and now she's taking you on a journey around the world, to the one place most tourists never visit: the inside of other people's houses

“Ash writes like an acid trip through a Cracker Barrel.”

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About
Ash

Your Host, Ash Ambirge

HOUSES WITH ASH  is like SOMEBODY FEED PHIL—but instead of food, we're talking living rooms, bathrooms, and sock drawers.

It's an addictive, voyeuristic-yet-intelligent brand that explores the world through the intimate, often-overlooked lens of the home. It’s part travelogue, part anthropology, part design porn—with a sense of humor and a streak of cultural mischief.


ash ambirge IS GOING ON AN ALL-NEW ADVENTURE...EXCEPT THIS TIME, INSIDE.

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Ash Ambirge is the creator of HOUSES WITH ASH, a delightfully subversive new podcast & newsletter series that explores the strange, smart, and wonderful ways houses are built, designed, and decorated around the world, and the CEO of the coolest new start-up wallpaper brand ever, WITPAPER. Her Substack newsletter, YOU DON'T LOOK STUPID, takes you behind the scenes of building a creative interiors brand from scratch at age 40, and her book, THE MIDDLE FINGER PROJECT (Penguin Random House) is a cult favorite for anyone who’s ever wanted to burn down their cubicle and start over doing something creative. An internationally published author, long-time blogger, and 15-year digital nomad, Ash has spent over a decade writing about identity, reinvention, and the weird and wonderful ways we can find meaning with our work—often from makeshift desks in places with questionable plumbing.

about ash ambirge, host of the new DESIGN & TRAVEL series, 'HOUSES WITH ASH.'

💰 📝 💪 Built multi-million dollar, ahead-of-its-time internet creator brand THE MIDDLE FINGER PROJECT at age 25 while living abroad in Santiago, Chile 🇨🇱

🙋‍♀️ 📈 ✅ Grew company as a one-woman startup with no paid advertising, exclusively using content marketing & newsletters

✍️ 💌 🎉 Built one of the top, award-winning, most widely-read career & ‘lifestyle design’ newsletters of its time, earning  100,000+ email subscribers and having awesome readers from all over the world (its nascency was pre-Instagram 😲)

✈️ 🚆 🚘 Traveled perpetually as a digital nomad, living in between South America, Central America, New England, and Europe (to date it's been 16 years!)

📖 🎤 👏 Became an internationally published author with Penguin Random House, negotiated deal to read and narrate my own audiobook in-studio, was invited onto The Today Show, CBS, and The BBC, and sold the rights to the book to the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, and more

🎓 👩‍🏫 📚 Designed, marketed, and taught 25+ educational courses for indie makers, brands & aspiring entrepreneurs around the world, with an excellent track record and 99% satisfaction rate

🧻🚽 👀 Once I also handed out 100 rolls of toilet paper during a keynote speech just to make a point. 🤣 I stand by the decision.

🇬🇧 ⚔️ 👯 Led multiple in-person writing retreats in Europe, Central, and South America focused on helping founders find their brand voice & stand out from their competitors (one time even on a cruise ship, LOL)

📣 👗 🗣️ Keynoted several events in Europe and the United States for indie founders & entrepreneurs (one time even falling off the stage at the end, YUP, don’t wear heels when nervous)

✏️ 👩‍🏫 🎓 Launched my signature course, SELFISH SCHOOL, to help students start a smart, profitable online business from anywhere in the world, so they can work 50% less and travel 500% more. Have taught over 1000+ students to date, and more enrolling!

🎙️ 📡 📻 Have appeared on over 100 podcasts & radio shows around the world (and definitely have messed up my fair share, ha!)

 🏡 🦌 🪴 Spontaneously bought an 1900s farmhouse and cottage on 5 acres of land in the middle of the woods in my (very rural hometown in America) on a whim—and I was hooked. I started writing about my daily observations about how this side of the world lived—scrapple! check writing! outdoor wood stoves! everyone loves mowing the lawn!—and it became something I really enjoyed. It made me reflect on the other places I'd lived around the world, and how their social norms, beliefs, behaviors, and mentalities could be reflected right inside their living rooms. 

🤓 🕵🏻‍♀️ 🔎 After several years, I decided this was a project that needed to be brought into the world. I wanted to call it, "In Bed with Ash Ambirge," but knew that no one would know how to pronounce my name. 🤣 Instead, I decided to go with the much more original option, HOUSES WITH ASH. The weekly newsletter is my new favorite thing ever, and a podcast and book series are in the works, where I'll be physically taking you inside strangers' homes around the world, so you can try on life somewhere new.

🖼️ 🪴🎨 And, at the same time? I found myself dreaming about my own wallpaper line, because turns out? I LOVE WALLPAPER. I will wallpaper all the houses. I will wallpaper all the living rooms. I will wallpaper YOUR FACE. Specifically, though, my style has always been unique in that I adore pairing classic design with an edgy twist—think pearls and leather jackets—and am excited to bring this vibe to my very own line of travel-inspired wallpaper, called WITPAPER, launching soon!


Lookout, world! ASH IS COMING IN.

HOW I GOT HERE: PAST projects from my personal & professional life

ahem (clears throat)

carmenere (I SPENT YEARS LIVING IN CHILE!)

My go-to WINE order

LONDON,
OBBBVIOUSLYYYYY
YYYYYYYYYY

My favorite city

THE FARROW & BALL
DECORATING BOOKS (NERD!!!!)

What I'M READING

fixing my FARMHOUSE IN RURAL AMERICA (AND WRITING ABOUT IT, OF COURSE) 

You can find me...

EXPLORE ASH'S WORLD

The
Newsletter
The
Books
The
Classes

newsletter




From how we build to how we decorate to the quirky objects we use in everyday life, this newsletter will make you laugh, cry, think, dream, gawk awkwardly at your ceiling, and see the world in a whole new way. Because if you want to understand a culture, don’t look at its temples—look under its sink.

A culture & travel writer explores homes around the world

houses with ash

Go on a joyful & fun-filled journey around the world with Ash, studying the inside of people's homes.

Ash's Newsletter

ash's books

A new book series exploring how homes are built, designed, and decorated around the world, designed to help you try on daily domestic  life in other countries.

written to be fun, joyful & with plenty of good humor

books that let
you 'try on someone else's life'

Ash's Books

ash's classes

Ash is developing a new series of fun workshops designed to help new homeowners learn how to do it all, from home maintenance, to DIY and tools, to paint color & wallpaper, to decorating with style and more—all with her signature irreverent twist.

A BUSINESS CLASS FOR TRAVEL LOVERS

class with ash

Ash's Classes

Caitlan Hester, backroad weekly

"I've been reading your newsletter for five years. It's the only newsletter in my inbox that
I make sure I don't miss."

"
"

I'm lucky to have had my work, words & ideas featured in some really cool places over the years. Now if only I could get my hair to curl nicely...

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

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BORING
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OPEN RATE
43%
STUDENTS TAUGHT
5,000+
readers HAVE subscribed
100,000+
YEARS OF WRITING PROFESSIONALLY
16
# of newsletters sent
2,080

some other fun ash-tistics

Discover the strange, hilarious, and revealing ways people build, design and decorate their homes around the world.

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