Do You Love/Hate Truncated Posts? P.S. Dans le Lakehouse Has Moved!

After way too many years of forcing people to type "www.dans-le-townhouse.blogspot.com" - which really made no sense once we moved from the townhouse to the lakehouse - I finally, finally switched to my own domain: "www.danslelakehouse.com"!

It's so much easier to type and remember - plus it looks pretty.  Is it a sign that you've been blogging too long when you think a URL is pretty??

For you, nothing will change.  All of the old links and the former URL redirect.  But from now on, if you're someone who types in the URL, you can type www.danslelakehouse.com, instead!

In other news, I'm experimenting with truncating my posts (which means including a photo and only part of the text before imploring you to click "read" more to see the rest, instead of leaving posts whole so you can land on the blog and just keep scrolling).  Bloggers and blog readers often have strong opinions on the topic of truncated posts, so below is my reasoning - but then I'd love your input!

Reasons FOR Truncated Posts

After I bought my new blog template, I realized that the mobile version defaulted to truncated posts and I immediately liked how chic the mobile version looked.  I've even been considering a different template that is much more like a clickable Instagram feed with only images and post titles on the main page, because I really like how it looks.

As a voracious blog reader, I've started to prefer truncated posts because I can breeze through posts that aren't my jam without having to slog through endless steps/photos/jibber-jabber about topics or projects that don't interest me.  Instead, I quickly skim content, open posts that seem interesting in new tabs, read them at leisure, pin my heart out, and move on.  Truncated posts make pinning so much easier for me (and at 14,000+ pins, I'm a pretty enthusiastic pinner!).

Because I like truncated posts, I recently switched Dans le Lakehouse to a format with page breaks.  I feel like the blog looks much tidier now and I enjoy that new readers can see so many posts at once and immediately get a feel for my aesthetic and content.

And, this might make me seem overly sensitive, but I feel inspired to blog more freely now.  There's so much pressure to create perfectly curated, pinnable content and to ensure that every photo is styled to perfection - even in-progress shots, which tend to be messy by nature.  Sometimes this pressure is a creativity-squasher.  I have actually decided not to post some projects because, although the "after" photo looked good, my progress photos didn't turn out well (maybe too messy, poorly lit, etc), and I didn't want to put those photos on the blog because anyone who landed on my blog would see them mixed in with better photos as they scrolled.  I've been really struggling with wanting to share stories and make things with wild abandon, but then feeling this defeating pressure to constantly produce really amazing photos, every step of the way - and it's difficult for me to take a magazine-worthy shot when I'm covered in dough or paint, or feverishly working on a project in the wee hours. 

With this new layout, though, only my favorite photo shows to anyone skimming through so I feel like I can make a great "first impression" and, once someone is hooked (mwahaha) and starts delving deeper into posts, seeing some imperfect progress photos won't ruin the overall aesthetic.  I feel so much more motivated to make and share - which is a surprise!  I really just wanted to make the blog prettier, but I think it might actually have a big impact on my creativity and passion for blogging.  Maybe.

There are other, less emotionally-fueled reasons for the switch too:  the site should load faster, an issue I've had because I always include a ton of huge photos and probably way too many meandering digressions.  As well, truncated posts supposedly deter scraper sites that steal content, which is a good enough reason for me because it's been disheartening to see so many of my posts stolen verbatim by these sites.  I'm not writing Pulitzer-worthy material here, but I log a lot of hours on each post - no matter how mundane it seems.

Reasons AGAINST Truncated Posts

Blogging experts have long advocated truncated posts for boosting pageviews, but because truncated posts can be off-putting for many readers, I wonder if that's even accurate.  Perhaps each person who lands on a blog will generate more coveted "clicks" for a blogger, but what if the overall number of regular readers shrinks as a result? 

I don't want to make visiting the Lakehouse less fun for anyone!  I love chatting with you and hearing your input.  I'm so grateful for your support and encouragement.  In return, I hope I can make you laugh from time to time, or spark an idea for a creative project or budget-friendly room makeover.

I know that truncated posts can be cumbersome if you read a blog regularly, because you're not scrolling through like a new reader - you just want to read the newest post, without having to click twice.  Which totally makes sense!  An extra click is frustrating when every single blog makes you do it - on top of annoying pop up adds and pop ups begging you to subscribe by email when you've barely made it two sentences into a post.  It can slow down and make reading blogs so much less enjoyable for some.  Ideally, I'd love for the first post to be regular and the others truncated, but I can't figure out how to do that and although I found code to truncate all posts at once, and fiddled a bit with that for an evening, I'm not savvy enough to figure out any tweaks beyond that.  I can't even get the truncated posts to look exactly how I'd like (I'd prefer a full size image and the first few lines of text below, not to the right).    

What is Your Take on Truncated Posts???

