Forget Gatekeeping, Annie Meyers-Shyer’s "This Oak House" Shares Every Single Source for Her Home

The social media personality took an unbelievably meticulous approach to her home renovation. Readers can use it as a cheat sheet—or an escape from the real life stresses of making over your space.

When I was working as a personal assistant, one of the first tasks I was assigned was assisting my boss with the completion of her home renovation. Running around Tribeca for paint samples, supervising contractors as they installed custom storage solutions, and managing lighting deliveries, I often became overwhelmed by the various microdetails that would complicate what seemed like straightforward decisions. As a less-than-amateur when it came to design and home renovation, it taught me a lot that I knew would be useful for my own future (hopefully!) as a homeowner, mostly that I should avoid a major renovation at all costs. 

Maybe I would have been less surprised by the millions of small details if I’d had Annie Meyers-Shyer’s new book, This Oak House, back then. Part personal narrative and part how-to guide, This Oak House provides exhaustive detail about her experience renovating her family home, a "country colonial-style five-bedroom" house inherited from her mother-in-law. When Meyers-Shyer was looking for a new home for herself, her husband, and their two sons, it was not in her plans to take on a deep renovation of an old home. But she saw major potential in the home and approached its renovation with zeal. 

In the book, readers can see architect Brian Covington’s drawing specifying the spacing for the front door hardware placement, read Meyers-Shyer’s list of auction search terms that help her find antiques and artwork, and find out how she calculates the appropriate distance between lights in a hallway.

Image courtesy of Chronicle Books

In the book, Meyers-Shyer describes the home as "a dream," and it’s a dream that hundreds of thousands of people have lived vicariously through her Instagram, which shares a name with her recently published book. 

What began as a "journal" for her friends and family back in NYC to follow her journey in Los Angeles became, within a few months, a renovation travelogue with 11,000 devotees following along. Sure, many of these people were undoubtedly first attracted by Meyers-Shyer’s lineage (her mother, filmmaker Nancy Meyers, is the unofficial godmother of the Coastal Grandma aesthetic). Still, that in itself wouldn’t be enough to keep everyone’s attention. What made the account so appealing was her particular kind of openness about home design. While it’s not uncommon for homeowners to share their home transformation process, it’s not often that they invite their audience to discuss all the nitty-gritty details: what to do with the space between eaves in her children's bedrooms, if wood flooring made sense for a bathroom, whether a particular room should be painted light or dark. Many of her followers enthusiastically engaged with Meyers-Shyer in the comments, and she commented back, as she often still does. Even more appealing was her receptiveness to taking feedback and suggestions from them, a decision that made the experience feel like "a collaboration with her followers," as Nancy Meyers notes in her foreword to the book. 

The dining room mood board (left) includes a stripe fabric by Rose Tarlow for the curtains and a jute rug from Lawrence of LaBrea. The garden mood board (right) includes a Great Plains fabric for the ottomans and limestone pavers from Eco Outdoor. 

Image courtesy of Chronicle Books

She maintains this anti-gatekeeping offensive in the book as well. This Oak House is divided into two sections, aptly titled House and Home. "House" is technical and no nonsense, with Meyers-Shyer accounting for every possible decision, right down to determining the placement of outlets according to one’s furniture plan. "Home" is more intimate and personal, though no less detailed and instructive. Alongside mood boards of fabric swatches and design sketches, she includes family recipes for hot fudge and menus for hosting lunch and dinner parties. 

But Meyers-Shyer goes beyond easy inspiration and advice—she teaches her readers how to communicate their design ideas, too. Not only does she explain terms like "RCP" (reflected ceiling plan) and "paint schedule," she also shares each of hers, walking readers through all of the minutiae. Consider her description of her lighting choices early in the book: "[M]y favorite type of over-head nondecorative ceiling light is a monopoint—a single light fixture using a track-style head, mounted to a ceiling without a track system. I would opt for monopoints over any type of can light (a recessed light installed in the ceiling). Monopoints all day, every day!" As you can tell, she doesn’t dumb anything down for her readers—instead she helps them speak the same language as the design professionals they may encounter during a renovation. 

Meyers-Shyer’s advice extends beyond aesthetics and into practical details, like custom drawer organizers and outlet placement.

