How we test a guide.
Every guide on this site started as a project in one of our own houses. The seven-step path from a Saturday-morning question to a published article — written down once, here, so we can be held to it.
If a guide on this site does not follow this process, it has not been published yet.
The slow part you don't see.
Most renovation content on the internet is produced quickly, by people who have not done the work, for a search engine. We make a different trade: fewer guides, slower, edited harder. Here is what each one walks through before it shows up on a Saturday morning.
One guide a week. Four editors. One test reader. Zero affiliate steering.
- Step 01
Pitched at the kitchen table.
Every guide starts with a question we actually heard from a reader, an editor, or a friend who just bought a house. We do not chase keyword ghosts. We write what people are quietly Googling at 11pm.
- Step 02
Drafted by someone who has done it.
Drafts are written by editors who have completed the project on a real wall in a real house — not by freelance generalists working from a content brief. If we have not done it, we do it before we write about it.
- Step 03
Beginner‑tested before publish.
Each draft is read by a first‑time homeowner who has not done the project. We mark every paragraph that confused them and rewrite it. A guide is not finished until our test reader can do the project from the page alone.
- Step 04
Fact‑checked, priced, and dated.
A second editor verifies tools, materials, code references, and prices against current retail. Every guide carries a "last verified" stamp. We re‑check pricing every quarter and bump the date when we do.
- Articles per month
- 4
- Editors on each guide
- 4
- Pricing re‑verified
- Quarterly
- Affiliate links
- None
We revisit every guide.
Pricing changes. Codes change. Tools we recommended in 2022 get discontinued in 2024. The web has rewarded the opposite — write once, abandon, write again — but a renovation guide is most useful when it's current.
- Pricing
- Re-surveyed twice a year — March and September. Cost-breakdown articles carry the date of last survey at the top.
- Code & permits
- Reviewed against the current IRC and the most-common state amendments every January. Material changes get a banner at the top of affected guides.
- Tool recommendations
- Replaced when we replace ours. We do not maintain recommendations for tools we no longer own.
- Reader corrections
- Verified within seven days, applied in the next Sunday's edit. Corrections of fact get a footnote naming the reader who flagged it.
- Outdated guides
- Marked, not deleted. A guide that is no longer accurate gets an "Archived" banner with a link to the current replacement. We do not memory-hole our mistakes.
The rest of the masthead.
Each of these is a short page. Most readers walk all five in one sitting; some come back once a year to see what we have changed our minds about.
Our editorial principles
The eight things we agree on, in writing, before we publish anything.
Who writes this
Four editors, three states, three first houses they will not stop talking about.
Write to the editors
We read every reply. Here is the kind of letter that gets answered fastest.
Press & syndication
Logos, recent mentions, syndication terms, and how to commission us to speak.