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Side project · Dark Thirty LabsLive

House Of

I designed the identity and built the direct booking site for our three vacation homes, from property discovery to checkout.

Side project by · Dark Thirty Labs · Live

Visit houseof.cc
The House Of website home page: Stay somewhere worth the drive.
House Of identity study: a rust-colored horse with lettering around the border

At a glance

Built with
AI coding agents, Hospitable, PostHog
Role
Designer, developer, and operator
Watch the 19-second film
In this project

Give guests a direct route to book

My wife and I run three vacation homes, in Yucca Valley, Palm Springs, and Los Angeles. Bookings depended on Airbnb and VRBO, and our own site was a placeholder.

I wanted guests to find a home, check the details, and book directly, and I wanted a way to stay in touch after a stay.

An identity with a sense of place

I explored horse symbols, warm desert colors, and several lettering styles, from a badge with a Western feel to a simpler wordmark.

The identity carries across the website, the property names, and the printed guest materials.

A House Of identity exploration, exported from the original Figma artwork.
A House Of identity exploration, exported from the original Figma artwork.

From property to checkout

I designed and built the site myself. Each home has a gallery, guest reviews, and a booking flow connected to Hospitable. Guests check availability, get a price, and complete checkout on our site, without the platform fees.

Inquiries go to Slack, and email signups go to MailerLite. Property guides and travel articles use the same brand.

The booking site in 19 seconds, from the home page to a house and its open dates. Recorded in March 2026, when the site listed four homes.

Measured like any product

House Of is live and gives us a direct booking channel we own. PostHog session recordings and conversion data show where visitors hesitate, and I fix the booking flow the way I would on any product team.

Next side project · 4 of 4

The Invisible Host

Our vacation homes run from hours away, in about fifteen minutes a week. I wrote the book on how we do it, then designed it, built its editions, and published it.