Image courtesy of Chronicle Books

See the full story on Dwell.com: Forget Gatekeeping, Annie Meyers-Shyer’s "This Oak House" Shares Every Single Source for Her Home
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Once Condemned, This 1888 San Diego Victorian Is on the Market for $4.5M

After a monumental overhaul, the Broderick Kenny House has a hidden speakeasy, more than 30 chandeliers and sconces, and pillars from the "Titanic" film set.

Location: 2133 2nd Ave, San Diego, California

Price: $4,500,000

Footprint: 4,502 square feet (4 beds, 5 baths) 

Lot Size: 0.10 acres

Year Built: 1888

From the Agent: "Steeped in history and overlooking the San Diego skyline, 2133 2nd Avenue is more than a residence—it is an architectural treasure. Built in 1888, this iconic Victorian in the heart of Banker’s Hill has been meticulously restored to honor its storied past while blending modern luxury. From the stately wrought iron gates to the intricate architectural details, every inch reflects timeless craftsmanship. A dramatic freestanding spiral staircase and reimagined vintage elevator create an unforgettable experience, while a hidden speakeasy and secluded backyard provide exceptional spaces for entertaining and relaxation. The home offers two elegant guest suites, an additional en suite bedroom, and an entire third-floor primary retreat with multiple decks capturing panoramic views of the harbor, downtown skyline, Coronado Bridge, and Pacific sunsets."

When the current owner purchased the home in the 1990s, it was condemned by the City of San Diego. An extensive renovation brought the property back from the brink. 

Photo by Sam Chen

The home is illuminated by more than 30 chandeliers and custom sconces. 

Photo by Sam Chen

During the renovation, the seller sourced columns from the set of the film Titanic that are replicas of ones from the real ship’s first-class dining room.

Photo by Sam Chen

See the full story on Dwell.com: Once Condemned, This 1888 San Diego Victorian Is on the Market for $4.5M
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All of the Partitions in This Art Collector’s Taiwan Apartment Are Translucent

Glass-brick walls enclose the bathrooms and a folding door with frosted panels separates the office.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Taoyuan, Taiwan

Architect: Habitat Architects

Footprint: 1,292 square feet

Photographer: Studio Millspace / @studio_millspace

From the Architect: "Raw & Warm is a 1,292-square-foot apartment in Taoyuan, Taiwan, designed for an art collector who lives alone. The goal was to create a flexible home in which art could become part of everyday life rather than be treated as a separate display. Existing partitions were removed to open up the main living area, allowing furniture to organize the space instead of fixed walls. The original ceiling and exposed building services were retained and paired with seamless flooring, pine plywood, stainless steel, and glass brick, creating a contrast between raw and warm materials. A change in floor finish marks the transition between the shared and private areas, forming a small gallery-like threshold while preserving a continuous sense of movement through the apartment."

Glass-brick walls enclose the bathrooms and a folding door with frosted panels separates the office.

Photo by Studio Millspace

Photo by Studio Millspace

Photo by Studio Millspace

See the full story on Dwell.com: All of the Partitions in This Art Collector’s Taiwan Apartment Are Translucent
Related stories:

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• Technically, This Cluster of Cabins Is a Single Home
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Rubble From 9/11 Was Sent to Just One Landfill. This Photographer Has Spent 9 Years Documenting It

Jade Doskow’s work from Freshkills Park is proof that even a former dump can become a poignant place of mourning.

After the 9/11 attacks in New York City, nearly 1.5 million tons of rubble were removed from the site and sent to Staten Island’s Fresh Kills landfill. Once the largest dump in the world, the 2,200-acre site had already been decommissioned, and a competition for park designers launched, when it was selected as the place where Ground Zero materials would be redirected. Finally, in 2003, the decades-long revitalization project that would turn the stinking landfill into a massive wildlife park—subtly renamed "Freshkills"—officially began. Led by landscape architect firm Field Operations, the project has been partially open to the public since 2021 and will be completed by 2037.

But photographer Jade Doskow has been well-acquainted with the goings-on in Staten Island. For the past nine years she has been photographing the park, now as the Photographer in Residence, documenting the curious landscape forms—four mounds: north, south, east, and west—with images that quietly showcase the rewilded paradise. The West Mound, where the waste from Ground Zero was sent, holds special significance for New Yorkers as it has become what she calls a "humble memorial" to that day. Doskow’s photographs are being exhibited at All Street Gallery this month as one of the many tributes to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11. She spoke with Dwell about her work, and how her documentation speaks to the complexities of creating a natural parkland out of the past’s discards, and the ruins of tragedy. 

