Announcing…Book #2!!! (+ We Need Your Questions)

Over the weekend, I announced on my Instagram that I’m officially starting my second book. If you are like anyone in my family, you might be asking:

A. What took you so long?

B. Why are you adding this to your workload?

The answers are connected. For a few years, my publisher has been politely begging me for another book. Styled was a success so the natural thing to do next is another book. But my answer was always “Listen. I want to in theory but I have no time, too many young kids and more importantly no new ideas.” The amount of work/time/effort/resources/energy and ABSOLUTE PASSION it takes to write and publish a good book is unfathomable. Besides, I write every day! What do I have left in me???

So then why pitch another one? Why, masochistically, add this to my already very, very full plate?

Here’s how it went down: I was taking a shower on a Sunday morning, feeling so overwhelmed by the renovations of 2018 (mountain, Portland) and subsequently feeling really stupid about the mistakes that I had made (and had to pay to fix) and wishing so bad that I had one resource, ONE BOOK that I could reference instead of every single day googling “how do you design a _________.”

And I stopped. and said OH SH*T, THAT’S MY BOOK.

In that second, I knew I had to write it. I was the person that could transparently write an entire book about lessons, mistakes, rules and breaking them. How to do it, how to not do it, but in a way that really empowers and educates. Not because I’m a pro now, but precisely because I had to put myself through design school in the field, researching aggressively along the way, troubleshooting at every turn, making mistakes, trying to be perfect and reminding myself how boring “perfect” actually is. My hope is that this book will be the resource that I needed and wanted so desperately during the last few years. But don’t worry, I won’t be all floor plans and construction photos. It will still be beautiful (a la Styled) and done in a way that I think is really creative and fun. It all came to me that day. Almost ALL of it.

I wrote the 3-page pitch that day, sent it off on Monday and my editor said “This is exactly what the world needs from you; let’s do this,” which made me feel good. Three months later, my contract was signed and we are OFF.

I’m very excited. I have a pretty clear vision for it that I didn’t even really have with Styled and frankly, I’m just so excited to read this book.

I don’t want to put too much out there because frankly, I don’t want someone to steal my ideas, but I still want to know what you guys would want from a design book, and what you feel is missing out there. This book is more macro than Styled. It’s less about styling pillows (but obviously there will be beautifully styled pillows) and more pulled back, dealing with the things that are a bit more terrifying to commit to, those things that are more permanent that create nothing other than design exhaustion and absolute home anxiety.

Okay. I’ll say no more. Please send suggestions of some of your biggest questions, struggles, things you literally have no idea about in terms of renovation and design and heck, if they don’t make it into the book, we’ll log them as suggestions for the blog.

Also, we are looking for homes that are interesting and have something special about them. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just special either in architecture or decor, with ideas that people can learn from. We’ll come in and style it out (for some houses, we are adding furniture, but most we are bringing a ton of accessories and pillows) and yes, you’ll have the chance to buy them (unless it happens to be something personal of mine that I can’t bear to sell). You’ll get a copy of the book (duh) and credit on the page of the book (different than Styled). You can be a designer, an architect, a dog walker—I don’t care, we just want pretty spaces, with good light and a lot of ideas that we think others should or could learn from. Some houses might be PERFECTLY designed and others show a good way that they broke the rule and why we all love it.

We went on a scouting mission throughout LA last week to some homes I knew could work for the book, and Sara snapped some shots from the day (you know I love a good sneak peek):

For house submissions (ideally in the greater LA or SoCal area…we’ve already had a ton of submissions elsewhere), email Velinda@emilyhendersondesign.com with the subject line EHD BOOK 2 HOUSE SUBMISSION + your name and location, with some shots of your home for consideration inside.

And leave all your book tip requests below. Tomorrow, we have a huge 8-hour brainstorming session to finalize the outline and I’d love to integrate as many of your requests that make sense so ASK AND COMMENT AWAY.

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