Let’s face it, sometimes blogging looks a heck of a lot more glamorous than it really is. In reality, there are many good, bad, and even ugly things that come along with running your own blog. And in honor of our 3rd birthday week, we figured it was a good time to dish. 

The Good

Get projects around the house done: Not gonna lie, the blog has really forced me to get my butt into gear with our Chicago condo. In fact, I often walk around each room and jot down what I want to do directly into our blog calendar. That way I’m pretty much forced to tackle a project because if it’s written down, it’s more likely to happen! I doubt we’d have accomplished this much if it wasn’t for the blog.

Readers feel like friends: It’s true, we totally see you guys as our friends and we have the BEST friends a girl could ever ask for. We love seeing familiar names in our comments and on our social media. We feel like over time we learn so much about you guys through these interactions and feel so blessed. This is definitely a really, really GOOD GREAT part of blogging. From the bottom of our hearts, thank YOU!

Support from strangers: We talked about the overwhelming support we get from some important people in our lives earlier this week, but we also need to mention the amazing support we get from strangers! Yes, complete strangers have blown us away with their support via social media, blog comments, and emails. We are so darn grateful for every single one of these and ALWAYS work hard to reply back to everyone who took time out of their chaotic schedules to reach out over the past 3 years! You words of support and encouragement mean more to us than you may ever realize. Sincerely, thank YOU!

Always something fun to look forward to: We constantly say that there is ALWAYS something to look forward to when it comes to the blog, because we are always so busy preparing for what’s next on our calendar. We are both people who would rather stay busy, and the DIY Playbook definitely keeps us very busy doing things we LOVE to do! So being busy and always having something exciting, challenging, and NEW to look forward to is one our fav parts of the blog.

There’s never a day we don’t talk: We talk every.single.day. Usually our first text exchange is before 7:30am and we continue to exchange texts or emails throughout the day. Often during the evening is when we’ll touch base with a phone call, especially when a lot is going on in the blog or in our inbox! This blog has strengthened our friendship so much and has allowed us to be constantly communicating and constantly up-to-date about what is going on in each other’s lives (like up-to-the-minute updates) and this is by FARRRR one of the best parts of this entire experience. We feel so blessed to have each other.

The Bad

Always having something you “should be doing”: We just told you that being busy and always having something to look forward to and prepare for is the “good” part of the blog (and it almost always is), but at times this can be the tough part too. Because we are busy with our day jobs and trying to juggle life outside of the blog, anytime we have “down time” or free time we feel like we need to be doing work so we don’t fall behind. Having that looming feeling that we should always be doing something is definitely hard to escape at times and can become a tad stressful. But remember… we actually like being busy so as long as we’re not overwhelmingly busy, then we make it work!!

Feeling like you can’t make your home what you want because it’s been done on the blog before: Sad, but true. We always want to try to create/showcase new, original, creative content on the DIY Playbook. Usually we LOVE this part of the blog, but sometimes this actually becomes a problem. There are times we want to repeat something we already did (and love), but feel bad doing so because we don’t want readers becoming upset that we’ve “been there, done that”.

Take B’s board and batten obsession. She likes it so much that she put it in her hallway, her bedroom and her dining room and we felt bad for repeating it so much. AND we actually got some hate mail about how offended someone was that we kept re-doing the same design choice. EEK! (They’re really not gonna be happy when Casey shows off her new family room built-ins…) We felt bad, but if we love these projects, sometimes it’s worth redoing them rather than just doing something to be “new”. I mean we are the ones living in our homes, shouldn’t it look the way we want? We don’t necessarily want a trendy space, we just want spaces we LOVE… fine line, right?!

Not unplugging as often as we should: Eek… we both have some serious room for improvement in this category. For both our own sanity and the sanity of those around us (cough, cough… those poor hubbies), we need to do a way better job of setting limits and UNPLUGGING. <– enter that looming feeling that we could be checking, updating, emailing, etc. and we’re wasting time.

Talking about our blog feels like bragging so we avoid it: Chatting more about the blog in our “real lives” was one of our 2016 goals, and we are totally failing at it so far! The DIY Playbook is such a HUGE part of our lives, but it’s hard to chat about it with friends and family without feeling like we are bragging…. so we usually default to a generic response when someone asks about it. We NEED to get better at this, especially because it’s something we are so proud of and it’s such a huge part of our lives!

Not having enough time to tackle bigger projects: If we had it our way, we would tackle far more weekend warrior projects and hardcore DIYs (hello bathroom remodel!). Unfortunately though, this is not always an option when we are trying to juggle work, blog, family, friends, and LIFE. =/ However, we did carve out two FULL weekends this month to tackle one of our biggest DIYs to date! We had to put it on the calendar 3 months in advance to make it happen (seriously..) but we can’t wait to get started!  

The Ugly

Negative comments: This is just the W-O-R-S-T. Very rarely do we get ugly, negative, or mean comments on our own blog or our social media accounts. However, when companies share our projects on their social media pages or websites… that’s when we’ll see some straight up RUDE comments. We totally understand that not everyone shares our style or taste (we’re all different and that’s okay!!) but we just can’t seem to understand the need for someone to make these rude comments on the internet. If people have constructive criticism or a difference of opinions, we are all ears. But straight up rude/mean/offensive opinions that serve no purpose… Why, why, WHY?! We just can’t seem to understand and probably never will, but hope to focus on our own work and our own positivity. =)

“Am I good enough?”: Possibly stemming from those mean comments (yikes) or maybe just they’re just natural feelings that come with putting yourself out there for everyone to judge, but we would be lying if we said we don’t sometimes question ourselves and wonder if we’re really good enough. We try our best, try hard to stay true to ourselves, and hope to inspire a few fellow DIY-ers along the way — but bottom line: we are rookies! We are not expert carpenters, not full-time bloggers, not professional interior designers, and are NOT perfect… just average homeowners who love DIY and home decor.

Back issues: The chiropractor called, she’s reminding you about your appointment tomorrow after work! <– true story!! Blogging from our beds, our kitchen islands, or our couches during the Bachelor is not doing either of our bodies (specifically our backs) any favors. We try to hit the gym when we can to help make up for this sitting/slouching but we do sometimes have sore backs, necks, or even arms (Bridget) because of our bloggin’ ways. #30goingon75

So we hope we brought you a little behind-the-scenes to see the reality of being a blogger. Not so glamorous, right? Also, if you want to read our first take on the Good, Bad, & Ugly series be sure to check out this post from 2 years ago! (Crazy that not much has changed!)

Bridget&Casey

P.S. Another GOOD thing about the blog? Your husband asking to jump in your photo shoot for a little impromptu balloon fun! Gotta love a man who isn’t afraid of pink balloons. (& here he thought he was getting away with me not putting this picture on the internet this week)