Vogelpohl even has her own range of rugs
(mytexashouse/Instagram)“When you get on Instagram and you’re trying to take a break from your real, tough life – maybe it’s
because your kid has been asking for something to eat every 30 seconds – you don’t want to see your own
stuff; you want to see the dream” of an idealised home, says Allison Schaeffer, 44, who lives in San Diego
and follows dozens of personal home-decor accounts. “It’s just relatable enough and just out of reach
enough.”
Of course, there is a risk to sharing your home life with half a million or so strangers. About 18 months ago,
Vogelpohl posted about her family’s struggles: her husband, Dusty Vogelpohl, 41, a lawyer, lost his job
around the same time that Erin Vogelpohl had heart surgery.
While many followers expressed sympathy, others questioned her honesty and motives. Some doubted the
seriousness of the family’s financial problems, given the well-appointed, 4,800-square-foot house and lavish
trips like a cruise in Mexico, or wondered if she was sharing her difficult experiences to attract more
followers. In a teary Instagram story, Erin Vogelpohl challenged the doubters, pointing out that if it weren’t
for her successful Instagram account, the family would not have been able to weather the financial setback.
“If I hadn’t done the Instagram thing, we would have had to have sold the house, because we wouldn’t have
been able to afford it,” Erin Vogelpohl, now the sole breadwinner in the family, says in a telephone
interview. “The house has kept me in the house.”
But not everyone with a sizeable following is comfortable with all the public interest.
In 2017, Ashley Harrison, a stay-at-home mother with four children, turned her Instagram account,
@ourvictorianitalianate, into a journal to keep in touch with friends and family after she and her husband,
Nathan Harrison, who works in insurance, moved into an 1858 house in St Louis and began restoring it.
Ashley Harrison is still baffled by the amount of
interest shown in her home
(ourvictorianitalianate/Instagram)