Every year, Houzzers at our HQ in Palo Alto take a break for an offsite retreat. With more than 200 people and growing in the Palo Alto office, it’s a tradition that helps to foster our sense of family.

The offsite this year was all about friendly and fun competition with Houzzers randomly assigned to 14 teams competing in games like beach volleyball (with your wrists tied to another person!), speed pictionary, costume races and lawn skiing.

Here are a few of our favorite photos from the day:

Team blue at the ready!

Team pink coordinating steps to “ski” to the finish line before their opponents.

This rowdy game of “Wizards, Giants and Elves” takes inspiration from “Rock, Paper, Scissors” and tag.

Houzzers take competition seriously, but know how to have fun, too!

“Speed dating” to get to know more about fellow Houzzers.

Bonding with old friends and new at a family-style lunch.

Houzzers also bonded over activities like jenga, ping pong, flower crowns and corn hole.

Showing off flower crowns.

Team selfie

The winning team (by 2 points!)

The Houzz Renovation Barometer, which tracks confidence in the home renovation market among industry professionals, has shown strong quarter-over-quarter confidence for all sectors for the last 10 quarters. With firms in high demand, we dug into the impact on renovation timelines.

This week, we introduced the Houzz Renovation Barometer Backlog Index, which shows the number of weeks before an average firm can start work on a new mid-sized home renovation or design project given its current project commitments. The index revealed an average backlog of four to seven weeks across industry sectors. General contractors (GCs)/remodelers and design-build companies have the longest average backlogs nationally at seven weeks, while designers show four week backlogs on average.

Backlogs vary significantly among the top 20 metro areas. In the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH metro, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro, Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA metro, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA metro, GCs and design-build companies face backlogs of more than three months (13-14 weeks). In contrast, remodelers in Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI, Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI, and Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX metro areas have the shortest delays and are able to start work on a new mid-sized project within a month (three to four weeks), on average.

Perhaps long project backlogs are why GCs/remodelers are the most bullish when looking forward to the third quarter of 2017, along with speciality building/renovation professionals. While confident, landscape/outdoor professionals are the most cautious about the upcoming quarter.

For more information from the Q2 2017 Houzz Renovation Barometer, see the full report here.

Welcome to our new Asia Pacific headquarters located in Sydney’s artsy suburb, Chippendale. I’m Khanh Nguyen, a member of the community team with Houzz Australia, and I’m excited to share our new home with you!

This office hosts the teams supporting our communities in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, as well as our APAC operations. The space was designed to highlight the unique design aesthetic of each of the APAC countries where we’ve launched a localized platform, and to create a warm and collaborative space for our growing team.

Let’s start the quick tour, with a focus on the design, of course!

As soon as you open the door, you’ll find a bright Houzz-green chair and photos of team members with their families. You’ll find photos of employees with their families at any Houzz office you visit around the world as we want people to feel like they’re at home when they’re at Houzz.

As we have an open floor plan, our meeting rooms are always coveted spaces. Down the hall you’ll see the first and largest of our meeting rooms, the Aussie Backyard. Inspired by the Aussie’s inherent love for outdoor entertaining, this room features a floor to ceiling decal of a house designed by Aussie architect Matt Gibson Architecture + Design.

The next meeting room you’ll see is our Bollywood Movie Theatre, a homage to the launch earlier this year of our dedicated India site. This room features jewel toned cushions, draped traditional saris and retro Bollywood movie posters from the 70s and 80s.

Our bathroom meeting room is next – styled clean white with timber accents. The bathroom decal is from one of our Houzz professionals, Green Country Developments.

Another favourite space to gather is our wine cellar meeting room, which has an industrial barn door and wine barrel. This room is dedicated to our New Zealand site (fun fact: New Zealand has the second largest wine region in the world!).

As you walk through the office, you may notice the black beams in the ceiling. These get their colour from being charred in a fire 100 years ago. To offset the dark beams we have a network of exposed Houzz-green painted pipes.

On the second floor you’ll find healthy (and sweet) treats, it’s the hub of our office - the kitchen. This is where the team spends most of its time together, whether it be starting the week over breakfast on Mondays or wrapping up with lunches on Fridays. The internal exposed besser brick is offset by illuminated black shelves, white cabinetry and an L-shaped marble white Caesarstone benchtop tying into the overall industrial aesthetic.

You’ll see three more meeting rooms that we love, starting with the Japanese zen room. Lined with ‘tatami’ style carpet and Japanese zabuton cushions this room emulates traditional Japanese ‘washitsu’ rooms. Surround yourself in ‘fusuma’ - traditional sliding doors which flank the walls and channel positive thoughts.

You’ll next find yourself in the Singapore balcony room. The stylistic use of the balcony resonates with the majority (85%) of Singaporeans who live in apartments and depend on their balconies as their private outdoor space. On one wall you’ll see a floor to ceiling decal of the Singapore Skyline including the infamous Marina Bay Sands, home to the infinity pool.

And lastly the cigar room. This UK inspired room pays homage to Australia being British Commonwealth nation. Complete with a whiskey jar set and automated lights triggered when you take a seat on the quilted leather chair, this room is perfect for making those important calls.

Onwards and upwards to our sales team who occupies this space. What started off as a clean slate with house-shaped partitions, our teams have decorated with a colourful array of floral garlands and fairy lights to personalise their workspace and channel some creative energy.

To wrap up our tour, nothing screams Australia more than our open-air rooftop terrace equipped with a barbeque for afternoon sausage sangas (sausage sandwiches). Take a seat under the big umbrella on the outdoor lounge set. This is where you’ll find the team enjoying sunkissed lunches and winding down on Friday night with the skyline backdrop across neighbouring rooftops.

