When you ask longtime Houzzers about our culture, they all say the same thing: while our team has grown to more than 900 people around the world, Houzz still feels like a close-knit family.

To continue building those connections, Houzzers from our growing Palo Alto team escaped to the great outdoors for an annual retreat in June. This year’s theme, “Camp Houzz,” was filled with fun activities designed to help Houzzers get to know one another even better. The team bonded over campfires, delicious BBQ, fun outdoor activities, and of course, camping!

Here are a few photos from the retreat:

Our co-founders Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen led a lively chat with several longtime Houzzers, who shared their early Houzz experiences and favorite stories.

Houzzers were given the fun challenge of pairing off with people they haven’t had the chance to get to know yet for ten minutes at a time, and talking with one another to find common bonds.

The team took advantage of the beautiful surroundings by kayaking, biking, ziplining and enjoying yoga classes during their downtime.

Houzzers also bonded over fun games and activities including cards, coloring, Jenga and ping-pong.

A festive, interactive percussion performance and line dancing class entertained Houzzers during the evenings.

Family-style meals provided further opportunities to bond with old and new friends. We even managed to cheer on the Golden State Warriors during the NBA Finals!

Rubber duckies have a special place in the hearts of Houzzers. What started as a small installation that entertained our engineering team in Palo Alto has grown into a feathered phenomenon, with duckies now decorating the desks of Houzzers around the globe. When International Rubber Duckie Day rolled around recently, the team at Houzz Australia took the opportunity to let their creativity take flight, designing personalized odes to our beloved birds.

Here are a few photos from the day:

The glitter was plentiful as the team flocked together to design their den of ducks.

Some Houzzers had a clear direction…

…while others simply winged it.

A tribute to the late David Bowie (created by Houzz Australia editor Jenny Drew) and a fluffy version of Donald Trump (by Community Manager Luke Buckle) were definite standouts of the day!

Perhaps the true testament to the team’s creative talents was how seamlessly a special visitor fit into the scene.

Ofir Zwebner, Jessica Hyde and Ernest Mak, creators/keepers of the rubber duckie tradition at Houzz

Ask any Houzzer about our company mascot, and you’ll hear the same answer every time: a rubber duckie. The plastic pets can be found on every desk at Houzz, in a variety of colors and costumes, including in our offices around the world. But how did the tradition get its start? We spoke with the originators and keepers of the Houzz duckie to find out.

Ernest Mak, back-end architect: It was actually an accident, how this all began!

Ofir Zwebner, application architect: Ernest and I joined the engineering team at Houzz around the same time, in late 2010. There were only a handful of people on the team back then.

Ernest: In the beginning, we used to do ad hoc releases, pushing new versions of the site at any time. We were moving to a regular, weekly release cycle, and we needed a name for them. The team was brainstorming on what we should name our first release. The first thing that came to my mind was the rubber duck that my daughter played with at home. So I said, ‘Why don’t we call it Duckie?’ And we did! I bought a small rubber duck at a stationary store down the street from the office that day and kept him on my desk.

The original Houzz rubber duckie – he quacks loudly and his mouth lights up when its button is pressed

Ofir: He would bring the duck to meetings and instead of answering/responding, he would sometimes use the duck instead. It was really irritating!

Ernest: A few weeks after the Duckie release, Ofir found a website that sells rubber ducks, and bought 50 of them in all sorts of themes and costumes.

Ofir: I gave everyone on the team a duckie that fit their personality or interests. Sheila Schmitz, editor at Houzz and an avid reader, got a librarian duck. Annie Thornton, a member of the editorial team who’s passionate about gardening, got a garden gnome duckie. Then I bought dog and cat duckies. When a new person joined the team, I’d ask them if they were a dog or cat person, and gave them a duck that fit their preference. Everyone would put them on their desks, and on their monitors. It added some color to our all-white desks and chairs!

Ernest: Adi and Alon (cofounders of Houzz) embraced it, both in their words and their actions. There are duckies on their desks and computer monitors, too.

Ofir: We’re very lucky that Jessica joined the team and continued the tradition.

Jessica Hyde, data quality analyst: I didn’t get a duckie when I first joined Houzz in 2013! This made me passionate about continuing the practice. It isn’t an official role – it’s just something I took on. Someone tells me that a new person joined the team, and I stop by with a box of duckies to welcome them. People call me the duck fairy! It’s a great way to introduce new team members to the Houzz culture, and make them feel that they belong. It’s also nice that I have a reason to say hi to every new person this way, and they like me immediately because I’m the person who gave them a duck.

Ofir: That’s something that I miss!

Jessica posing with a duckie decked out in traditional Scottish attire in the U.K.

Jessica: I also ship boxes of ducks to our international offices every time we launch in a new market. And when the country managers come to visit us in Palo Alto, they fill their suitcases with duckies for their teams.

Ofir: They also often bring us duckies from their own countries when they come to town.