Summer Storm, Observation Point, 2024

Photo by Jade Doskow, courtesy All Street

Tell me about yourself and your photography practice—what informs your work? 

Jade Doskow: The core of my inspiration, I would say, is the transformations within the urban built environment, and also the unexpected relationships and juxtapositions within that environment. In my previous project, Lost Utopias, I was looking at outdated World’s Fair architecture and landscaping globally, and now I’ve been working for eight years at Freshkills, which was New York City’s largest garbage dump, but is now being rewilded into this really amazing, fairly indescribable engineered wilderness. 

What draws you to these subjects? 

I grew up in a 1700s farmhouse in Pennsylvania, but I would often visit my grandmother in the Bronx, and she lived at the end of the train line overlooking these graffiti-covered subways, which was so fantastic. Part of living in this old house was that often these elements from the past would come up in the dirt, literally; pieces of ceramic or old tools would become unearthed. So I’ve always had this awareness that the past is always present, and certainly photography is the medium for that. It’s the one medium where we can really explore the past, present, and future almost as a time machine. 

How did your residency come about? 

I was winding down the Lost Utopias work after 12 years, and I suppose I was open to something new coming my way. I was teaching a School of Visual Arts class on liminal green spaces in the cities; we were going to community gardens and rooftop farms, and the typical parklands. Through my research, I came across Freshkills, and I arranged a visit. As soon as me and my students set foot onto the Freshkills hilltop, I was just blown away. I’ve just never experienced anything like it. It’s these kind of infinite meadowlands punctuated by methane pipes, and then surrounded by the New York City skyline to the north and to the west, the New Jersey industrial cityscape. I was immediately drawn in and asked how I could become the main photographer here. I ended up submitting a multipage proposal to Sanitation and Parks, and a few months later they approved my initial proposal, which was to photograph for 10 years all around the site. It’s such a complex place. I just keep learning more and more, and being more and more inspired. 

White Snakeroot, Mugwort, Honey Locust, and some others..... (Overgrowth, Freshkills), 2021

Photo by Jade Doskow, courtesy All Street

Walk us through the landscape—what are some of the natural and unnatural layers that you were uncovering? 

Fresh Kills stopped taking materials in 1996, and the only time the site was reopened was in 2001, following the Twin Towers tragedy. Because of that, the West Mound, which is where those materials were brought, has taken the longest time to rewild, engineer, and transform into its future self as a park or wilderness. Each of the mounds is a pyramid: Underneath are household waste and trash from the last 53 years, and then there’s multiple layers of engineering and barriers to essentially separate the new meadows and trees and so on from what’s beneath. It’s kind of like a mummification process. There’s leachate, which is what we would commonly call garbage juice—the liquid that you might find at the bottom of your compost or something like that. That has to be treated; there’s several laboratories on site at the leachate treatment plant that use a lengthy process of organic and inorganic steps to clean that water and return it safely to the waterways. Methane is also produced by garbage and Fresh Kills was actually one of the first sustainable sites in this country in that, starting in the 1980s, they were piping that methane into the usable gas grid of Staten Island. So within these pyramids, there’s methane wells and flare stations to burn the gas off. But above all that is the thick, impermeable plastic layer, on top of which soil is brought in from around the country. Then finally, that’s where the plantings happen, where they plant native plant grassland species to create the park of the future. 

Sundown, Autumn, View 4, 2025

Photo by Jade Doskow, courtesy All Street

See the full story on Dwell.com: Rubble From 9/11 Was Sent to Just One Landfill. This Photographer Has Spent 9 Years Documenting It

Before & After: They Turned a "Spooky" L.A. Midcentury Into a Sunny Family Home

Where dark interiors and an overgrown yard might have turned others away from the 1947 Monrovia address, one couple saw an opportunity to renovate and expand for their growing brood of kids and pets.

Kat and Nick Howell’s first dates in 2012 were to open houses. A longtime animal lover, Kat came up with the idea. "Finding a rental when you have a lot of pets is hard," she says. "I needed to own so I could get more pets." Nick was game, despite the side-eye from real estate agents on their sojourns. "We got kicked out of open houses because they didn’t think we were serious," says Nick. "They were right."