Thanks for stopping by - don’t forget to say bye to our office dog, Crumpet, on your way out!

All images credited to Ute Wegmann Photography.

At Houzz, we’re constantly identifying new ways to ensure the best possible experience for our community. One way to do that is by testing our systems for hidden bugs. Recently, we developed our own tool called TAP (or Type Analyzer for PHP), to add a static analysis to our dynamic language, so that we can catch issues before they are released to the public.

Static vs. dynamic language
There are two main categories of programming languages: statically typed languages like C++ and Java, and dynamically typed languages like Python, PHP and Javascript. Dynamic languages are beneficial in that they have fast development speed, do not require compilation and offer flexible design patterns. However, this flexibility leads to vulnerability. In a large codebase, it’s very easy to make mistakes like passing a map to a function which is expecting a list, or trying to access a member function $a->foo() while $a is actually null. These types of bugs typically hide in a particular code path which can’t be detected until it breaks on production, causing a negative experience for users.

Since a number of components of the Houzz website are written in PHP (a dynamic language), we sought a tool that could identify these types of bugs before new versions of code are released. The only available tools we found either didn’t have the sophistication to catch these bugs or required us to completely re-write our codebase in a new syntax and re-install local and production environments. So, we developed TAP.

The solution
TAP is a C++ tool that and scans PHP codebase, including PHPDoc comments, to identify irregularities. It is less demanding than other available tools, so you don’t have to reinstall your local and production environments to account for new syntax and it can continue to run checks without impacting daily user activities. TAP can search the entire Houzz PHP codebase and provide a report in eight minutes.

How it works
Static analyzing takes advantage of both the flexibility of dynamic languages and rigorousness of static languages. By checking the code statically during the development stage, TAP will deduce the types of local variables, test the compatibility of function arguments and check if a variable is nullable or not to identify existing bugs.

TAP uses PHPDoc for type declaration. PHPDoc is multi-line comments between /** and */, containing annotations that start with @. PHPDoc is also used by IDEs like PHPStorm for a similar purpose.

The most useful annotations are @param (for function param type), @return (for function return type) and @var (for object property type). Here is an example:

This is the resulting example report:

TAP supports four more precise types than PHP itself. To learn more about the types of errors TAP can detect, review the test PHP files at this link.

TAP Usage

TAP supports three running modes, including:

Single: This mode is typically used for demonstrating TAP’s basic functionality, and used for TAP’s self-inspection test. Use -f to specify a single PHP file you want to check. Please note that if this file uses any classes/functions/consts defined otherwhere, TAP won’t know and will report errors like DEFINITION_NOT_FOUND.

Batch: This mode will do a full scan on the whole repository. If the -s argument is specified, TAP will take it as the source root, and check the .tap config file there. If -s isn’t specified, TAP will try to find the first .tap file at or above the current directory, and check all PHP files under the location where .tap resides. Here is an example of .tap config file:

You can specify which directories to skip, and which directories to be scan-only. “ScanOnly” means that TAP will only check the functions’ signature but not the implementation, which is much faster than a full scan. It can be applied to third-party libraries and auto-generated classes.

You can use -r to specify the human-readable error report file, and -d to specify the sqlite db file which is supposed to be read by a web UI tool.

Daemon: Daemon is an experimental mode. It will run interactively during PHP development. After it is started, it will do a quick scan for the whole repository, only recording the types of class properties and function signatures, and skipping the function implementation. It will continue watching for any file changes and updating the recorded signatures in real time.

• If, for example, you think your change is ready, and want TAP do a full scan before you commit, you can explicitly tell TAP to do it on the files/directories you touched.
• This mode will ultimately become much faster than Batch mode, and more suitable for the development process.
• Note: At the time this blog post was published, Daemon mode was under development. Errors may be reported when using this mode.

Open Sourcing TAP
Once we completed TAP and tested it in our environment, we decided to open source the application. Other companies can use TAP on top of their PHP to check their own code for bugs before releasing updates to their customers. Follow this link to access the open source code.

Getting TAP
Developers can use the pre-built binary directly, by downloading the Mac OSX version here. To run the tool, execute chmod +x tap_server.

To build TAP, use cmake. Developers may need to install the dependencies beforehand (use brew, apt-get, yum or whatsoever), including:

• Boost
• Folly
• Glog
• Gflags
• Sqlite3
• Fswatch

Then create a directory for build:

Assuming the code is at /houzz/tap, run cmake to generate the makefile, then build:

Maximizing TAP
To make full use of TAP’s capabilities, it’s important to annotate classes as much as possible. TAP takes these annotations as a source of truth, deducing all local variables inside functions, and reporting type incompatibilities. The more annotations you provide for your methods and properties, the better TAP will be!

We’re always on the hunt for engineers to help us make the Houzz experience even better. Check out opportunities on our team at houzz.com/jobs.

We’re now accepting entries for the Houzz Scholarship Program, which supports the next generation of residential design and architecture pros: students studying architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture.

Houzz will award four $2,500 scholarships in the categories of ‘Women in Architecture’, ‘Sustainable Design,’ ‘Residential Interior Design’ and ‘Residential Construction Management’. Houzz awards these scholarships biannually in the spring and fall.

High school seniors, undergraduates, and graduate students 17 years of age or older are invited to apply at houzz.com/scholarships. In addition to submitting a brief essay on their design and architecture influences, students are invited to create a Houzz professional student profile, where they can showcase their portfolio of work and network with more than a million professionals around the world.

