Blog Anniversary: Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Plaster & Disaster

Happy almost one year birthday to us!  As we mentioned in our dueling cabinet post on Friday, we launched this blog one year ago tomorrow and are thus devoting this week to celebrating ourselves and how somewhat competent amazing we are.

We do our best to share who we are here on the blog, but it can sometimes be hard to fit in personal content when we’re producing so many extraordinary projects and providing such brilliant commentary.  But, guys, this is 2016 and this is the year that women this blog can really have it all! So to close out our first year, here are a few things you may-or-may not know about us:

(And, lest you think this is all about us, please be sure to make it to the bottom for a very short survey to tell us a little about you!)

Did You Know …That We Only Talked 3 Times Before Deciding to Launch a Blog Together?

We jumped into this blog thing quickly.  We met about a year and a half ago when Sage joined the nonprofit where Naomi worked, and we quickly scoped each other out.  Over group drinks just a week in, we discovered that we both like DIY and home improvement, and both read blogs.  We decided to get lunch together, which turned out to be an awkward, rushed affair over cold sandwiches in the lobby of the building.  But we persisted and went out again for sushi, which is when we haphazardly decided that it was a good idea to launch a blog together.

Sage already had a blog, but didn’t post regularly and was ready for something new as she was just purchasing her first home.  Naomi had a relatively new home and had been reading blogs for a while, with an internal monologue that sounded like your a-little-too-tipsy-relative at a modern art gallery:  A brazen “I could do that!”

We got to work right away: picking a name, buying a domain and theme, and working out joint tone and content.  We really barely knew each other, and it is really very lucky that we’ve ended up actually liking each other, and, importantly, like working together. (On Wednesday we’ll share our many secrets to success when it comes to running a blog with a friend/random stranger.)

…That We Are Freakishly Similar?

Part of the reason we felt comfortable starting a business together so quickly is that we quickly realized how similar we are.  It is uncanny and, to be honest, was a little frightening.

The obvious similarities are a love of home improvement, DIY, reading blogs, and writing. Within those things, we have very similar tastes and read a lot of the same blogs.  (In our warped brains this is sort of like having a lot of friends in common.)

But, beyond DIY, there were even more strange similarities. We were both born and raised in New England, are the same age, and both have one sibling, a brother four years younger than us. When we met, we were also working at the same organization, doing similar jobs, with nearly identical job titles (one word different). Now we work in different organizations, but still both in the non-profit sector.

We both celebrate the solstice as our winter holiday.  Neither of us listens to much music.  We both hate parking, talking on the phone, and parking while talking on the phone. Neither of us ever drinks enough water. Both of our Moms hate cilantro, and both of our Dads like it.  We both think that we’re both hilarious. We communicate almost entirely in sarcastic remarks, and yet always understand what the other one actually means. We both hate waking up early, but will do so if a thrifting or school pillaging excursion requires it. We both looked really great in a dress from Anthropologie one time, but Sage graciously let Naomi buy it.

We could go on…

… But We’re Not Actually The Same Person?

It’s true!  As hard as it may be to believe, there are actually a few differences between us. We think they’re pretty significant.  For example, Sage doesn’t like tomatoes, while Naomi does. Sage trains for marathons which Naomi would find akin to torture (and has enough trouble hearing about them from Sage all the time).  Naomi tends to use blue and red in home decor, while Sage tends toward turquoise and pink. We recently discovered that Naomi can do Magic Eyes and Sage cannot.  Also, Naomi’s hair is darker, and since Sage recently got a haircut, Naomi’s hair is a little longer, too.  So you see, we’re really very different on some fundamental levels.

When we first met, Sage didn’t drink a lot of coffee and Naomi did.  But Sage now drinks a lot of coffee, too, so we guess that’s not really a difference anymore….

…That We’re Not A Couple?

You might be reading those opening sections and thinking, wow, what a cute an insufferable couple!  You wouldn’t be the first.  A lot of people have assumed that we’re a couple because we have this blog together, but actually we’re both living very happily with our respective partners – Sage’s husband Sam and Naomi’s boyfriend Brad.

