Seattle’s Porch.com Simplifies the Home Renovation Process
By Lauren Mang June 20, 2014
This article originally appeared in the July 2014 issue of Seattle magazine.
Tackling a bathroom renovation? Want to see what your neighbor did with hers—and what she paid? Sign up for the Eastlake-based home improvement site Porch.com, the brainchild of CEO Matt Ehrlichman, to search a database of more than 1.5 million professionals—plumbers, carpenters, interior decorators—to find the right person to take on your task. In grand “keeping up with the Joneses” fashion, your gratis membership to Porch gains you access to pictures, project cost, experts chosen and other details about home-improvement jobs completed in your area (including your neighbor’s reno), not to mention LinkedIn-style endorsements of those experts from other Porch users. Scour the site for advice and how-tos, maintenance reminders and plentiful project photos that you can then save to your “scrapbook” for inspiration. And look for the handy-dandy service inside Lowe’s Home Improvement stores, too, where you can browse its online bounty of pros via Lowe’s employee mobile devices and in-store terminals.
Follow Us
Better Together: This Take on Co-Housing Emphasizes Quality and Community
The Seattle project presents an out-of-the-box model, where investors are also residents, and the design focuses on longevity and tenant retention—not profit.
Growing up in rural Detroit, Chad Dale spent many after-school and weekend hours playing with neighborhood kids in an open lot near his house. It’s an experience he always hoped his children would have someday, but by the time he became a father in Seattle, land was at a premium: either already developed or prohibitively…
A Different Kind of Mattress Store
Photos courtesy of Bedrooms and More. If you’re looking for the best mattress shopping experience in Seattle, the right choice often comes down to materials, transparency, and expert guidance – not just price or brand names. Bedrooms & More specializes in natural and organic two-sided mattresses and offers a no-pressure showroom environment where customers can…
Craft Value: The Founder of Henrybuilt Reflects on What He’s Learned in 25 Years of Business
In 2001, after 15 years of working in publishing—where I was a founding team member of two venture-funded technology companies—I decided to start a different kind of company: one that made physical products. This company, Henrybuilt, would combine product innovation and craft under one roof and sell directly to the end user—the homeowner—so that we…
Joint Effort
Rooted in the Northwest craft tradition, Mory Homes offers thoughtful furniture and storage solutions with an architectural point of view.
After more than a decade as the executive director of local lighting company Graypants, one of the cofounders, Jonathan Junker, decided to return to his architectural roots. In 2019, he was raising a family on Bainbridge Island when he opened his namesake studio. At first, Junker enjoyed the holistic approach to residential design; a few…