Ten years ago this month, in 2005, Kris pitched the idea of starting a design blog that only featured well-designed products available for purchase online.
We had become pen pals (actual paper and pen), as we had discovered a shared interest in modern architecture and design at an art show in Dallas. We both had a hobby of sketching out floor plans for small, modern homes, and wanted to bounce ideas back and forth.
When Kris brought up the idea of BLTD (‘Better Living Through Design’), it sounded like a fun thing to work on. I had just moved from Dallas to Houston, and, when not working long hours at my new job, I had time to kill, mostly evenings and weekends. We spent several weeks discussing details of the website, and Kris built it from scratch with her coding skills.
My first post was the 2D:3D Letter Holder from Blu Dot, I think. I can’t find it now, and suspect it must have been swallowed up whole when we did a website remodel in 2007 (all our pre-2007 posts are now dated October 2007 thanks to that upgrade). I had quit my day job by then to work exclusively on the site, as BLTD had begun to catch interest from advertisers and it needed someone full time.
Since then, we’ve grown. Kris and I have hired writers, said fond farewells to those writers (we still miss you Simon), had big career changes (Kris), moved states (Kris), moved overseas to the UK and back (Katie), and worked countless hours to make BLTD what it is today. We’ve posted over 9,000 items. I think we’ve gone through five site remodels, and we’re now working on our sixth.
And, of course, these past ten years at BLTD is possible because of our readers. Because of you.
Thanks for visiting BLTD. If you’ve liked anything we’ve featured, we’ve done our job. If you’ve visited any of the sites we link to, then you support us, and help us continue to do what we’ve been doing for the last ten years.
We hope to have a better site for you in a couple of months, if not sooner. If you have any suggestions for the new site design, please send them our way.
And, again, thanks.
Katie & Kris
