Can you imagine a kitchen without a fork or a house without a sofa? Until the Renaissance, the fork was considered unhygienic and immoral — a sign of the devil— and many were afraid that lounging on the sofa might contribute to licentiousness. In 2014, I embarked on writing an anecdotal history of those seemingly ordinary objects that make up our domestic lives.

It was a massive research project. Utilizing my degree in Library Science (and leaning hard on friends in libraries), I consulted nearly 500 books — many from the Sacramento Public library, the collection at UC Davis Library and the New York Public Library — to create a collection of stories of many of the objects in our homes (from bathtubs to wallpaper and chandeliers and chess sets). The Elements of a Home: Curious Histories behind Everyday Household Objects is forthcoming from Chronicle Books in March 2020.

In 2014, after one-too-many East Coast winters, I moved from New York to California. I wrote about the history of champagne coupes and rooftop gardens for Food52, the history of indigo and lace for Creativebug,  trend pieces for Brit & Co. and dug into the hows of auction buying and why high real estate prices equal a changing design landscape in SF for Design Milk.  I even wrote about nightlife in Kampala, Uganda for Condé Nast Traveler.

Prior to moving to California, I spent five years at Design*Sponge, where I wrote more than 900 posts. Hundreds of those were home tours, sourced from all over the world. Some of my favorites were the home of a Foreign Services officer stationed in Tunisia, a London home filled with travel finds, the home of a jewelry maker in Provence, and a peek inside a Brooklyn tea studio. I also worked on countless product roundups from products to making tax time a little more bearable to the perfect things for a brunch party. I wrote gift guides on everything from the best jewelry to gift to my favorite books for the year to budget guides. I wrote personal essays on topics like My Most Meaningful Design Decision, how my mom was a Style Icon and even revealed my messy closet. I exercised my craftier side and created DIY cat magnets, DIY marbled paper napkin rings. and heart bath bombs.

While at Design*Sponge, I started a design history column and wrote on the history of French chandeliers, twig furniture, katha quilts, terrariums, Anglepoise lamps amongst many many other topics of design history.

And that column led to the publication of my first book in March 2013: Past & Present: 24 Moments in Decorative Arts History, and 24 Modern DIY Projects Inspired by Them.

And this whole writing journey started twelve years ago, back in 2008, with at Apartment Therapy, where I explored the design scene in New York. Visited the first ever Brooklyn flea, shopped with Eddie Ross, and shared my forays into urban bee keeping. I peeked inside the home of an illustrator in the East Village, the rooftop of a designer in Red Hook and the office of a documentary filmmaker in the Upper West Side.