Actually, this is another similarity!  We both have been with our current partners for the same amount of time (about 8 years). And, there is also some controversy in both of our relationships about when “the dating” officially began.

It is a little out of the ordinary to have a blog with someone when you’re not in a couple or otherwise related.  Check out our post on Wednesday for our thoughts on how that works!

…That Only One of Our Partners Reads the Blog?

Despite this blog being about both of their houses, only one of our partners actually reads the blog.  Can you guess which one?  (Share your answer in the survey at the end of this post.)

…That We’ve Never Missed a Post?

We post three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, and we’ve never missed a post!  We have taken a few pre-scheduled breaks for the holidays, and there was that one time that someone incorrectly scheduled their Wednesday post for Tuesday, but otherwise we’ve stuck to our schedule.

We’re really proud of this.  Both of us have full time jobs that can get hectic and substantial not-nonexistent social lives.  This post schedule is a significant commitment for us, and it feels like an achievement that we’ve been able to meet it for a year.

…That We’ve Made $375 So Far?

In year 1, Plaster & Disaster made … about $375 dollars.  This isn’t nothing and, importantly, covers the costs of operating the blog (though obviously not the cost of the home improvement projects we blog about). In our first year we’ve been really focused on generating interesting content, and not so much on making money. But we’re certainly hoping to grow our revenue in the coming year.  Here is the breakdown of where the money comes from:

As you can see, not all of the money comes from the blog operations directly.  A lot of blogs these days are experimenting with other revenue models, whether that is selling e-books, craft kits, or products.

However, we did work on one project together this year that has dwarfed our other revenue completely.  We unfortunately can’t talk about it yet, but when we can rest assured that we will share all the details we possibly can.  It has totally transformed our revenue picture for the year:

Hooray for solvency!

…That We Don’t Accept Sponsored Content?

We have a blanket rule against sponsored content here on the blog, and always will. That means that we don’t accept anything – money, products, promotion – in exchange for writing about something. It’s not what we like to read when we read blogs, so it’s not what we want to share here.  (Check our our policies to learn more.)

…That We Try to be Brutally Honest About Disasters?

When we were brainstorming at the outset about what we wanted this blog to be, at the top of our list was that we wanted to be totally transparent about what goes wrong and what doesn’t look good.  It’s easy to read blogs and feel like your home is an ugly mess, but the reality is that in most homes it is a mixed bag.

This has taken several forms.  Sometimes we write about projects that don’t work at all, mistakes we made, tips we learned the hard way, or things that go wrong along the way in a successful project.  Sometimes we tell funny stories about taking on something and failing, or share the disasters that we’re trying to ignore in our homes, or what is actually going on behind even our prettiest photos.

This can be hard to do.  Not that we don’t want to share, but because it can feel like an insubstantial or useless post to just say “well, this didn’t work” or “this was just okay.”  We put the word “disaster” right in the title to help us keep to this commitment.

… That Our Former Co-Worker Named our Blog?

Speaking of the name, ever wonder where “Plaster & Disaster” came from?  We had a lot of trouble thinking of a name.  We knew that we wanted it to include something about honesty or DIY not going well, and something about home improvement or projects.  We had some not-so-awesome contenders:

• The Unvarnished Home
• Paint It ‘Til You Make It
• DIY Disclosures
• The Imperfect Home

Fortunately for all of you, we asked our co-worker Stephanie (the same Stephanie who we gave advice for a patio makeover), and she came back with “Plaster or Disaster.”  She has an unreasonable hatred of ampersands, but we took her creative genius, popped an ampersand in there, and called it a day.  Thanks, Stephanie!

The 2016 Plaster & Disaster Reader Survey

Now, tell us about you!  We’d love to learn a little more about our readers, what you’d like to see in Plaster & Disaster, and whether you are any good at math.

(Sharing at DIY Like A Boss, Pin Junkie Pin Party, and Tip Me Tuesday)