SUBURBAN * POP

Happy Friday everyone! I didn’t intend to take such a long blog hiatus, but life/family obligations have been unrelenting. Major highlights include the flu, 4 weeks of lingering flu, our annual plumbing disaster, and just a very time-consuming homeschooling season. Add in an unusually rainy and freezing winter (we even got 5 minutes of snow at our house…unheard of!) that was so unconducive to projects, and we have almost no house news to share.

But! One positive house improvement came from the long winter, and the subsequent highest heating bill we’ve ever seen. It felt like time to invest in a smart thermostat that could help lower our energy usage and costs. We were ready to eliminate the nighttime trips to the thermostat too. A little bit of digging revealed that both our electric and gas companies were offering rebates for Nest Thermostats, our gas being a slightly better offer at $75, and the one we applied for.Yes, the techy features of the Nest are “exciting” but the sleek design is the hands-down winner of the excitement contest. My only job, to choose a color, turned into a predictable saga because they all look so dang good.

The more economical Nest E was tempting. A minimal white plastic circle is still a huge improvement over our old clunky thermostat, so I tried to convince myself to save the 50ish bucks and go for minimal, plastic, good enough. But our thermostat is located in a prominent place in our dining room, where I’m always adding unwanted clutter to distract from the ugly old thermostat. Going with a real looker, I decided, might be worth the splurge, if only to carry that space on its own. And metal/glass construction makes sense, especially in something so tactile.

I assumed I’d just go with the beautiful and simple original Nest, but when I saw that copper (and brass!) was an option my life spun out of control haha. I fell hard for that flashy copper, a left-field decision. It was random and risky. I couldn’t find decent photos of the finish, so I there was a possibility it would look horribly cheap in person. And, even if it didn’t, the copper could call attention to an object I might want to blend in. But, then again, it’s a 3″ black circle on a white wall so how much could it blend in? I decided to take a chance, figuring I could exchange if needed.

It arrived and it is better than expected. For our room, it is perfect. I could see where copper might stick out like a sore thumb in certain spaces, but for us, for here, I’m in love with a thermostat and I don’t care who knows it. As far as function, we couldn’t be happier. It is a joy to use.

Since I had such a hard time finding photos of the color, here are a bunch :)
Our old thermostat before we removed it…*I have to add possibly a controversial opinion here: the trim piece that comes with the Nest is an abomination and makes me question the aesthetic commitment of this company. What the heck even? Personally, I think you need to patch up your old holes before you hang a piece-of-art-thermostat on your wall. Obviously. But if logistics call for a trim piece, there are cool after market wall plates that play up the sleek, minimal, metallic vibe of a Nest. DON’T PUT THAT UGLY PIECE IN THE BOX ON YOUR WALL, k????

The sun came out last week and it was like rays of motivation shining down! We started building a new step in our family room and we have spent hours upon hours strategizing wood wall treatments. More to come…

xoxo Jenny