Dining Room Inspo

I've never been a huge HGTV watcher, but since being on leave I have become OBSESSED with the shower Fixer Upper. I love Chip and Joanna, their style is perfection, and I'm amazed at what you can get in Texas vs. California. If we ever move to Waco, I am getting on the show and telling them to just buy me whatever home they like and go to town, sight unseen. I would trust them fully and blindly and know I would just love it.

One room I haven't bothered decorating yet is our dining room. We have a nice sized table with a bench seat that I've grown to dislike. It's just really dark, it has a dark stain top with black legs and the chairs match. We've been wanting to get a new table for some time now, but Ellie makes such a disaster at meal time I would hate to ruin a new table. I want to sand and repaint the table, I just need to find the time to get it done. So, the dining room is on my mind to decorate and start pulling together.

I love a farmhouse look with a bit of glamour and an industrial touch. When you walk into the room, I want a relaxed, simple feeling where people want to stay and linger after each meal as we talk and laugh and build memories in our home.

Here's some of my inspiration pics I've found on Pinterest and from Fixer Upper :

Some items I want to decorate our dining area is some wooden shelves, a nice clock, some pretty dishes to display, wall decor, and a China buffet. Matt and I have been on the hunt for a buffet for over a year now. I've found two I loved at Home Goods and they were sold within minutes of seeing them and I missed out on them both times! I'm thinking about checking out thrift shops for a dresser and then having it upgraded with some glass or open areas. We're just keeping our eyes peeled for now.

Clock // Shelving // Topiary // White Pitcher (I bought this and LOVE it!) // Berry Basket

Count Your Blessings //  Server

Matt and I have planned out our space and totally have a vision for it, it's just about finding the right pieces for it. Finding the buffet will be the biggest key in pulling the room together, but that will come (one day). I'm ok with having everything else set up and ready and just have the one blank wall waiting to be filled with our wedding China. The items above I love how they add character and color to a space, we can switch them around with the seasons and from the buffet to the shelving, or to be used as a centerpiece. The tiered server is one of my favorites! I can't wait to get my hands on it and set it up with treats and decorations.   

What do you like in a dining room? What are your favorite pieces to pull the room together? Do you have any tips you're willing to share?

House to Home: Master Bedroom Reveal

There are certain times in your life that you truly feel like an adult. A real adult and not just a kid pretending to be grown up. Experiences like buying your first car, getting kitchen items (Mixing bowls that are dishwasher safe and stack well? Yes!), buying home goods (we need more throw pillows!), or getting furniture. The real kind. The kind that costs real money and lasts for decades.

Two weeks ago, I had that “Whoa, I’m thirty and buying legitimate furniture” moment. I’ve talked before about master bedroom inspirations and we talked about getting some in the new year. Since I was in the third grade, I’ve been using furniture that was handed down to me from my Great Grandmother. I love the furniture, they have a great shape with big deep drawers, and if Matt and I were using matching chests I would just refinish them and keep using them. I’m sick of our room and have been dreaming of giving it a makeover since we moved.

At first we were planning on just painting the room a soft white and we picked up some paint sample cards to narrow down our options. I had them taped up and after looking at them for almost a week we settled on three different shades that we would buy samples of and planned to paint in the next week. That little job would keep me happy until we were able to find furniture we liked.

Well…We had spent the night at Matt’s parents’ home and decided to go with them to look for a new couch for their home and ending up getting a whole new bedroom set and mattress! We went with the intention of helping them look at furniture and thought we’d look around to see what options are available and get an idea of what we liked. When we saw the set we had chosen, we just knew right away that it was perfect for what we were looking for! We didn’t have to debate about it or mull it over before we decided to make the set our own.

I’m glad we didn’t paint yet, because now we can choose a color based off our new furniture. I’m sure that any of the neutral colors we were looking at would still work, but I like being able to see how it will look against the furniture and lighting. There’s still lots to do and get before it will be “complete”, but I’m happy with our progress so far.