Fall 2017 winners included:

• Women in Architecture: Angelica Gallegos (studying architecture at the Pratt Institute)
• Sustainable Residential Design: Sinna Pang (studying interior design at Fullerton College)
• Residential Design: Mike Lidwin (studying architecture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
• Residential Construction Management: Jace Weber (studying construction management at Louisiana State University)

The deadline for the spring 2018 scholarships is December 15, 2017. Good luck to all applicants!

With kids heading back to school, we surveyed* the Houzz community on how they design their kids’ rooms and tackle child-related home design challenges. More than two-thirds of respondents said their kids’ rooms have a decor theme (69%). Of those, a nature theme lead the pack (30%), followed by animals (23%), sports (17%) and princesses (15%). Other notable themes include nautical, superheroes and geometric patterns.

Colors are another form of expression, with more than half of kid’s bedrooms painted blue (59%), followed by white (31%), gray (30%), green (25%) and pink (20%). We found that kids also get a vote in home decor, with one in five respondents allowing children younger than six years old to decorate their own rooms (20%).

While the design elements are important, parents also prioritize functionality in their kids’ rooms. Top considerations include creating a space that is easy to clean/maintain (71%), having a functional setup (64%), and using durable materials (47%). One in five respondents also place significance on non-toxic products (20%).

These priorities follow the top two child-related challenges in the home, which are keeping things clean (74%) and managing clutter (69%). In fact, only 8% feel their children’s things are nearly always organized, while 22% feel their children’s things are mostly or completely disorganized. As with many things in life, 42% say it totally depends on the day.

The most popular solutions are bookshelves and toy boxes for the storage of things not related to clothing in children’s rooms (71% and 70%, respectively). Beyond cleanliness and clutter, other child-related challenges in the home include overflowing laundry (35%), tripping or stepping over child-related stuff (30%), limited play space (29%) and damage to furniture (25%), carpeting (24%) and walls (22%).

These considerations expand to other areas outside of bedrooms which are also dedicated to children including, outdoor space (49%), playrooms (44%), reading nooks (22%), homework stations (21%), craft stations (20%) and game rooms (20%).

Most respondents enlist the help of their kids to bring order to the home. More than two-thirds of children over three years old clean their own room (68%). Children also help out at home by picking up after themselves (76%), feeding the pets (56%), making their bed (53%) and setting the table (53%).

For storage solutions that fit perfectly within creative kids’ decor, check out this collection of drawer chests, bins and cubbies from the Houzz Shop.

Houzz welcomed a talented group of interns to the engineering team at our HQ in Palo Alto this summer. Here is what a few of them had to say about what they learned during their internship and their favorite thing about working at Houzz.

Ziran Ling (Back-End Engineer)
What I learned: I’ve learned many things from my experience with Houzz, including a new programming language and different aspects of web servers and APIs that I hadn’t been exposed to previously.

Favorite thing about Houzz: I really like the working environment. People work closely together here. If you talk with the project leads and show your interest in a project, they will likely let you work on it, which is a great way to learn. You have more opportunities to be exposed to different projects and acquire new skill sets.

Theresa Nguy (3D Artist)
What I learned: I learned how to use different tools to work on 3D projects, like making dynamic furniture models. My team is very supportive and helps me whenever I have questions.

Favorite thing about Houzz: I really enjoy the company culture and focus on teamwork at Houzz. As a recent graduate, the work environment made me feel very comfortable.

Wenqin Wang (Growth Engineer)
What I learned: I’m working on the growth team as a full-stack web developer to help users get the most out of their Houzz experience. As an intern, I’ve learned a lot about Web development (Javascript, Ajax, http, php), and since growth is very consumer facing, I’ve gained some experience using marketing and design tools. I also now know more about Game of Thrones than I thought possible because our team is so into the show that we often have Q&A sessions about it!

Favorite thing about Houzz: People and culture! I definitely love all of the friendly people who offer help, support and happiness. I also love the food (different dinner caterers every day and birthday desserts every Friday), the location (downtown Palo Alto), and our office (it feels very homey, and I wear Houzz slippers every day!).

Chang Liu (Front-End Engineer)
What I learned: This is my first time working as a front-end engineer in an industry setting. Prior to this, my web projects have been personal ones and small in scope. With that, it’s been a meaningful experience learning how to familiarize myself with and write professional client-side code. Coming into this internship, I had little experience with React and Flux patterns, but I definitely feel comfortable using them now.

Favorite thing about Houzz: I think Houzz is the ideal size company for me. It is still growing at a rapid rate, so the scope of the projects we take on are large and ambitious. That, plus the size of the engineering department, really makes you feel like an integral part of the company. It also helps that we receive mentorship from some of the nicest engineers I’ve ever met and work in an aesthetically pleasing office (of course, since Houzz is an interior design platform!).

Based in our Orange County office, Amanda is part of the Houzz Pro Plus team, which helps home professionals to build their brands and connect with homeowners. When she’s not at work, Amanda can be found at the beach with her husband and their golden retriever, named Scout.

What’s a typical workday like for you?
My days are diverse and busy; I love it! As an Account Manager, I talk to my clients about their goals and use data to help them maximize their presence on Houzz. It’s really rewarding to see how Pro+ helps them drive brand awareness and grow their business. They look to me for advice, knowledge, and problem-solving. Knowing that I’ve helped them achieve their goals is probably my favorite part of the day.