Jessica: The rubber duckies are great. They remind us that having fun is a part of the culture at Houzz, and that it’s okay to enjoy ourselves at work. They also remind us that it’s okay to be a little loud from time to time, like Ernest’s duck!

A few of the ducks at Houzz Japan

A festive flock of duckies at Houzz Spain

A trio of ducks pose with sweet treats on a desk of the Houzz Sweden team

Read more about our affinity for duckies and see examples of how Houzzers incorporate them into their homes here and here.

To get into the holiday spirit, Houzzers in our Palo Alto office competed in a fun Gingerbread Houzz contest. Each team worked together to design and build a sweet dream home. There are a number of talented gingerbread architects and designers on our team – selecting winners wasn’t easy for our judges, cofounders Adi and Alon and our office team. After a few days of deliberation, these homes were awarded the top prizes:

The editorial team won first place for their incredible treehouse, complete with a mini lending library and tiny twinkle lights. The concept was inspired by stories on Houzz, including one on an elaborate kids’ treehouse in Dallas, and one on Little Free Library, a nonprofit that places small neighborhood book exchange boxes all over the world.

Second place went to the design team for this midcentury modern masterpiece. The creation even included “save” and “email” buttons, just like photos on Houzz!

The data operations team snagged third place for their intricate Hogwarts-themed design.

Happy Holidays from Houzz!

Are you ready to go on a tour? Julia and Laksh from Houzz Australia have convinced us a visit to their new Sydney office is a must with these beautiful photos and recap:

Hi everyone, this is Julia and Laksh from Houzz Australia and we’d love to take you on a bit of a tour of our local office. What we love about our team is that everyone is not only very hard working, but also constantly sharing laughs, collaborating across different teams, and of course, spending time together in this great working space.

Love at first site visit
When we first visited the “shell” of our new office in Surry Hills we knew it had the potential to be an awesome workplace. The office has a large, open floor plan where we could also sit together, enormous windows with lots of natural light, polished concrete floors and a vast balcony with fantastic views of the Sydney skyline. The office is also surrounded by some of the best restaurants, bars, and cafes in town.

After a few months of designing and furniture sourcing (using Houzz, of course!), we were ready to move in. Our office is filled with the Houzz spirit.  We have rubber ducks everywhere (our unofficial mascot), plants galore with vertical gardens, fun green furniture, chalkboard painted pillars (…and walls, and doors…) and, of course, meeting rooms themed to rooms from around the house - but with an Aussie twist!

The workshop 
When we first started brainstorming ideas for our boardroom, we thought about the ways we could connect our theme back to Houzz - we wanted to bring in a fun and creative hobby that would tell a story about building or renovating our own homes. Our boardroom is a work shed with its own home-made trestle table, a work lamp, and a pegboard with used tools. Traditionally, the home work shed is a place where you can create a piece of furniture, reupholster your chairs and redesign your space. For us, it’s where we come together to build new ideas, improve current processes, and be creative with our daily tasks. (Fun fact: we also used these tools to build all of our desks, furniture and lay our astro turf!)

The kids’ room
This kids’ room is one of the most coveted spaces in the office - our colleagues say that it takes them back to younger years and is a place where you just feel at ease. In the kids’ room you can let your imagination run wild, and we encourage drawing and brainstorming on our whiteboard wall. Sometimes when we just need some quiet time, we retreat into the four poster kids bed.

Deckside
After much discussion and deliberation, we decided that for our final meeting room, we wanted to create a room that truly represents iconic Australia - and what better way than a sun-soaked Australian Beach? The true-blue room comes complete with real sand, a timber deck stained in Australian Jarrah red and a great outdoor furniture set with chairs that recline. There’s also a life-buoy in the corner for when you need a little help keeping your head above water! When we have meetings in the deck room, we sometimes play sounds of the sea to make it feel even more authentic. 

Communal spaces: Kitchen & Balcony
They say the kitchen is the heart of the home and this couldn’t be any more true in our office. We’re all foodies and will take any chance to celebrate all things food (e.g. Harmony Day!). With this in mind, we wanted to design a kitchen that would be warm, welcoming and spacious – a great space where our team can get together. This industrial style kitchen features a large stainless steel fridge, a jam-packed pantry and a timber dining table bench. 

The kitchen also opens to one of the best features of this incredible office (and no, it’s not just having Crumpet Been, our office dog!)

Our very own large wrap around balcony is most definitely one of the stand out spaces in this office, where we have views of the Sydney central business district and a birds-eye view of Surry Hills. Some of the balcony is covered with astroturf (that we also cut and laid ourselves), where we hold meetings, lounge, dine and bask in Sydney’s sunshine on our breaks. We also have an oversized chess set that is great fun after a few drinks on a Friday Night. No Australian home is complete without a BBQ (barbie) which we, of course, have as well! Personalized and Houzz-y touches are constantly being added to this incredible space, making it feel like more and more like home.

Thank you, Julia and Laksh, and the whole Houzz Australia team, for opening your doors and showing us around. You can be sure we’ll take you up on your offer to visit!