{maison classique}

Welcome to {maison classique}! I'm Janelle Steinberg, Principal Interior Designer of j. steinberg design and Creative Director of summerhouse. I made a conscious decision, back when I started blogging, that I would write this blog. Not my assistant, not a social media intern or employee, not a freelancer or a company I hire for content creation...its just me. (Those are actual strategies some blogs use, by the way!)

Because I want to write, edit and curate what goes into {maison classique}, combined with me being a practicing interior designer and multi-business owner, a wife, and a mother... this blog has sometimes often taken the back-burner to clients, events, travel, Mr. Wonderful and my sweet little R.W. My desire for perfection and control has led to blogging paralysis...I mean, how on earth am I supposed to master a DSLR camera, photoshop, layout software, blog interface and code tweaking, etc. etc. etc. in order to produce a good looking blog and run my firm, not to mention my everyday life?! Producing a glossy blog, (what I like to call the big-name blogs full of gorgeous and perfect photos and loads of content), is a full time job in and of itself! I've recently had to step back and remind myself that I am a designer first, not a blogger first. So...I have made the decision to "let go" of perfection, and forgive myself for blogging gaps (if you look back at older posts, you will notice some pretty large gaps in my posting timeline!).

I initially started blogging at the recommendation of business advisers who said that blogging was the way to go. Blog, blog, blog they all said. It was really catching fire at the time, with a lot of the established bloggers already knee deep in the water, developing a following that business coaches and marketing consultants couldn't ignore. After taking their advice, and after years of blowing hot and cold with my blogging productivity- I finally figured out why it was always the first thing to get placed on the back-burner. I was approaching blogging about design from the wrong angle. And from a place that wasn't authentic for me. I was trying to remove myself from the equation, censoring content that I felt was too uninteresting or perhaps too personal (afterall, I was told to approach it as part of a marketing plan! Who feels warm and fuzzy about marketing plans?!). And the end result? A blog lacking heart and consistancy. Now that I've figured that out, and I've forgiven myself for absences- I'm hoping to take this blog in a new direction that will excite me and entertain, inform and amuse you!

I'm going to give you a view of what its like to run a boutique design firm and a custom-goods design company. I'm going to give you a view of my life as a designer, because its very hard impossible to separate the two without it becoming, well, boring (hence the change!). I will use this blog less for products, news, announcements, etc. and more for behind the scenes interior design at JSD and summerhouse. I might show you the crafts I whip up on Sunday afternoons (oh, how I love making things!), I might post about a good recipe I found on Pinterest, I might even show the process of building and designing our own house- a realm that, for me, is very private (and to be honest, Im still struggling with this decision!).

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I hope {maison classique} becomes one of your regular blog stops. Happy reading!