Why did you decide to join Houzz?
I knew I wanted to work in the tech industry and after doing research I saw how much Houzz was paving the way and wanted to align myself with this company. More importantly, though, I decided to join Houzz because when I walked in the office, it felt like home. I love the culture.

What’s it like to be a part of the sales team?
The sales culture at Houzz is fast-paced and collaborative. Hard work is valued in this role and we are given the tools to succeed from encouraging sales managers and teammates. We are always pushing one another to get better and celebrate one another’s achievements.

How has your career evolved at Houzz?
Houzz has provided many opportunities to grow in my career. I first started as an Account Coordinator helping new professionals create their Houzz profiles. I was promoted to Account Executive and began helping some of those same professionals expand their presence through the Pro+ program. I am now in a blended role as an Account Manager where I work with both current pros in our network and help new pros discover the benefits we can offer. It’s a great mix. I get to see the success of my professionals, brainstorm with them, and build new relationships.

What’s your favorite part of working at Houzz?
The lifelong friendships I’ve formed while working at Houzz make it such an enjoyable place to work, which is important to me because I moved from Texas to take this job. I knew very few people in California and Houzz has an amazing team that makes California feel like home. We work hard but I love waking up and coming to this environment.

Beyond my role as an Account Manager, I am also the Chair of the Philanthropy Committee at the Orange County office. We recently put on a very successful philanthropy week raising money, collecting food items, and gathering volunteers, to remodel a children’s home in the area. I appreciate being part of a company that cares about the community we live in. The Philanthropy Committee has broadened my purpose at work and I am extremely grateful.

What do you do when you’re not working?
I LOVE to travel. My husband and I have been able to take some great vacations this past year including our most recent trip to Italy. I enjoy working out, playing with my golden retriever, and going to the beach. We are still exploring California, so you’ll often find us wandering through different neighborhoods to find delicious new restaurants.

Earlier this summer, Houzz Italy celebrated its second anniversary with an event recognizing its talented professional community, which has grown to more than 30,000 pros across 60 categories, including architects, interior designers, kitchen design and renovation experts and bath remodelers.

During the event, Houzz awarded the following professionals who distinguished themselves across the following five categories:

• Photo Excellence Award 2017: Didonè Comacchio Architects, awarded for the most saved photos to Houzz ideabooks.
• Review Excellence Award 2017: Tommaso Giunchi, awarded for the highest number of reviews on completed home projects.
• Collaboration Experience Award 2017: Patrizia Burato, awarded for the constant use of ideabooks as a collaborative tool with clients and colleagues.
• Community Excellence Award 2017: Officine Vittorio Colombo, awarded for the constant and valuable participation in the Advice section on Houzz Italia.
• Magazine Excellence Award 2017: Elisabetta Rizzato, awarded for the most read editorial ideabook with the title “16 bagni davvero bellissimi da cui prendere ispirazione” (16 bathrooms that will inspire you).

Houzz home pros accepting their awards

Here are a few other photos from the celebration:

Houzz Italy team

The Palazzina Appiani, which was originally constructed to host the family of the French emperor Napoleon, provided a beautiful location for the event.

Displayed throughout the gallery were the most popular photos saved to Houzz Italy ideabooks, featuring modern kitchens, modern bathrooms and modern living rooms.

Moroso provided chic furniture for the occasion.

The evening concluded with the beautiful backdrop of the Palazzina Appiani illuminated in Houzz green.

All furniture provided for the event and pictured above are the courtesy of Moroso. Images are credited to Joe’s Photo.

Today we introduced an even better experience for home shopping and design through our upgraded augmented reality (AR) tool, View in My Room 3D, within the Houzz app for iPhone and iPad. Using ARKit, you can now virtually place half a million home furniture, decor and remodeling products for every style and budget – from sofas to rugs to bathroom vanities – exactly where you want them in your home, true to scale. Products are automatically kept in a shopping list for easy checkout so you can discover, experience and buy the products you love right in the Houzz app, without leaving your home.

Our upgraded View in My Room 3D tool enables you to:

• Walk up to products to see realistic materials and textures, which display according to the room’s ambient lighting using your device’s camera
• Add multiple products to a room, including items on top of rugs to understand how a space will look

As View in My Room 3D is fully integrated into the Houzz app, you can also use other Houzz tools, such as Sketch, to experiment, collaborate and communicate with others on your design ideas.

Since we launched our initial version of View in My Room 3D within our app for iPhone and iPad earlier this year, over a million people have used AR when buying products in the Houzz app.

You can read more about the upgraded tool here. Download the Houzz app for iPhone and iPad on the App Store here.

As a research engineer, Yunsong helps augment search and personalized recommendation experiences for the Houzz community. Outside of work, Yunsong enjoys spending time with his family, and looks forward to sharing his love of the outdoors with his young son.

Why did you decide to become a research engineer?
I’ve always been driven by the desire to find and solve difficult challenges, a common trait among research engineers. I studied computer science in school, which led to a PhD in artificial intelligence, and a series of papers and patents on intelligent systems. I’m thrilled to bring intelligent techniques to life.

What brought you to Houzz?
A number of my friends were working at Houzz, two of whom I’ve known since we attended the University of Science and Technology of China together. The team was looking for someone with my unique search experience, and I was intrigued by the positive environment that I’d heard about from my friends.

How would you describe what you do at Houzz?
My role is focused on search quality. I see myself as a translator helping Houzz to better understand what the customer really wants. Whether a user is looking for a home pro in a specific location or using a lesser known synonym to describe a product they want to purchase for their home, my work integrates the Houzz search platform deep into the home remodeling domain and helps to provide users with the best possible results.