The couple—she works in the medical industry and he’s in specialty coffee—were living in Pasadena, in northeast Los Angeles, and married in 2014, after which they got more serious in their search. But they became somewhat discouraged as the years passed, from being outbid or turned down several times. "The goal was to find anything," says Nick. Then in 2016, they found a house just 14 lots down from Kat’s parents, an 858-square-foot midcentury in Monrovia, east of Pasadena. They wrote a letter to the seller introducing themselves and were ecstatic when it worked.

Before: Front Exterior

Before: Kat and Nick Howell bought this 1947 home in Monrovia, California, in 2016. It was a probate sale, so it was being sold "as-is." "We got the worst house on a great street," says Nick.

Courtesy of DNA Architecture + Design

After: Front Exterior

In 2023, the couple worked with Valery Augustin of DNA Architecture + Design on a remodel and expansion, adding a total of 460 square feet to the existing footprint of 858 square feet. "One of the things I wanted to do was create more of an entry sequence," says Augustin, including a deck, walkway, covered entry, and pivot entry door.

Photo: Undine Pröhl

The new entry sequence includes sight lines to the back of the house and yard.

Photo: Undine Pröhl

See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: They Turned a "Spooky" L.A. Midcentury Into a Sunny Family Home

Rubble From 9/11 Was Sent to Just One Landfill. This Photographer Has Spent 9 Years Documenting It

Jade Doskow’s work from Freshkills Park is proof that even a former dump can become a poignant place of mourning.

After the 9/11 attacks in New York City, nearly 1.5 million tons of rubble were removed from the site and sent to Staten Island’s Fresh Kills landfill. Once the largest dump in the world, the 2,200-acre site had already been decommissioned, and a competition for park designers launched, when it was selected as the place where Ground Zero materials would be redirected. Finally, in 2003, the decades-long revitalization project that would turn the stinking landfill into a massive wildlife park—subtly renamed "Freshkills"—officially began. Led by landscape architect firm Field Operations, the project has been partially open to the public since 2021 and will be completed by 2037.

But photographer Jade Doskow has been well-acquainted with the goings-on in Staten Island. For the past nine years she has been photographing the park, now as the Photographer in Residence, documenting the curious landscape forms—four mounds: north, south, east, and west—with images that speak to a toxic archaeology-turned-rewilded paradise. The West Mound, where the waste from Ground Zero was sent, holds special significance for New Yorkers as it has become what she calls a "humble memorial" to that day. Doskow’s photographs are being exhibited at All Street Gallery this month as one of the many tributes to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11. She spoke with Dwell about her work, and how her documentation speaks to the complexities of creating a natural parkland out of the past’s discards, and the ruins of tragedy. 

Summer Storm, Observation Point, 2024

Photo by Jane Doskow, courtesy All Street

Tell me about yourself and your photography practice—what informs your work? 

Jade Doskow: The core of my inspiration, I would say, is the transformations within the urban built environment, and also the unexpected relationships and juxtapositions within that environment. In my previous project, Lost Utopias, I was looking at outdated World’s Fair architecture and landscaping globally, and now I’ve been working for eight years at Freshkills, which was New York City’s largest garbage dump, but is now being rewilded into this really amazing, fairly indescribable engineered wilderness. 

What draws you to these subjects? 

I grew up in a 1700s farmhouse in Pennsylvania, but I would often visit my grandmother in the Bronx, and she lived at the end of the train line overlooking these graffiti-covered subways, which was so fantastic. Part of living in this old house was that often these elements from the past would come up in the dirt, literally; pieces of ceramic or old tools would become unearthed. So I’ve always had this awareness that the past is always present, and certainly photography is the medium for that. It’s the one medium where we can really explore the past, present, and future almost as a time machine. 

How did your residency come about? 

I was winding down the Lost Utopias work after 12 years, and I suppose I was open to something new coming my way. I was teaching a School of Visual Arts class on liminal green spaces in the cities; we were going to community gardens and rooftop farms, and the typical parklands. Through my research, I came across Freshkills, and I arranged a visit. As soon as me and my students set foot onto the Freshkills hilltop, I was just blown away. I’ve just never experienced anything like it. It’s these kind of infinite meadowlands punctuated by methane pipes, and then surrounded by the New York City skyline to the north and to the west, the New Jersey industrial cityscape. I was immediately drawn in and asked how I could become the main photographer here. I ended up submitting a multipage proposal to Sanitation and Parks, and a few months later they approved my initial proposal, which was to photograph for 10 years all around the site. It’s such a complex place. I just keep learning more and more, and being more and more inspired. 

