Pledge 

Here's the thing about Pledge, their products protect just about every thing in your home letting your personal taste shine through. So we created curated vignettes of home interiors to tell the story of preservation and inspiration. Most of these stories were loosely based off of individuals that have been shining parts of my life ... hi, dad!

Dan knows it’s not easy being green. It takes much more care than his black thumb ever realized.

Some people are born with a green thumb and others, others more of a dark blue. Dan fell into the latter category early on when he watered his artificial plant for three straight weeks until he began to notice a smell. He then immediately tossed the mildew-ridden potted plastic and dove nose first into botany books. Giving himself an award system based on sustaining one leafy green a month, he then gifted that life with even more greenery. Boasting about the abundance of oxygen in his home, Dan has become a social media celebrity of sorts. Hundreds of comments a day on his Facebook page inquire about the care of a fiddle leaf fig and how often to water a string of pearls. Dan does his best to respond with any knowledge between misting the greenery, dusting the pots and keeping his windows crystal clear to ensure every ounce of sunlight shines in. 

Don’s wife knows there’s a fine line between collector and hoarder. His argument? When one has good taste, hoarding is impossible.

Don’s wife has always reminded him there is a fine line between collector and hoarder. His argument: when one has good taste, hoarding is impossible. Not to mention, Don has every record he has every acquired organized alphabetically, cataloged and burned onto an external hard drive nicknamed the jukebox-in-a-tiny-box. Any rock album from 1962 to 1981, he has. There have only been two accounts of requests that have stumped him, but after further research the distribution of each was under 25 produced units with one of the two being a polka/rock hybrid he eventually deemed out of his scope of collection. But that’s another story. Every month he rotates out 15 albums to put on display, usually taking requests from his better half. They spend their evenings enjoying the music while reading, sitting on the porch and an occasional boogie. 

Edie didn’t let a pesky pet hair allergy stop her love of felines, she now spends her time polishing porcelain to purrrfection.

Edie is named after her mother who is named after her mother who is named after her mother. Edith Rose Vanderklok II. Every Edith has carried a slender figure, a porcelain complexion, tight ringlet curls that rarely frizz in the southern humidity and a significant pet hair allergy. Edie once considered adopting a hairless cat, but upon seeing the scrawny feline realized, to her, a cat is not a cat without a fur coat. So she settled for allergy-free friends who require the same amount of attention, and only a third of the upkeep. 

No matter how many places Abby has been, she always finds herself back where she started. Home.

Abby has been to 23 countries in 14 years. Her only rules for globetrotting are bring an empty suitcase and an open mind. She got her nose pierced twice in India, broke a toe when she crashed a scooter in Italy, fell in love in Thailand, hiked a volcano for five days in Hawaii, and spent an extra three weeks in Indonesia working at a surf shack on the beach. She always swore to live life as a vagabond jet-setting from place to place, but recently she realized the only place she wants to be right now is home. 

Every real cowboy knows soot-covered spurs are no way to start a day in the Wild West. This isn’t Ben’s first rodeo.

Ben’s had a bucket list of aspirations since he was old enough to hold a laddie pencil. Topping the college-ruled paper is to ride in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Last year he qualified for the first round of young buck’s timed events and even got placed third for steer roping. But this year, this year he has his eye on qualifying for roughstock. And atop of all the superstitions surrounding a rodeo, Ben’s got a particular routine of his own. Every night he polishes his trophy in hopes that next year he’ll have a matching set. 

Home is where your people are.

Potato is a two-year-old French bulldog who spends her mornings lapping the hallway outside her owner’s bathroom door and her afternoon sprawled out on the sunniest spot of the dark oak floor. After taking a new position in a high-demand law firm, her owner worried Potato may get lonely between dog walkers. Nights spent on google led him to Amazon where he began ordering life-size companions to keep Potato company—at least for the first three months while he acclimated to the new gig. She didn’t seem to notice the others at first, but after further investigation and a $39.99 pet cam later, her owner noticed Potato swapped the sunny floor spot for the couch surrounded by her new fur-less friends. 

Some call it a bug collection, Bea considers it preservation.

Bea was always the kid who was rolling over rocks in the garden to uncover what she called “bugtropolises.” She made lightning bug necklaces, beetle broaches, and butterfly clips—never sacrificing the life of an insect for her art. She was always careful never to disturb, only to investigate. As she got older, butterflies became the obsession. She had a pressed butterfly book filled by the time she hit twelve years old. After returning from the best two weeks of her life at summer camp she arrived home to a newly-wallpapered bedroom and eleven shadow boxes of fluttery framed perfection. She is now known to the grade school kids on the block as “Madame Butterfly” and, honestly, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Matt’s always been more of a night owl. Except for fishing trips at the lake, when his dad made it a point to turn him into an early bird.

Matt has always been a night owl. As a teenager he spent his summer days sleeping past two p.m. and staying awake until the sun came up. The only exception was the one week a year when his dad took him and his cousins up to the lake. Every morning at 3am Matt would wake up to his old man squeaking around the one room cabin in dark green waders filling a century-old cooler warning the boys if they didn’t wake up with the birds he was happy to lend a hand with a shower of cold ice. Matt has kept the tradition going with his daughters using the same tools the exact way his dad did. The only thing that’s changed? Now his daughters wake him up.