What are some of the challenges to improving search?
People generally search with something already in their mind. The inherent challenge for search is to understand the query semantic and the real user intention behind what they typed. The search algorithm must recognize a variety of words, their relations, and what they mean under a specific context. For example, a chair can be contextually described as a seat, stool or bench. The color “red” can describe cabinet color, backsplash color or floor color. Technology must be a bridge between customer understanding and company terminology and resolve ambiguities in each specific situation. That’s why it’s so important to develop a robust catalogue of concepts to give each query meaning.

Do you interact with other teams at Houzz?
Yes, my research informs the development of the Houzz infrastructure, so I work closely with that team to build a comprehensive catalogue of query terminology that bridges user intent and remodeling domain concepts. We work together to make our machine learning systems more intelligent. I also work closely with the international and industry solutions teams.

What surprised you about working for Houzz?
What surprised and delighted me about working for Houzz is that the leadership empowers you to improve products right away. Within my first two weeks, I had already led my first production deployment. They let me hit the ground running!

Master bathrooms are getting a style makeover, according to the 2017 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study,* which found that 90% of renovating homeowners change the style of their master bathroom during upgrades. Of those making a change to the overall style, contemporary (25%), transitional (17%) and modern (15%) lead in popularity. Design decisions vary by generation, with Millennial (25-34) homeowners opting most often for modern style master bathrooms, while contemporary is most popular among Gen-Xers (35-54) and Baby Boomers (55+).

White continues to gain popularity in renovated master bathrooms, with even more countertops and walls appearing in white this year (40% and 19%, respectively) compared with 2016 findings. Additionally, bathroom features are increasingly contrasted against gray walls and cabinet surfaces (35% and 14%, respectively, compared with 30% and 9% in 2016, respectively).

Millennials are significantly more likely to choose white countertops (52%) and cabinets (50%) and gray walls (48%) and flooring (43%) for their master bath than Baby Boomers. When it comes to wood cabinets, Baby Boomers tend to pick medium tones, while dark wood is preferred by Gen-Xers.

Among the 81% of renovating homeowners tackling master showers, ceramic and porcelain tile or natural stone tile and slabs are the top surface materials chosen, with marble being the universally preferred choice for natural stone, especially for Gen-Xers. Other materials see generational biases. For example, travertine is more likely to be installed by Baby Boomers, while slate is preferred by Millennial homeowners.

Ceramic or porcelain tile (63%) and natural stone tile or slab (32%) continue to top the flooring list, likely integrating the look of the shower with the rest of the bathroom surfaces. In contrast, these higher end finishes are less likely to appear on walls outside of the shower area, with just 27% choosing ceramic or porcelain tile and 15% opting for natural stone.

For more insights from the 2017 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study, check out the full report here.

*Houzz survey of more than 1,200 U.S. homeowners using Houzz who are in the midst of, are planning, or recently completed a master bathroom project, was fielded between June 6 and August 7, 2017.

The Houzz ARCore-based Android app was presented on stage today by Google as one of the top apps and experiences built with ARCore, the augmented reality software development kit for Android. Our demo showed how you will be able to bring the showroom into your living room and see how different furniture, accent pieces and more fit into your space. Houzz’s AR tool, View in My Room 3D, will integrate ARCore so that you can place products exactly where you want them in your home, true to scale.

With the initial version of View in My Room 3D, now available in our Android app, you can already preview half a million home furniture, decor and remodeling products from the Houzz Shop in your own home, before you buy – from vanities and light fixtures to sofas and rugs – and see realistic materials and textures. The ARCore-powered experience, which will be available early next year, will make the shopping experience even better.

Houzz was named “Best App” at the inaugural Google Play Awards in 2016. The Houzz app, updated with View in My Room 3D, is available to download on Google Play℠ now, and will be updated with ARCore in early 2018.

Our Houzz family in Berlin has grown exponentially in the last year, and the office has grown with it. The original space was already a great reflection of the Houzz culture, with imaginative themed conference rooms and lots of room for both individual and collaborative work. The expansion added new meeting rooms and working space while making sure employees feel like they “come home to the office,” as one Houzzer recently put it.

Let’s take a tour of the office, starting with the café.

A wall of windows in the kitchen and eating area offers a bright and airy atmosphere for meeting people across all teams, whether over breakfast, catered Friday lunches, birthday celebrations or late-afternoon pick-me-up snacks.

What looks like a bright green refrigerator door in the kitchen actually leads to a hidden meeting room, with furniture sourced from a local Berlin bar. The pizza boards on the wall are a nod to our Italian team and Italy’s extensive culinary heritage.

Each meeting room has a theme, such as the Deutsche Eiche (German Oak) Room. The astroturf floor, wooden table, and forest-view wallpaper create the sense that your meeting is taking place in the middle of the Black Forest or a magical wood from a Brothers Grimm tale.

Next, we have the Games Room, where Houzzers have been known to play a round or two of ping pong during breaks.

The Beach Room boasts a surfboard table, a deck-style floor, a bench and even beach towels.

The open-plan office beyond is set up perfectly for collaborating, with wide desks set up in groups.

In the middle is a couch area for those who think best when they’re a little more relaxed.

The Whiskey Room just beyond the desk-area is a throwback to a traditional English study.

Houzzers often show off their talents on the working drum set, guitar and keyboard after hours in the Music Room, which also doubles as a spacious meeting area during the workday.

A row of polaroids of our team hard at work and play leads to a quiet office area and more creatively themed meeting rooms.

