A Sneak Peek Into the Master Suite + Behind the Scenes of Our House Beautiful Feature

You may have seen all the reveals that we’ve shown thus far, but there is more to this story. As I’ve mentioned throughout this process, House Beautiful was going to be running an exclusive feature story on the mountain house (on newsstands now). We shot the house with some different styling options, sent them all the photos, I wrote the text and then I waited…with a big of happy anxiety to see how the story actually looked. I didn’t know what photos they’d chose or how they’d edit the story (no, magazines don’t give you—or me or anyone—final approval before it goes to print as part of their journalistic power. They run what is best for their readers). So when it finally arrived to me (a little earlier than newsstand date), it was so fun to see what they actually published—both photos and words.

So today I thought it would be fun to show you the published the House Beautiful spread of the house. I also wrote the story exclusively for them (you haven’t read this before) and today you’ll see a sneak peek into the master bedroom and master bath (coming at you next week). Lastly, I thought it would be fun to show you some of the different styling options that we gave them (magazines like options, I get it, ME TOO).

Not to anyone’s surprise, I exceeded my 600-word assigned story, by about 2,000 words. My final piece weighed in at 2,670 words, which is a typical blog post around here (this is not industry standard, FYI). I’m incapable of being concise, blamed mostly on the fact that (I think) I have a lot to say. The pros that they are, they cut it down to the assigned number (above) which basically tells the same story, in a much more concise way.

Below, you’ll see a few other shots that they ran. They originally asked us to reshoot the kids’ room without “Christmas,” when I informed them that A. It wasn’t Christmas, it’s just a “camping/adventure” themed room (thus the trees) and B. The kids now share a king bed (with me often in the middle) which I think most people think is weird, so we didn’t reshoot it. Hilariously even Birdie when she saw the magazine was like “ooh, remember Christmas in our room?” so I suppose those trees really did give off the holiday vibe.

There you have your master bath sneak peek, but you HAVE to come back next week and see the full room. That one shot does not tell the full story, obviously.

They ran the loft shot, but with a different chair (this one is from Norell Furniture) than we actually have in there. They weren’t sure if they were going to run the living room and the family room, so we put this chair up in the loft (which actually lives in the family room) because I LOVE it and I wanted to ensure it got in a shot that would be run.

Here’s how it actually looks:

I actually like the Norrell chair in there better, but it also looks so much better in the family room than this chair would and it’s far more comfortable. No one really sits in that chair up here so it doesn’t have to be as comfy. For the HB shoot, we also borrowed some awesome pieces from County LTD in Silverlake (that stool in the previous shot) but I returned it after since they are pretty spendy and I don’t really need a side table there, or if I do it could be a more affordable version.

And here is your sneak peek into the master bedroom.

They only ran one shot so you’ll have to come back for the full tour next week (and all the resources). Hang tight. 🙂

I thought we were going to reshoot this bathroom as I styled it so minimally for the reveal of this room, but they wanted to run that photo. I kinda wish that I had styled some folded white towels to show the function of the shelf, but it’s a powder room so that didn’t make sense. For real life, we have a basket of toilet paper rolls.

We took a couple new photos of the kitchen because the dining room was so different than when we revealed the kitchen (and you can see in the background). Plus they wanted more of a lifestyle moment. I think that was the day that we didn’t have a car, but I had this squash, so yes, I’m cutting a squash at that moment.

Ok, that’s the full feature of the house that they ran. Like I mentioned, we’ll be revealing master bed and bath next week (Tuesday September 3 and 4), and still have the guest room, upstairs kids play attic and master closet still to shoot and show you.

A lot of magazines want things to be more “editorial” to tell more of a story, which often includes more accessories, and more “lifestyle” moments to help it feel more personal (cups of coffee, food props, bags and shoes, etc.), but as you know this house was to be more minimal for our family so we gave them multiple options for some of the rooms. For the blog, it might be more pulled back and less styled, but for the magazine, we’d amp it up a bit. I honestly didn’t even amp it up as much as we could have, and looking back I realize that even for the blog I could have styled it out with more pillows, etc. But I really wanted to stay true to what I had promised myself and you—LESS STUFF.

So below you’ll see some styling options of the living room (if it’s too small just click on it and it will blow up bigger):

I liked them all in different ways, and even gave them a couple that had more negative space in case they wanted to put copy on it.

I couldn’t decide between the below shots, as I like both, but ended up doing the black throw and the lamp with the black shade.

In case you have missed the reveals thus far, we linked them all down below. If you haven’t picked up the issue of House Beautiful, please do! I’m a massive fan of that magazine and I think it’s VERY important to support print versions. But if you want to see the digital version head here to check it out. Thank you so much House Beautiful for the generous feature. And again, thanks to my photo and styling team for all your incredible hard work up there this summer shooting this house. xx

Check out the rest of The Mountain House reveals here: The Kitchen | The Kitchen Organization | The Kitchen Appliances | The Powder Bath | The Living Room | The Downstairs Guest Suite | The Loft | The Hall Bath | The Upstairs Guest Bath | The Dining Room | The Kids’ Room | The Family Room