The Journal

Field notes from the studio.

Honest writing on residential design — what's working, what's overrated, and what we wish more clients knew before signing a contract.

Featured · April 2026

Eight residential design trends we'll still respect in 2036.

Trend lists age badly. So we wrote one we'd be willing to defend a decade from now — built around materials, daylight, and the boring fundamentals that hold up.

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Building · 8 min read

Aligning design intent with what gets built.

A working architect's view of how to keep the drawing and the building on the same page during construction.

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Cost · 6 min read

What a $2M home actually costs in 2026.

A realistic line-item breakdown for a custom home in Texas — and the three line items most clients underestimate.

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Permits · 10 min read

Permitting in Austin, decoded.

A field guide to the city's residential permit process — what triggers what, and how long each step actually takes.

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Renovation · 7 min read

What to keep, what to rebuild.

A framework for deciding which parts of an existing home are worth saving — structural, sentimental, and otherwise.

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Materials · 5 min read

Materials that age into a home.

Limestone, white oak, lime plaster, blackened steel — why we keep coming back to materials that look better at year ten.

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Mistakes · 4 min read

Five design mistakes we see most often.

The recurring issues we catch on second-opinion reviews — and the cheap design-phase fixes for each of them.

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