The Chinese Room boasts prints of vintage Chinese posters and a wardrobe that echoes traditional lacquered cabinets.

Next to it is the Gym Room. Its leather seats and punching bag, faux-brick wall paper and prints encourage Houzzers to be true contenders.

The GDR Room is devoted to ostalgie — nostalgia for the vintage style of East Germany — from a classic couch to East German medals, a record player, and of course the requisite orange wallpaper. It is full of vintage finds from flea markets and vintage shops.

The office opens out to a balcony with plants, a welcoming bench and an acapulco chair to let Houzzers enjoy a Palm Springs vibe as they look out onto Berlin’s famous TV tower.

We hope you enjoyed your tour through our Houzz Berlin home!

All images credited to Kate Jordan.

This quarter, the Houzz Renovation Barometer, which tracks confidence in the home renovation market among industry professionals, gathered information specific to business conditions in the Houston metropolitan area and Southwestern Florida following the severe impact of hurricanes Harvey and Irma in these areas.*

The hurricanes had an immediate effect on renovation-related businesses, with 28% in the Houston metro area and 41% in Southwestern Florida reporting that they suspended operations within the first two weeks of the hurricanes making landfall. Among those companies, 91% impacted by Hurricane Harvey and 65% affected by Hurricane Irma kept their doors closed for a week or longer. Despite closures, 92% and 78% of affected companies in Texas and Florida, respectively, expect to fully recover financially over the next 12 months.

Business owners faced challenges reopening their doors as the hurricanes exacerbated shortages of subcontractors (as reported by 38% of respondents in both Southwestern Florida and the Houston metro area), scarcity of products and materials (20% and 15%, respectively) and damage to local infrastructure (20% and 15%, respectively). Managing cost-concerned customers and consumer expectations also became challenges for businesses impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma (46% and 23%, respectively, and 31% and 23%, respectively). As a result, project backlogs** increased by nearly two weeks, on average, from 2.9 weeks to 4.4 weeks in the Houston metro area and from 4.8 weeks to 6.5 weeks in the Tampa metro area.

Despite hurricane-related business complications, backlogs in the Houston and Tampa metro areas are among the shortest of the top 20 metro areas. Consistent with Q2 2017 findings, the metro area experiencing the longest wait times is Boston (13.2 weeks), followed closely by Seattle (12.8 weeks). The St. Louis and Phoenix metro areas have the shortest average backlogs (3.5 and 3.6 weeks, respectively).

Overall, the Houzz Renovation Barometer showed continued quarter-over-quarter business confidence in the U.S. across all sectors in Q3 2017, including architects, designers, general contractors (GCs)/remodelers, design-builders, building/renovation specialists and landscape/outdoor specialists. For more information about the Q3 2017 Houzz Renovation Barometer, read the full report here.

* Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas on August 25, 2017 and Hurricane Irma struck the Florida coast on September 10, 2017. Findings about the impact of Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, were not included due to very small sample sizes.

**Project backlogs depict the number of weeks before an average firm can start work on a new mid-sized home renovation or design project given its current project commitments.

Jason is a member of the Houzz Marketplace team helping brands sell their products on the Houzz Shop. He is based in our Orange County office and is a recent newlywed! Jason and his wife enjoy spending time with friends, getting the most out of their Disneyland membership and cheering on the Anaheim Ducks during hockey season.

What do you do at Houzz?
I work closely with brands that sell products on the Houzz Shop and manage every aspect of the vendor’s relationship with Houzz, from the initial setup, to adding new products, to managing their account. It’s my job to make sure each brand is set up for success on our platform and taking advantage of every opportunity our marketplace offers, such as our Trade Program.

What brought you to Houzz?
I first heard about Houzz from a roommate of mine who worked on the product team, but it turns out that I have a lot of connections here - my wife’s college roommate is also on the product team and my sister-in-law works with me as a buyer. I guess that’s part of why Houzz feels like a family to me.

I was initially drawn to the company by the sleek look of the app and the website, but I’ve always had an interest in home design. When I was ten years old, my parents let me move into my own bedroom after years of sharing one with my younger brother. I spent countless hours drawing up plans, moving furniture around, decorating and re-decorating until I felt my father’s old study was truly my own. To this day, Houzz feeds my creative side and provides me with fresh ideas.

What do you like most about your job?
As an assistant buyer, I have the opportunity to build relationships with vendors who sell on the site and get to know them on a personal level. It’s rewarding to help vendors establish themselves on Houzz, watch their products become more popular amongst our community and know that I’ve made a difference to their businesses and their lives.

I also love new challenges and working on the Marketplace team brings something new every day. I am constantly learning about different computer programs, problem-solving strategies and the online retail industry as a whole.

What’s your favorite product from the Houzz Shop?
My last round of purchases included everything I needed for my new apartment, including a beautiful bed from Pulaski. My wife and I have very different design tastes, and it was important for us to find something that both of us liked.

There are a lot of great products to choose from on Houzz, but one of the more fun items I’ve seen are Requip’d’s BBQ tool sets, which are made from NHL game-used hockey sticks and other professional/college leagues. It’s a cool, unique concept that I love as a hockey fan.

What’s something that has surprised you about working at Houzz?
Houzz really cares about its culture, which is evident just by spending time in the office. There is a great sense of community where everyone seems to know each other by name. The laid-back atmosphere makes coming to work fun, and helps me to focus on performing to the best of my abilities.

