Grace Bonney

Design*Sponge was special because of this amazing team of writers, so I hope you’ll follow them all at the links below (in addition to their suggestions of who else to follow) and continue to support them and their work as they move forward, too. Black Food Folks ( @blackfoodfolks on IG) learn about who, , and what among Black food industry people. See who they follow, and travel down an IG rabbit hole to get out of your usual cycle of the same types of people dominating places like Instagram. Instead of searching aimlessly for new blogs and Instagram accounts that would lead me to unique homes and stories, I went to accounts I loved and looked at the accounts they follow.

While we are sad to say goodbye to the friends, colleagues, and community that we’ve found here, we know that we are stepping into this next chapter filled with the love, support, and care you’ve so graciously shared with us over the past 15 years. You’ve taught us all how to be better listeners, better sharers, better members of our community and, most importantly, you’ve taught us that what makes a community special are the people in it. Like any community, I know we haven’t always met the expectations we’ve set out to, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for giving us the grace and understanding to do better when we needed to and to pick ourselves back up when we’ve fallen. Some important housekeeping notes: Design*Sponge will remain online as an archive through September of 2020, thanks to generous support from Adam J. Kurtz and Tuesday Bassen.

Two things always struck me about D*S — even from the very beginning of my time reading faithfully, about 11 years ago — was the sense of belonging I felt, and the community attached to the site. It’s all of us who keep coming back, whether it’s every day or once a week or once a month, to learn something new or tour a fascinating home or seek out inspiration. I asked my dear teammates to share with me their biggest takeaways in working for D*S, and their favorite posts they’ve read and/or written. How My Mom’s Aesthetic Inspired My Love of Design,’ written by Erin about her Mom, because the hundreds (thousands?) of books on shelves that flexed under their weight, wedged into the home, seemed to match perfectly the story of her career and what she lived for.

Print designer Catherine Nice, founder of Kitty McCall, and her husband Gary can also pinpoint when they realized their home in Kent, England was right for their family: “ Since that initial walk-through a year and a half ago, Catherine and Gary have been slowly making changes to polish what they hope will be their “forever home. Once awash in brown built-ins and “tired” tile, the room is now bright and cheerful thanks to a coat of blue paint, new flooring and a restored countertop. In fact, they’re in no hurry to finish any of their planned tweaks: “[The home] is definitely a long-term project that will be inspired by our growing children, their needs and ours,” Catherine and Gary say.