Bedroom Furniture // Large Mirrored Frame // Small Mirrored Frame // Silver Frame // Crystal Ring Holder // 3 Mirror Set (from Kohls, unavailable online similar here and here) // Sheets // Bedding

Here's a close up of the colors we're leaning towards. We're gonna pick up some samples and see how they look over the existing paint color and in the different lights of day.

Here are some items I’m still looking to get:

- Something to put above our headboard
I’m thinking a large mirror, but that might be too much with the mirror items above the dresser. My cousin gave me a vintage window pane I thought about putting above, but it’s much larger than I had anticipated and I’m going to put it downstairs instead now. Right now I’m just on the hunt for something and I have an idea that I’ll know it when I see it. Until then, any suggestions?

- An area rug
I love the look of a rug coming from under the bed, it really opens up the room and adds some color. I'll have to test it out because I don't want it to be distracting or too busy.

- Lamps
I’m torn between long skinny silver lamps or clear lamps. I like the look of both and I keep switching between which kind I prefer. I also love the look of mercury glass too. There’s so many choices! I love this, this, and this one.

- Bench
There are so many cute options available for benches at great prices. I think it would be nice to find one that doubles as a storage for extra sheets/bedding. I love this tufted one and this storage one.

- TV Mount
We’re ordering a mount right now so I can’t wait to get that puppy up on the wall. It’s going to look so good.

- Drapes
Here another item I’m kind of dreading buying. When we bought the soft blue ones for the living room, we had bought a few different ones before we found the right ones. I think it would be nice to go with a white, gray, or a pattern. I have no idea and I haven’t even started looking at any yet.They're definitely a priority, but I'm procrastinating in getting it started.

There's our room for now! I love our new furniture and am so happy with our purchase. There's so much more space and I love the look of the furniture. The color and style are exactly what I wanted. One of my favorite details is the jewelry drawer with a tray on the top. It's already getting lots of use and I love having somewhere lined to keep them.

Any suggestions, please leave them below! We have a lot to do before the room is "finished".

House to Home: Master Bedroom

Since moving into our first house in March, I've been searching high and low for bedroom furniture. I absolutely hate our bedroom right now. The search has been on and we've decided to re-do the room next year with our tax return. Our biggest obstacle we've had is finding furniture we like! We looked at so many different retailers and everything was ho-hum or out of our budget. I've thought about just having what we like made even. I've bought a few items (3 things) for our room when it finally gets a make-over, but I've been dreaming of our perfect room for a while now and it's to the point that it's eating me up and I wanted to share some inspiration with you guys for what I have in mind.

Here's some of my Pinterest inspirations I've found:

What I picture for our bedroom is soft, neutral colors. Grays, white, and cream, and I'm thinking a bedding mix of white, gray, and navy? All through college I had an all white bed and I loved sleeping on what looked and felt like a giant cloud. In the Pottery Barn catalog, they had a bed with white sheets, a navy blanket, and a big comforter and I fell in love with it. I'm also wanting to paint our walls a white gray color. I want our room to be relaxing and bright, with a touch of rich textures.

A Natural Wood Dresser //  A Mirrored Nightstand // A Tufted Headboard 

Bed Bench // Mirrored Frame 

Here are some of the items I've found recently online, but I'm hesitant to buy Target furniture. When looking at the display items at the store, some of them are well made and others are pretty cheap. Since we're buying all new furniture, I want to invest money in items that will last years and years. I bought that mirrored frame already and I'm saving it to put a picture of Matt and I in it from our family pictures we're having taken next month. I also love the look of mix matched side tables and I love mirrored ones, but I think it would be so hard to keep clean. Especially with Ellie's little finger prints everywhere!

What bedroom looks to you like? Where do you like to get bedroom furniture?

House to Home: Playroom

Thank you so much for all the awesome feedback on my post about our big purchase! It's such a thrilling time in our lives right now, we are looking forward to having a place that's our own. I still can't believe our dreams are coming true!