White Snakeroot, Mugwort, Honey Locust, and some others..... (Overgrowth, Freshkills), 2021

Photo by Jane Doskow, courtesy All Street

Walk us through the landscape—what are some of the natural and unnatural layers that you were uncovering? 

Fresh Kills stopped taking materials in 1996, and the only time the site was reopened was in 2001, following the Twin Towers tragedy. Because of that, the West Mound, which is where those materials were brought, has taken the longest time to rewild, engineer, and transform into its future self as a park or wilderness. Each of the mounds is a pyramid: Underneath are household waste and trash from the last 53 years, and then there’s multiple layers of engineering and barriers to essentially separate the new meadows and trees and so on from what’s beneath. It’s kind of like a mummification process. There’s leachate, which is what we would commonly call garbage juice—the liquid that you might find at the bottom of your compost or something like that. That has to be treated; there’s several laboratories on site at the leachate treatment plant that use a lengthy process of organic and inorganic steps to clean that water and return it safely to the waterways. Methane is also produced by garbage and Fresh Kills was actually one of the first sustainable sites in this country in that, starting in the 1980s, they were piping that methane into the usable gas grid of Staten Island. So within these pyramids, there’s methane wells and flare stations to burn the gas off. But above all that is the thick, impermeable plastic layer, on top of which soil is brought in from around the country. Then finally, that’s where the plantings happen, where they plant native plant grassland species to create the park of the future. 

Sundown, Autumn, View 4, 2025

Photo by Jane Doskow, courtesy All Street

See the full story on Dwell.com: Rubble From 9/11 Was Sent to Just One Landfill. This Photographer Has Spent 9 Years Documenting It

How Food Influencer Dan Pelosi Built an Upstate New York Garden Where Everyone’s Invited

The bestselling cookbook author is moving the party outside, where he’s mastering the arts of growing and grilling.

For Dan Pelosi, aka GrossyPelosi—the recipe developer, food content creator, and bestselling author—throwing big food parties and entertaining large groups is as central to his identity as whipping something up for two. (He is Italian, after all.) His second cookbook, Let’s Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day, released in 2025, is not only an ode to crowd-pleasing dishes, but also a dedication to farmers’ markets, tabletop presentation, and vibes—all of the elements for creating an inviting, sensorial atmosphere.

So when it came time to build his dream kitchen garden, Pelosi had a few ideas for what it could look like. Moving between the kitchen and garden would have to be easy. The garden would have to be large enough for raised beds, and a dining area for hosting within earshot of those beds would be necessary, too. He’d have a grill station set up within the garden fence. From inside the kitchen, Pelosi wanted his window view to be of his garden so that "when I wash dishes," he says, "I can see my tomatoes growing."

In 2023, when Pelosi and his boyfriend, Gus Heagerty, moved into a 1850s Greek Revival colonial farmhouse in the Hudson Valley area, Pelosi’s main project was to rebuild the kitchen from scratch. The previous kitchen was part of an addition built in the 1950s inside the garage that had been "really poorly done." They tore the whole thing down and built a new kitchen in its place along with a mud room, pantry, and powder room.

Before the renovation—which was featured by Dwell’s sister site, Domino—began, Pelosi had already been thinking about the future. "My architect and I designed the kitchen knowing that I would eventually want to have a garden off of it, so we thought about access points and how it could potentially lay out," he says. Both Pelosi and Heagerty grew up with parents who gardened, so building a raised bed garden was top of mind. The kitchen took nine months to complete and the garden was built about a year and a half later.

Last spring, the garden build out began, with the team excavating the leftover stone and dirt from the kitchen renovation to level out the backyard for a flat garden. A fence was installed. Custom beds were built. Herbs and vegetables were planted. A picnic table was added. "Every move we made sort of informed the next move," Pelosi says. By mid-August last year, the beds were popping off with more plump tomatoes and zucchinis than Pelosi knew what to do with. His first go as an upstate gardener was, in many ways, successful, but he also learned a lot about how he could improve his growing and entertaining plans for the following summer.

Just after the one-year anniversary of Let’s Party, Pelosi shares how his kitchen garden was originally designed and how it has since evolved into a more inviting communal space. "We’re slowly making updates so we don’t want to go indoors," he says.

See the full story on Dwell.com: How Food Influencer Dan Pelosi Built an Upstate New York Garden Where Everyone’s Invited