitchen—Plus, Where They Keep the Clutter

Architect John Pawson is known for his rigorously minimalistic aesthetic. A typical John Pawson interior looks like it is waiting for the owner to arrive: There’s no clutter and the furnishings are kept to a minimum. Looking at his own bare kitchen and…

Architect John Pawson is known for his rigorously minimalistic aesthetic. A typical John Pawson interior looks like it is waiting for the owner to arrive: There’s no clutter and the furnishings are kept to a minimum. Looking at his own bare kitchen and dining room, it might come as a surprise that Pawson and his wife Catherine have just published a cookbook Home Farm Cooking that’s geared towards home cooks.

Despite the book’s pristine photos of the Pawson’s kitchens, a lot of cooking goes on in the Pawson household. “This book is about home cooking,” says Catherine. “I invited some of my favorite chefs in to collaborate with me on recipes, but the rest are old favorites: some from my mother and John's mother, plus other people's recipes that I've adapted.”

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12 Upgrades You Can Make (& Get Away With) In Your Rental

Rent Like You Mean It is a series all about giving our rental spaces a new lease. We’ve rounded up a whole host of refreshing spruce-ups (and cover-ups), impactful DIYs (plus how to get them back to square one when you leave), and peeks at real-life re…

Rent Like You Mean It is a series all about giving our rental spaces a new lease. We’ve rounded up a whole host of refreshing spruce-ups (and cover-ups), impactful DIYs (plus how to get them back to square one when you leave), and peeks at real-life rental transformations. Because a lease should never stop you from having a space that feels like yours—even if it’s only for a year.


I am passionate about making rentals feel just as decorated and designed as any owned home. I am constantly redecorating my apartment, asking my landlord if I can make updates, and generally (I think) improving the value of the place. By documenting much of this on social media, my hope is to instill some confidence in others that they, too, can make changes and updates to their spaces—without having to worry about getting their security deposits withheld.

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What Restoring an Old Home Can Teach You About Life

Late last year, my husband and I bought an 1826 colonial in the Hudson Valley. As a first-time home owner, the learning curve was steep—there was plenty to be grasped about things like mortgage rates and down payments, real estate trends, and property …

Late last year, my husband and I bought an 1826 colonial in the Hudson Valley. As a first-time home owner, the learning curve was steep—there was plenty to be grasped about things like mortgage rates and down payments, real estate trends, and property investments. Ever the students, my partner and I threw ourselves into mastering anything we thought could come our way after owning the home, too—how to spot water damage, the best method for heating an old house, how to reinforce a rickety stairwell—the list truly went on and on.

I thought my degree in home ownership would be tangible and actionable, a suitcase packed with knowledge about how to renovate and then care for something that we gleefully sunk our savings into. Little did I realize though, that buying an old home came with a slew of less tangible—and perhaps, more important—life lessons, too.

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A Camper That’s Stylish, Functional & Fits a Family of Five

Whenever they can, Californians Roman and Christina Molitvenik pile their three kids, Liam (5), Iris (2), and Matthew (6 months), into their motor home-away-from-home and hit the road. “We want our children to love the outdoors, and the camper is an ea…

Whenever they can, Californians Roman and Christina Molitvenik pile their three kids, Liam (5), Iris (2), and Matthew (6 months), into their motor home-away-from-home and hit the road. “We want our children to love the outdoors, and the camper is an easy way to experience them,” Molitvenik says, adding that it’s also been a great way to travel while social distancing.

And that travel is now both stylish and comfortable thanks to some thoughtful, Scandi-inspired touches: leather benches elevate family dinners; blonde cabinets keep things light and airy; and IKEA bedding beckons the family of five after a long day of hiking.

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4 Interior Designer-Vetted Tips for Picking Bedroom Paint Colors

Even if you don’t necessarily spend a lot of time in your bedroom—and are asleep for most of the time you do spend in there—it’s still worthwhile to make the room beautiful. A well-decorated bedroom will not only bring you joy, but also help you relax …

Even if you don’t necessarily spend a lot of time in your bedroom—and are asleep for most of the time you do spend in there—it’s still worthwhile to make the room beautiful. A well-decorated bedroom will not only bring you joy, but also help you relax and unwind at the end of the day—and wake up on the right side of the bed each morning.

If you’re planning to give your bedroom a lil’ facelift, one of the key decisions you’ll need to make is what color to paint the walls. That’s easier said than done, though, as there are quite literally thousands of hues to choose from—so many, in fact, that you might not know where to start.

