Hi everybody! We've moved decor8 and 11 years of content with over 100,000 reader comments from Wordpress to Squarespace and today we will continue the conversation from this post to talk more about the tech side of how using Squarespace will make my work/life a lot easier now. But before getting into the tech stuff in the next post, which is very important for you to hear because it's a big part of running your own business if you have a blog tied to it, I want to first introduce you to the all new decor8 and tell you about a few things that make me VERY excited.

Two pages were added: MY BOOKS and SHOP.

MY BOOKS is just that, all of the books I've written with image galleries and a few have videos. Later, I will detail on that page the exact language and the book title name in that language, so you can google it and find it (hopefully) in your country. The book page will later contain the names of all of the books I've also contributed to that included my home or office, or something else from me like a quote, design advice, etc. But for now, the MY BOOKS page is finished and I love it.

SHOP is a brand new adventure for me! Since removing ads from the site, I thought about other ways to earn income to make up for the loss while also feeling good about my business. The truth is, I didn't enjoy managing an ad business or having ads on my site. It's a personal decision and I'm glad I made it for me and my business. I expanded in other ways to make up for the financial loss and my business still continues to grow consistently year after year since launching it in 2006, so I can't complain. The SHOP is a way for me to earn a living but by doing more of what I love, and that is consulting with those who need me as a mentor. This way, I can connect very personally with those of you who really need help with your business, work/life balance, sorting ideas, branding/marketing, or how to ramp up a blog or social sites. I have over 11 years of full-time experience in this industry so I have a lot of value to give and can save you a lot of money, many tears and stress because my tips and guidance provide the ultimate shortcut to success. Later, I will add physical products to the shop and other goodies (I can't wait to tell you more later).

Next, the categories... we've decided to only have four key categories:

1.  INTERIORS

2.  OBJECTS

3.  PLACES

4.  BUSINESS

Over the next few months, I'll break those categories into sub categories (like DIY, HOME TOURS), but for now, that's what we have as our core to keep things very focused and simple.

Another new feature of the blog is how I layout and present photos in posts. You will notice in the posts I've published since last week when we launched, that they contain a "Lightbox" collage of images. You can click on them to enlarge and pin any and all to Pinterest. This cuts down on endless scrolling and looks modern and fresh. (Example shown below and here)

Also with this new blog came a NEWSLETTER!

For the first time ever, I have a newsletter that I write personally and send to my subscribers each Friday. The first one was released on August 4th, the day the new site went live. Going forward, if you subscribe to the newsletter, you will get one each Friday (no other day, we won't annoy you!). The decor8 newsletter will always contain a personal letter from me, my favorite links and things from the blog and elsewhere, any shop or book updates, special content I won't put on my blog or share publicly, and sometimes you'll get subscriber-only contests and special discount codes to my favorite online shops.

You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

We hope you love the layout and design and please comment if you have any questions or notice any errors or dead links/pages... Or typos! I would love the help if you spot errors, the more eyes the better.

So! That's a little bit about the new decor8. We hope that you like it! In the next post, which we'll publish tomorrow, we'll detail the tech side of move to Squarespace and how it has already impacted our business in only a few days time.

Love,

Holly