In the beginning

I've been planning this blog for months now, trying to figure out how to fit in the world of interior design blogging and then struggling with the design of the blog. The first part of my struggle, the “where do I fit in?”question, wasn’t quite so vexing as the second part, the design of the blog.

Answering “Where do I fit in?” came to me pretty easily. Like most folks, I’m not just one thing, I’m a bunch of things, so I looked to find a name to describe what this blog would be about. It’s mostly about renovating and decorating the 1936 Cape Cod we purchased in 2006, but knowing me as well as I do, I think there’s other life stuff that I’ll most likely share. And then, I love a good gumbo. So that’s how the name Design Gumbo for the blog came into existence.

The design part, well, that was a whole ‘nuther story. My day job is as a web projects manager, and I’ve been designing websites since 1994. This isn’t the first blog I’ve had, and it isn’t even the first blog I’ve designed.It is the first blog where I had to play by someone else’s design rules (Blogger) and that’s been tricky. There’s a good reason why the cobbler’s children have no shoes, and it’s not because the cobbler is too busy or too tired to make the children their shoes. The cobbler, when it comes to his/ her own children, is just too damn picky. Yes, that’s right, picky, as in pain in the butt, gotta be pixel perfect, a perfectionist. The catalyst for getting started, came from my favorite blogger of all time, Valorie Hart, aka the Visual Vamp. She asked why I’m not blogging about our house. It was that query that made me decide to just go for it. That and the fact that I’ve been laid up all week with a torn ACL from rock hopping last weekend, but that’s another story.

So, this is it, my first blog post. Ta da! It only exists because of other bloggers like you, who shared your wisdom, knowledge, sources and sometimes the comic relief. I’ll say thanks now for the ongoing support, wisdom and great ideas.

Carollynn