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The Best Lighting For Maximum Kitchen Visibility

Shopping for light bulbs can be as simple or complex as you make it. My roommate and I, who spend an inordinate amount of money at the nearby corner store (because it’s right there!), tend to suffer through whatever light bulbs they’ve got in stock—mor…

Shopping for light bulbs can be as simple or complex as you make it. My roommate and I, who spend an inordinate amount of money at the nearby corner store (because it's right there!), tend to suffer through whatever light bulbs they've got in stock—more often than not they're soft white 60-watt incandescents. I realize I should be embarrassed.

But in our living room, where there are four to five lamps lighting a space barely larger than a dog house, these hazy bulbs create a warm, layered blanket of light that we love in the evenings. In the kitchen, however, where we try to use them in lieu of our fluorescent ceiling fixture, they fail—in the kitchen, it turns out, you actually need to be able to see.

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Lessons in Sustainable Living From My 100-Year-Old Japanese Farmhouse

Welcome to Real-Life Renos, where we’re pulling back the curtains to the home renos we just can’t get enough of. Tag along as our favorite designers, chefs, and cookbook authors welcome us inside their spaces and share the behind-the-scenes stories beh…

Welcome to Real-Life Renos, where we’re pulling back the curtains to the home renos we just can’t get enough of. Tag along as our favorite designers, chefs, and cookbook authors welcome us inside their spaces and share the behind-the-scenes stories behind their transformations. We’ll explore their takes on sustainable living, how they express their identities through design, how they create beautiful spaces that center around accessibility—and so much more.


At first it was only a daydream to own a farmhouse in Japan.

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Century House Reno: Amanda & Timmie Roll Up Their Sleeves

The beach house was built just before the turn of the 20th century, back when the Hamptons were mostly potato fields and pitch pines. William Dwight Whitney, a Sanskrit scholar and linguist, constructed the house with proceeds from his 10-volume Centur…

The beach house was built just before the turn of the 20th century, back when the Hamptons were mostly potato fields and pitch pines. William Dwight Whitney, a Sanskrit scholar and linguist, constructed the house with proceeds from his 10-volume Century Dictionary, published in 1889. For this reason, it became known as “Century House” generations ago—and we call it that to this day.

My husband Tad’s family, and an evolving generational tidal flow, have owned the house since 1915, but even as bankers have built gilded fortresses all around it, the Friends have staunchly resisted the temptation to sell. Instead, they’ve doubled down on keeping the house intact.

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How Buying a Home Taught Me To ‘Fight Right’ With My Partner

Buying a home, in my opinion, is one of the most emotionally-charged domestic tasks you can take on with your partner, second only to grocery shopping while you’re both hungry. Add in a pandemic and burgeoning real estate market (in practically every t…

Buying a home, in my opinion, is one of the most emotionally-charged domestic tasks you can take on with your partner, second only to grocery shopping while you’re both hungry. Add in a pandemic and burgeoning real estate market (in practically every town in the country) and, well, you’ve got yourselves a recipe for disaster.

Like with so many other people, the pandemic pushed up the timeline my husband and I had carefully constructed for when we’d leave our beloved apartment in Astoria, Queens. We’d both grown up in the suburbs and knew we’d want to make the move out to the Hudson Valley eventually, but the onset of COVID-19 sped up our timeline. We suddenly found ourselves both working from home, with a newborn, in a very expensive city that we loved but didn’t have to live in if neither of us was commuting to Manhattan any longer. Plus—and it needs to be said—no matter how much you love your spouse, spending 24/7 with them in a 400-square-foot apartment where they’re constantly in your sightline is...less than ideal.

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Love Spotting a Reno Challenge? This Instagram Account Is a Must.

One of my favorite quarantine pastimes is walking around my neighborhood. Though I live in a rather plain 550-square-foot apartment, my little nook of Denver is comprised of red brick Tudors and bungalows built in the ’40s and ’50s. But I’ve noticed an…

One of my favorite quarantine pastimes is walking around my neighborhood. Though I live in a rather plain 550-square-foot apartment, my little nook of Denver is comprised of red brick Tudors and bungalows built in the ’40s and ’50s. But I’ve noticed an increasing and troubling trend: these old structures are being torn down, with brand new homes popping up in their place.

These contemporary homes, defined by boxy shapes that make them look like artsy storage units, are bigger and flashier than the single-story homes that originally lined the streets. But they don’t elicit the same daydream-y feeling I get when strolling past an older house with a quaint porch and overlapping gables.

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