I'm not fully committed to this new format, although I do like it quite a bit, so while I noodle on it, please do chime in: do you love or hate the new truncated posts!  Or perhaps you're completely ambivalent and you just want more posts?  Less jibber-jabber?  Let me know!  

First and foremost, I really want this blog to be easy to use and enjoy - because it's nothing without you! - so please feel free let me know if there's anything I can do (or should stop doing) to make your visit easier and more enjoyable.

(And if you want to be really honest and candid, you can always leave an anonymous comment and I'll have no idea who you are.  Seriously, I appreciate the feedback - big time!)

Thanks for reading!

My New Blog Look (+ A Review of Pipdig Templates)

Some of you have already noticed the fresh new look of Dans le Lakehouse!  Even though I've been blogging for many years, I've never spent money on my blog design (or even having my own domain for that matter, because I'm intimated by the prospect of actually moving from blogspot.com).  My DIY header and social media buttons just weren't cutting it anymore though, so I took the plunge and purchased an affordable template from pipdig, which I customized a little:



I am so thrilled with how Dans le Lakehouse looks now, so I wanted to give you a tour (if you're reading via email, click over and take a quick peek!)  If you're a fellow blogger looking for a budget-friendly, customizable, and super easy template for your own website, read on for my review of pipdig.

Here's a look back at my old, DIY "design":

To the right you could spot my sad little social media "buttons," made by me.  Honestly, I'm super proud of myself for figuring out how to make them clickable, but I readily admit that they didn't look very chic or polished.

The whole look wasn't horrible, but it looked homemade.  I did, however, love the black headers and the simple, clean(ish) look, because I like my photos and projects to be front and centre.

When I decided to upgrade the look, I wanted to keep the same feel.  I looked at many different template providers, but I liked that pipdig offers something for everyone - for both wordpress and blogger.  At first I was drawn to the "Minim" template because it featured the same black and white scheme I had before, but after I realized that I would be able to customize colours, fonts, and the layout of any template, I chose "Nineteen" instead.

The "Nineteen" blog template looks like a more polished version of what I had cobbled together.  I started fiddling with the look and chose black (again) for the headers because it looks so sharp with my colorful photos:



There are so many little bonuses and fancy touches that come with the template that would have taken me months to figure out how to create on my own.  I especially love how the pages at the top ("about," "diy project gallery," "lakehouse tour," etc) move with you as you scroll down the page:

I needed some teal in the design, so when you hover over the social media icons they turn teal - please humor me and try it!  When you hover over the titles of the pages, they turn grey.  Speaking of the social media icons, aren't they cute?

The Pinterest and Instagram widgets were included in the template and I love how they feature four uniform photos each (so slick), but I still need to make my own Etsy widget.  I also have a search bar, so if you're looking for a particular post or theme, you can find it quickly now!

I also updated my favicon (the little icon beside my blog url) to an anchor - my little nod to coastal decor.  I've changed it a few times since updating the blog look because it's hard to make an image that small actually clear!

Because I mostly read blogs on my phone these days, having a sharp look on mobile devices was important to me.  I've noticed that a lot of blogs looks good on a desktop but are a hot mess on mobile devices and I wanted the look to be consistent.  Luckily blogger created a somewhat okayish mobile version that it defaulted to, but now Dans le Lakehouse looks so chic, no matter where you're visiting the lakehouse!  Here's the look on mobile devices (although you can always scroll down and choose "web version," even if you're on your phone or tablet):

The mobile version has a great menu, too:

Installing the pipdig Blogger Template:

If you're a blogger, you probably want to know how easy this template was to install.  It was incredibly easy to install (15 minutes), but I did spend an afternoon fiddling with sizing, colors, my pictures, widgets, etc.  They can install it for you, but I really recommend doing it yourself because then you start to know the nuts and bolts and customizing everything will be easier.  I had a few questions during the process and the pipdig team responded about a day later, which was pretty quick - although I did figure out one of my own problems in that time frame.  My old "link within" widget stopped working in the transition, so the pipdig folks installed a somewhat similar widget (free of charge) that suggests different posts.  Recently my Pinterest widget stopped working so I had to email the support team and was told Google had made some updates, but all I had to do was re-install the widget and it was working perfectly again.  It has been pretty straightforward and there's always support, which I really appreciate.

There is only one thing I miss about the old look: I had added some lines to the code long ago to auto-size all of my photos to the same width, but I lost that code alteration in the process.  They still auto-size with this template, but only if the photo is already a certain width.  I sacrificed a bit of blurriness for the same width before, but this template does not.  It means I have to go back to some old posts and re-size photos manually, but that's okay - every time I dig into the archives, I catch a typo, so I should probably be looking through old posts regularly anyway.  I'll be updating the pages this month and will be sure to give you a tour when they're all ready!

So, What Do You Think?

I'd love to know what you think of the new blog look!  I'd especially love to hear what makes your experience as a reader better and if there's anything I can do to make visiting the lakehouse as fun and easy as possible!

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