What project are you most proud of while working at Houzz?
Before working as an assistant buyer, I spent time in vendor support, which was more of a project-oriented role. During this time, I identified an opportunity to update a few of our vendor guidelines, which ultimately led to a company-wide review to best address our vendors’ needs. As the Houzz Shop continues to grow, it’s important that our guidelines reflect changing practices in order to provide our customers with the best experience possible.

How has your role evolved from when you first started?
When I first started at Houzz, I worked in customer service, followed by vendor support, and now I am an assistant buyer. While very different roles, they’re all similar in that you need to think on your feet and problem-solve in real time in order to be effective. No matter what you do, it is important to build rapport with your clients in order to provide solutions to their questions and help them succeed.

What is your favorite decor style?
My tastes reflect a modern and contemporary style, but my wife prefers a more rustic look. Choosing items for our wedding registry was arguably the greatest test of our relationship so far! We’ve learned over time to compromise and as a result, our apartment takes on a more transitional feel. Maybe one day I’ll have my own man-cave with space for my guitars, a big screen TV, and (most importantly) dark, espresso-colored furniture.

How have you used Houzz at home?
I love finding new and unique products on the Houzz Shop and have spent countless hours getting lost in all of the great stories on the site. Articles on color theory, storage, and apartment living have helped my wife and I to make the most out of our home.

We’re excited to introduce the Houzz Affiliate Program, which provides partners with the opportunity to earn a commission on sales referred to Houzz via their website, social media, or blog.

By joining the program, affiliate partners:

• Earn an outstanding commission on all 10M+ products in the Houzz Shop (coupon codes excluded)
• Receive weekly newsletters highlighting new brands, products, and offers
• Get unique creative content including banners, ad units and more

In addition to earning affiliate revenue, partners receive a dedicated program manager and a comprehensive portal which allows them to track statistics and performance – 24 hours a day.

How it works:

1) Find a great product on Houzz

2) Get your unique code or tracking link

3) Use the link in your website or blog

4) Collect your commission

To learn more or to join the Houzz Affiliate Program, go to https://info.houzz.com/partner.html.

The Houzz team of designers has grown quickly over the past few years to more than 25 designers across product, branding, and marketing. This growth has supported Houzz’s expansion both to new markets (we’ve launched dedicated platforms for 14 countries) and to new offerings, such as our home products marketplace, the Houzz Shop.

For our team to best support the company through rapid growth, we needed to put new processes in place. We understand the value of having a good design process, which both promotes design thinking and helps move ideas from concept to completion. But we also understand that too much process can lead to doing things in the same way, which hinders creativity. So how could we develop a process that promotes creativity as well?

We ultimately decided to create different processes for different types of projects, which we defined as people-driven, technology-driven and data-driven. Taking this flexible approach allows us to adapt to the specific needs of each project, ensure the best results for our community and be creative.

Here’s how each approach works:

People-driven
People-driven projects are inspired by our community. As frequent users of our platform, our community of homeowners, design enthusiasts and home professionals regularly provides some of the best ideas to enhance our platform. In this process, we first listen to the community and then use research to further understand their needs, wishes and pain points. From there, we take an iterative design process that shapes our ultimate solution.

For example, we heard that people wanted to be able to mark what they like on the photos that they browse, save and share on Houzz, to better communicate their home design ideas. We conducted research to understand how our community would want to interact with the more than 15 million retina-quality photos on Houzz – other than saving them and adding notes – and what features would be intuitive and simple to use. The result was our Sketch tool, which enables people to add measurements, notes, stickers, products from the Houzz Shop and more to bring design ideas to life. The tool helps people communicate and collaborate more effectively on their home projects.

To expand on the research involved with this process, we first used it to understand whether or not people would want to use this tool, and then to learn how they would use it. We shared our designs and early implementations with users to find out what was working and what wasn’t. Questions we asked included, “How much pressure needs to be placed on the screen to get the stroke weight they want?”, “How easy is it to find the product users want to add to the sketch?”, and “Which gestures should we use for scaling and resizing elements?” This type of feedback is important to gather during the design process, so that the resulting feature will best meet people’s needs. We continue to collect feedback and data on how the tool is being used as we work on its next iterations.

Technology-driven
New or better technology also drives the design process. In this instance, our design and engineering teams work in parallel, collaborating and iterating on a variety of approaches to define product details together.

The technology-driven process was important in the development of the View in my Room 3D tool, which lets people see more than 500,000 products from the Houzz Shop in 3D in their homes before they buy. We started by defining the entry points and main flows of the user experience. The engineers then briefed us on the technology and we worked closely together from there to determine core function operations and the appearance of 3D objects within the room. We couldn’t move forward with the design process without trying the real-life implementations, and the developers couldn’t move forward without the design specs and flows. We created many different designs, tried them out, and made changes as needed, before we landed on the final design. This collaborative process helped us gather important ideas from both teams along the way to deliver an innovative product which has been used by more than one million people since we released it earlier this year.

Data-driven
We use a data-driven process when working on optimizing existing experiences and start by evaluating current product performance data provided by the analytics team. The data identify potential pain points for our community and provides a baseline from which to improve. We create, implement and test a variety of hypotheses to identify the highest performing approach. This way, we’re able to turn good products into great ones by trying different ideas with quick iterations to create the best experience for our community.

The data-driven process was critical in a recent change we made to our Visual Match tool, which uses visual recognition to make it easy for people to discover and buy on Houzz the types of products and materials that inspire them in photos. From the beginning, we’ve used tags to highlight products available for purchase on the Houzz Shop. The tags were big and green – to represent our brand color – and had become our trademark. Over time, we felt the design had become outdated and detracted from the browsing experience, so we decided to make a change.

