How a Messy Rental Kitchen Turned Into All This

Back in 2009, I was living in a rental outside Charlotte with laminate counters the color of wet cardboard and cabinets I wasn’t allowed to touch, according to my lease. I touched them anyway. Contact paper, cabinet hardware from a flea market, a $40 gallon of paint I wasn’t supposed to use. My landlord never noticed. My friends wouldn’t stop asking how I did it.

That kitchen is the reason HomeGlow DIY exists. Not because I had some grand plan, but because I kept doing small, stubborn things to spaces that weren’t fully mine and people kept wanting the how. Sixteen years and probably a dozen homes later, I’m still doing exactly that, just with better tools and fewer landlords yelling at me.

What You’ll Find Here

I don’t decorate one way, so this site doesn’t either.

Some weeks I’m deep in kitchen countertop comparisons, testing whether black quartz photographs as moody in person as it does online. Other weeks I’m elbow-deep in Halloween mantel styling or figuring out how thirty dollars of dollar-store supplies can actually look like something.

Here’s what you’ll run into around here:

Room-by-Room Decorating

Living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, entryways, and all the awkward spaces nobody quite knows what to do with.

Kitchen Ideas

Cabinets, countertops, islands, lighting, hardware, and the everyday details that actually get touched and used.

Seasonal Decor

Halloween, Christmas, spring, and everything in between. I refuse to let a holiday pass without changing at least one shelf.

Small Space & Budget Solutions

Because most of my own homes have been smaller and cheaper than I wanted — and I’ve learned how to make them work anyway.

DIY Projects

Some are no-sew afternoon projects. Others turn into full sanding-and-staining weekends. Either way, I leave the mistakes in so you know what to skip.

If a style has a name, a corner of the internet loves it, and it involves a paintbrush or a throw pillow, there’s a decent chance I’ve already written about it.

Who I’m Writing This For

I write for people who own their space, rent it, or are just borrowing it for a season and who want it to feel like somewhere they chose rather than somewhere they landed.

You don’t need a renovation budget to be here.

Half of what I’ve built in my own homes came from a hardware store, a Saturday, and refusing to accept the ugly thing that came with the house.

If you’ve ever stood in a room you technically live in and thought, “This isn’t mine yet,” I wrote this for you.

Meet Deanna

I’m 54, I’ve lived in nine different homes since my twenties, and I have strong, possibly unreasonable opinions about cabinet hardware. I studied interior design for two years before life and a young family redirected me toward decorating houses instead of other people’s, which turned out to be the better trade.

A few things that are true about me, for better or worse:

• I own 31 paint swatches currently taped to my kitchen wall, deciding nothing.
• I’ve reupholstered the same secondhand armchair three separate times.
• I keep a shoebox of receipts from every “just $20” project that quietly became $200.
• My husband has learned not to ask what I’m doing when he hears the drill on a Tuesday night.

None of that makes me a professional.

It makes me someone who’s actually done the thing before I tell you how.

How We Keep Things Straight

Every article on HomeGlow DIY gets a second look before it’s published.

Not just a spellcheck a real read for whether the advice actually holds up.

If a product we recommended stops being available, or a trend post starts looking dated, we go back and update it rather than leaving old information sitting there.

And when something on the site is sponsored or includes an affiliate link, we say so plainly, right in the post not tucked away where you’d miss it.

We’d rather have fewer readers who trust what we write than a lot of readers who eventually stop.

One Last Thing

I still haven’t finished that living room.

The one I started in March.

There’s a rug I keep almost buying and a lamp I keep almost returning.

That’s decorating, honestly.

It’s never really done, and I’ve made peace with that.

If you want company while you figure out your own space one shelf and one bad paint decision at a time stick around.

I’ll be here, probably holding a paint swatch I can’t commit to.

Ready to Make Your Space Feel Like Yours?

You don’t need a perfect house, a huge budget, or a weekend with nothing else to do.

Start small.

Paint the shelf. Change the hardware. Move the lamp. Hang the thing you’ve been meaning to hang for six months.

Your home doesn’t have to be finished to feel like yours.

Explore DIY Projects
Browse Home Decor Ideas

Come find me at Contact@homeglowdiy.com if you want to say hello, swap paint colors, or tell me about the project you can’t stop thinking about.

Deanna Taylor