Our “This Old House Magazine” photo shoot

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When I first started our blog last summer, never in a million years would I have thought I would find so many wonderful new friends and people who were interested in following along with our lives and renovations. Earlier this year, I was contacted by an editor at This Old House Magazine inquiring about our family room makeover. She requested some additional pictures and we exchanged a few emails but that was it. A couple months later, I received this email in July while vacationing on Cape Cod,

“Hi Jessica! First, thanks again for all your time! We’ve really enjoyed looking at your amazing room remodels and would love to be able to send a photographer to your home to shoot your family room and faux barn doors sometime before the end of July. Please let me know if this would be a possibility, and if so, what your availabilities would be. Thank you again, and looking forward to hearing from you!”

Imagine my surprise when I got this email. My eyes about bugged out of my head while riding go-carts. Almost six months after our first email exchange, our family room makeover will be in the upcoming October issue of This Old House Magazine.  This experience blew my mind. It’s insane the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes of the gorgeous pictures you see in magazines. I had no idea! I have always wondered about the process and what goes on behind the scenes and thought some of you would might enjoy seeing the process so I have some pictures to share with you!

Meet the sweet stylist Kelly and her assistant Rebby. Rebby is from France and is learning the art of styling. She has a really cool accent! They arrived bright and early in the morning with a van full of accessories and gorgeous flowers from the Boston Flower Exchange.

This Old House behind the scenes photoshoot

My second sentence after I said, “nice to meet you” was, do you mind if I photograph you? haha. Little did they know, I would be taking pictures of them all day. Eric the photographer, thought I was kidding but he soon found out I was serious. I told him I planned on blasting their faces all over blog land.  I’m not sure he believed me but I think he will now.

Meet the hilarious photographer Eric and his rock-in assistant Sila. This girl makes the lighting happen! At one point, she was basically hanging over the deck in the backyard holding a big canvas light blocker thingy for 20 minutes! Eric forgot at one point she was out there, and once he realized she was missing, he said, “oh geez, I think she is still outside holding the light blocker” ( I can’t remember what that thing was called). The camera setup and the ability to see the photo’s directly on the laptop is pretty amazing.

This Old House Magazine behind the scenes photo shoot
 

I am very limited with the pictures that I can show, as to not reveal anything in the upcoming issue so I had to crop out most of the room in these next pictures. We had a blast having our pictures taken. You will notice that my son and husband are in shorts and a “fall” shirt and sweater. Did you know that magazines shoot 3 – 6 months in advance? It was almost 90 degrees this day and we were dressed for fall. Ha. Although Eric made it easy, he said waist up for fall attire.

 
This Old House Magazine behind the scenes photo shoot
 
My son’s favorite saying is, “this is serious”. He asked Eric, “is this really serious?”. haha.
 
This Old House Magazine behind the scenes photo shoot
 
We had a fun lunch break outside on our deck and laughed our butts off. We had the best time with this crew. They just made us so comfortable and at ease. So sweet and kind. At the end of the day, I was sad to see them go.
 
This Old House Magazine behind the scenes photo shoot
 
Wrapping up the day checking the to do list was my mom, Eric and Kelly.
 
This Old House Magazine behind the scenes photo shoot
 

This was such a special day and I’m so thankful for Megan at This Old House Magazine for finding us! For all you bloggers out there, this is an example of “you never know who is looking at your blog!” So plug forward, you never know :).

The October issue hits stands on September 28th and I cannot wait to see the pictures of the room.  Our room will be featured along with other budget-conscious DIY projects. Oh and before I sign off, my friend Tonya at Love of Family & Home started a new series on her blog sharing home makeovers and she just featured this room. Thank you Tonya!

Update: You can see the magazine feature here.

 This old house magazine feature
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Meet Jessica

What started as a hobby, Jessica’s blog now has millions of people visit yearly and while many of the projects and posts look and sound perfect, life hasn’t always been easy. Read Jessica’s story and how overcoming death, divorce and dementia was one of her biggest life lessons to date.

21 Comments

  1. Congratulations on your photo shoot. What an absolutely amazing experience that must have been. Can’t wait to see the feature…..

    1. Thank you Darlene! What’s up girl? Hope you are feeling better and the kitchen is done and the “special” project and shoot is finished as of yesterday so I’m taking a couple day break to decorate and then starting the playroom! yay!

  2. that is awesome Jessica!!!! Congratulations, can’t wait to check it out!

  3. Hi Jessica, love your DIY projects. I will be sure and buy this Old House Magazine Sept. 28th. Thank you for all your inspirations. Sheila

  4. Congratulations on your magazine feature Jessica!! Isn’t the whole experience just too fun?! Can’t wait to see your article!! Thanks so much for the shout-out on my post!! I hope you got some traffic from it!!

  5. Congrats Jessica! Can’t wait to see it 🙂

    1. Thank you Amy! Not sure why this is just showing up now? Glad you stopped by!

  6. Congratulations, Jessica! The shoot looks like so much fun! x

  7. Hey Jessica – I just got my copy of TOH mag yesterday and wanted to tell you it is AWESOME! What does it say about a woman who is more excited over her copy of TOH coming in the mail than her Glamour mag????

    Great job. I can’t believe that you’ve been blogging for such as short time! You’re good at what you do!

    1. Awww thanks so much Jaye! It was a blast doing the photo shoot and definitely a day I won’t forget 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and your sweet words 🙂

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