The biggest concern we had during the redesign was that engagement might decrease if we made the tags less noticeable. Testing multiple designs uncovered that a more subtle white version performed better than the big green tags by 30 percent. The data provided insights into how our community uses and reacts to design changes and helped us to move forward with the best possible option.

Being flexible in our design approach allows our team to be nimble in solving challenges without compromising creativity. It helps us to gather ideas and feedback from our community and team members and verify our hypotheses with data and research. It also allows us to set the right pace for each project, and most importantly, it fosters innovation.

We’re always on the hunt for talented designers to join our team, check out houzz.com/jobs for open positions.

As a member of the Houzz backend team, Minwen works on infrastructure and platform products to improve the Houzz community experience by making the website faster and more reliable. When she’s not working, Minwen enjoys traveling with her family to places they’ve never been before. Their last stop was Iceland.

Why did you want to become a software engineer?
I’ve always liked building things, but didn’t start coding until I was in college. When I was a teenager, computer science was just getting started in China. In high school, the top four students from each province were sent to a national physics competition where we met professors from the country’s top universities. I met with one professor who offered me the opportunity to attend Tsinghua University and study computer science. All I knew of computer science was that it was an exciting new technology, but I said yes right away. It’s pretty incredible that a decision made by a high school student, far from home, with no input from my parents, could drive my lifetime career.

Why did you decide to join Houzz?
A few of my friends worked for Houzz and told me about the supportive community culture they experienced, which is what drew me to apply. My interview confirmed what I had heard from my friends and I couldn’t wait to get started!

What is the best part about working at Houzz?
From an engineering perspective, I appreciate the Houzz code review process. It promotes quality and productivity, allowing you to focus on the big picture to improve the overall experience of the Houzz platform for our community.

From a workplace perspective, I was so pleased to find that my friends were right about the culture at Houzz. My particular focus on the Redis database allows me to interact with different teams within engineering, and I can see that teamwork and collaboration are valued and encouraged on all projects.

What Houzz project are you most proud of?
When I joined Houzz last year, we realized that as Houzz continues to scale, we’d need to identify and implement solutions to handle the growing amount of data required to run the platform. Houzz historically used Redis as our main de facto data storage cache. In the past, as the company scaled up and we outgrew the storage capacity in one Redis server, we’d open a new server and manually move a subset of data from existing sources to that server. That move wasn’t transparent to the applications in Houzz that access data from these servers, so we’d have to go back and modify code for those applications. It was a very manual process.

In order to automate the applications we use on a daily basis and create transparency between those applications, we decided to migrate all of our data from individual Redis servers to a Redis Cluster, which allows us to continue adding storage in a more transparent manner. I’m proud to be a part of Houzz’s growth. You can read more about the migration to Redis Cluster at this link.

What is something that has surprised you about working for Houzz?
I’ve worked on a number of large-scale tech company campuses, so when I started working at Houzz, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed working in downtown Palo Alto. It was an unexpected feeling of freedom and I love to pop outside for a cup of tea or walk down University Avenue in the friendly crowds.

Is there anything that you’ve learned that you’d like to impart on others?
Always keep learning! Stay open minded and keep an eye out for new technologies on the horizon.

How do you use Houzz in your personal life?
My husband and I are in the process of building a new home and we use Houzz a lot! Before hiring our designer, we looked at her profile on Houzz to make sure she had experience with the city and the styles we will be incorporating. Now we are using Houzz to collaborate with her on the project. I just save a photo to our ideabook and send her the link, so she knows exactly what I have in mind!

As a member of the data analytics team, Ella uses data to inform and direct business decisions. When she’s away from work, Ella enjoys exploring local parks with her family.

Why did you choose to become a data scientist?
I actually studied environmental engineering, but when I graduated, data science was just beginning to gain momentum as a career path. Prior to that point, there weren’t many statistician positions available. Through my schooling, I’d had the opportunity to play with data and use different models to answer business-related questions and I realized that it was the perfect blend of my education and interests.

What benefits do data scientists bring to businesses?
All business decisions should be based on a clear understanding of how customers are using their products and services. Data provides the confidence to chart new paths and create greater efficiencies of resources, while evaluating the impact of those decisions. For a company like Houzz, which provides a bounty of products and services to our community, it’s important to understand how all decisions impact the overall dynamic of the experience from the minor ripples to the major waves.

What brought you to Houzz?
I was a big fan of Houzz long before I began working here and used to spend 20-30 minutes per night looking at photos and getting inspiration for my own home. In fact, one of my bathrooms looks very similar to a photo I found on Houzz!

Professionally, I craved the startup experience, which would allow me to broaden my focus and solve new challenges every day.

What do you most enjoy about your role?
It’s exciting! There’s an opportunity to blaze a trail, tap into my own creativity and provide useful information based on non-defined parameters. The many aspects of the Houzz platform mean that I am continuously learning and expanding my skills.

What project are you most proud of at Houzz?
I helped to develop the “Lifetime Value Model” for our marketing team, which is utilized for all campaigns to evaluate performance. I also analyze SEO-optimization and content partnerships to understand and educate the team on how and why people visit Houzz.com. It’s fascinating to learn what piques visitors’ interest about Houzz.

What’s something that has surprised you about working at Houzz?
I work with cross-functional teams across marketing, SEO and data operations, and have found that across the board, people are very data-driven at Houzz. It’s so refreshing. Everyone uses analysis to drive marketing efforts and business growth decisions to achieve greater, more collaborative results.