One Question We Ask Before Getting It All Right

May 24, 2026

Someone asked me in my DMs how we decide what should be used in a repair. I’ve been thinking about it all week, because the honest answer has changed a lot over the years – but the question we’re asking hasn’t.

I’ll get to that in a moment. First up: the stair reno.

Chris and I fixed our front stairs before we moved into this home and that, in retrospect, was totally inappropriate. It looks good. I drew a motivational image and designed it before we moved in. We are very expensive. I’m not sure I drooled over those stairs just once over the years. Lesson learned, completed, paid for.

The type of error that teaches you the right question, namely:

Will this look and feel better for X dollars?

That’s the whole gut check. Not “will this increase resale” (we are not real estate brokers, and we never pretend to be). Not “this is what the designer will do.” Of course: if we spend this amount on this particular project, will we walk in this room every day and hear? Will the house feel like X dollars like us?

Sometimes the answer is an immediate yes. Sometimes it is not, and the project quietly gets on the shelf. Sometimes it is a not yetwhich is the answer — we learned to rearrange it in stages to apply it to the current calculation and visit the rest later. Some of my favorite rooms in this house are built in three steps, not one.

Another thing that changed everything for us: budgeting first. If a project has already been assigned its number, all decisions within that number are valid allowed. Tile is not a splurge – it is tile. A light fixture is not an easy thing — it’s one we said yes to. There is no offense. There is no renegotiation with you at checkout. Just a set of neat choices within the line you’ve already drawn.

Julia working at the desk in the study with no wires or cables visible

Needs still come before wants – when mold appeared outside our last house, the kitchen I had been dreaming of was pushed back, and so it happened. But there something is something search, the question is always the same. Are we going to use this every day? Will it make the house feel like us? Will it look and feel better for X dollars?

If so, it usually earns its place.

PS The stairs, for the record, were great. I have no regrets about how they looked and everything about how much they cost. A fix can be both of those things at the same time. That’s the whole lesson.