Behind the Scenes at RHW

Hi everybody, it’s Mera and Katie writing together thanks to our mobile communication devices.  What’s the occasion you ask?  It’s Red House West’s half birthday!  At 6 months in we’re obviously still newbies to the blogging scene, but we definitely get a thrill seeing the 79 posts (80 counting this one) we have banked in the archives.   We thought we would celebrate by giving you a peek behind the blog curtain into some of the things we see and do each day. We recently got this helpful comment and we’ve decided to heed the advice, so expect some big changes around here:

I read a lot of interesting articles here. Probably you spend a

lot of time writing, i know how to save you a lot of work, there is an online tool that creates unique, google friendly posts in minutes, just search in google 

Just kidding! We moderate all the comments we get here, sparing you the vast amount of spam that comes our way.  Every once in a while we get something hilarious, and it starts an absurd text conversation that goes back and forth all day. Like this:

If you aren’t home much, have children under

the age of ten, don’t enjoy chaos, or have a busy lifestyle which

would prevent a ferret from roaming freely, then these pet are not for you.

Not only that, but what happens is what is supposed to happen for that ferret.

It comes in two forms: juvenile (usually found in ferrets under the age of 14 months) and

classic, which is usually found in middle aged and older

ferrets.

This was a comment left on one of our most popular posts that you’ll surely remember.  You know, the one about ferret husbandry.

They must have been referring to our popular post about ferret husbandry

We also get a lot of great positive reinforcement, like this encouraging comment:

What i don’t realize is in fact how you are now not

really a lot more smartly-appreciated than you might be right now.

You are very intelligent. You know therefore significantly in the case of

this subject, made me individually imagine it from a lot of varied angles.

Its like men and women don’t seem to be involved until it’s one

thing to accomplish with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs excellent.

Always deal with it up!

Why thank you!  We certainly do try to always deal with it up!

Also, not to go all Big Brother on you, but did you know that we can see the search terms that get people to Red House West? Here are a few good ones:

mera wearing without any clouth pitcher

i envisioned an upside down feather fan

what colour toothbrush holder free standing to go with grey wall tiles in bathroom

right end of the matte knife and the calico cat,

my house is too beautiful

What, you missed Katie’s post about how she envisioned an upside down feather fan?  Or the post when Mera decided to just own it, and posted a bunch of pitchers without any clouth on? Check the archives, they’re good ones.

And sometimes we learn things from the search terms that pop up, like this one:

benjamin moore vomit smell

Is that a thing?!  Seriously?  We’re going to Google that right now.

The WordPress-provided site statistics also give us a breakdown of where in the world people are when they click over to Red House West.  Did you know that we’re international?  We’re totally trending in Slovenia:

Red House West||Behind the Scenes

Our blog redesign is underway (hooray!  we’re excited for a site that is both more user-friendly and more beautiful), and we can’t wait to roll out the new look.  More on this as the debut approaches, but for now we’re refining what, exactly, our style is.  You might remember this post where we tried to define our decorating style, and now we’re trying to distill that down to a graphic style.

Red House West||Behind the Scenes

1, 2

We’ve definitely identified that we’re a 1970’s woodcut plus a paper floral collage, (it’s so obvious, right?)  but we’re still trying to figure out how to visually represent our friendship, which is really the driving force behind the blog. Any ideas? See above comments for examples of excellent constructive feedback.

In all seriousness though we’d love to hear your input about Red House West and our future look.  Talk to us!  On Wednesday Mera has the first in what we hope will be a recurring post here, answering reader’s design questions.  Come back and check it out!

6 responses on “Behind the Scenes at RHW

  1. papict

    Ha ha ha! I now totally have to go ferret out (pun intended) my blog stats and see if I have any entertaining google search terms. Those are brilliant. Back in my teaching days I might have handed those as prompts to kids in the creative writing club I ran. Congrats on the 6 month anniversary!

  2. Carol Crump Bryner

    I also find your stuffs to be very excellent, and I smartly-appreciate all 80 of your wonderful posts – ferrets or no ferrets. This is so funny. I laughed out loud. A great way to start the week. Have fun with your redesign. I think your friendship shows through all the time, and I find your design to already be very easy to read and to navigate. But it will be fun to see what you come up with. Happy 6 month anniversary!

  3. Judy lehman

    Ha ha ha! Laughing and reading and enjoying waiting for rain to lessen so we can ride bikes on wonderful bike trails at grand Teton national park! Happy to have red house west to keep me delightfully occupied!

  4. y2knina

    OK, so clearly you will be replacing “Two old friends and two old houses” with “Always deal with it up!” That’s a given. Can’t wait to see what else you guys come up with. 🙂

    Happy Six Month Birthday!

  5. michellet2013

    Congratulations on six months! And thank you for once again bringing a chuckle to my morning. It’s a great relief to know I can turn to you for all things ferret!

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