My name is Guy. Also, it isn't.

Micro-decorating, big results * Issue 1 of 13, A26 * Subscribe *

Welcome to the Autumn 2026 season of Guy with an Eye. I'd like to kick it off with a confession. For the past five years, I've been writing under a pen name.

I chose to be "Guy Koolhof" in this newsletter to protect myself while writing about matters close to my heart. The online world can be a savage place, and the only way I could risk being vulnerable was to take on a verbal disguise. "Guy Koolhof" was like a suit of armour I'd put on weekly, while in the substance of what I wrote I was utterly exposed.

My real name is Corneil Van der Spek. I chose a Dutch pen name because that's my heritage – my parents were immigrants from the Netherlands, and I learned to be attentive to beauty from their slow and thoughtful approach to life. (You might recall from an earlier issue that my favourite artist is the Dutch master of abstraction, Piet Mondrian.)

After more than five years and over 200 issues of this newsletter, I feel less of a need for armour. I've found my voice and will continue writing regardless of what others may think. It's the right time to shed the pseudonym.

I'm not shedding it entirely, though. I'm keeping "Guy" as my unofficial middle name and will continue signing off that way. If you bump into me while browsing at a mid-century design shop, feel free to say "Hey, Guy!" Think of it as a secret handshake, a way of claiming your spot in our growing tribe of micro-decorators.

So next week's ebook is coming out with my real name attached. I hope you'll find it gives the content an extra gleam of honesty.

One more thing before you go

Five years and 200+ issues in, and I've never actually asked what you think of this newsletter. So I put together a short survey: five questions, about two minutes, nothing required. I want to know what's working, what you'd like more of, and what you're actually wrestling with in your own space.

Feels like the right moment to ask, honestly.

Whatever you call me, thank you for reading. That part was never going to change.