I loved all of your comments on my living room post (check it out here!) I've decided to create House to Home as a regular series as I look through inspiration. It will be all about decor and style, a different set of posts than what we are doing in the house to make it our own.

We were looking for a place that is child friendly and our home has a great loft we'll be making into a playroom for Ellie to call her own and can bring some organization to all the toy chaos. I'd love to create a place that's calming, but has pops of colors like pink, aqua, and lime. We'll have the couch we use now in the room, which is also a sofa bed which will be great for guests to stay on. We will eventually add a TV, but not anytime soon. I also want to put in a great play tent for her like the adorable teepees that are all the rage right now. I would totally be living through my child with a teepee. Having a small nook of your own is so awesome as a child and I remember building forts all the time with my mom growing up. A chalkboard accent would be cute too, but I don't want to paint an entire wall with chalk. Thankfully, I have a TON of chalkboards from our wedding so I'll just nail a large one on its side for Ellie to use. You know, because she can totally write her name already. Ha ha ha. Just thinking in both the long term and short term use for a playroom.

Here is some of the inspiration I've found on Pinterest, there's something great in each picture.

Please tell me your thoughts! What makes for a great play area? Does chalk on a wall just create a big mess on the floor to clean up from the dust? What aspects of a room do your children enjoy most?

This Weekend We...

bought a house! I can't believe our dream has come true. After looking for what seemed like forever and taking almost a year break from looking, we found, bid, and closed escrow on a house in less than a month. We are beyond excited and I look forward to raising our family in a place of our own. The whole process was really easy and not stressful, but the moving part is going to be tricky. We have some time before we need to be out of our apartment, but I'm out of town for almost a week and we have plans in the following weekends that we can't cancel or change. We've already bought our big kid items like appliances and a couch and have started to pack up the house. There's a few little things that we need to get together, but I'm hoping we can make a smooth transition.

Here are some pictures of the downstairs of the house. I'll definitely be doing lots of posts on home decor and inspiration. Luckily, the house is a flip home so we don't have to do anything before we move in. There are some small changes we are doing before we move, but only because we want to do some things to our taste.

  Here are all our docs signed and dated!


We picked out a couple of shades of paint for some of the rooms and it was mind numbing. After a while, they all seriously seemed to blend in together. Grays looked purple, blue, and green. Blues looked gray and chalky. Somehow we settled on two and I can't wait to see how they look in the room after some test spots.

Any advice for home decor and design? Where are your favorite places to shop? What cleaning supplies are must haves for wood floors and carpet? Share your secrets please!

House to Home: Living Room

Matt and I are back shopping for a home. We looked for almost a year without any luck and once we found out we were expecting, we looked harder, but after a few months we decided to move into an apartment and hold off on buying a home as we adjusted to having a new baby. Now that we've settled into our family life it's time to get a move on.

I'm so excited to find a home to raise Ellie and her future siblings in, it won't be our forever home (by a long shot), but our first real home. Every place we look at I try and picture how I want to decorate it to make it feel welcoming and cozy. A place that we love to spend time at and people love to come and visit us. Of course, it's not just how it's decorated that makes it a home, but the love we fill it with, but shopping to furnish a house can be a lot of fun.

And yes, you read that right. We need to furnish an entire home. Anytime Matt and I have lived on our own (we didn't live with each other until after we were married), we were living with roommates who already had furniture so neither of us have ever had to make any big kid purchases like that. Since buying a home is such a large purchase, there's no way we will be able to just buy all new furniture to fill every room, so we are going to focus on the rooms that matter the most, such as the living room!

I've been trolling Pinterest (follow me here!) and found tons of inspiration for our dream home.  Pinterest can seriously suck you in for hours. It's awesome and a total time suck at the same time. What I've been drawn to most is soft colors with pops of white. I love how a neutral palette provides the opportunity for a pop of color, and how easy neutrals are to transition into seasons with a swap of pillow covers and throws. I also realize, that having a lot of light colors is ridiculous with a growing brood (I am in no way preggers right now, but want to eventually have more children) that will inevitably color on it and wedge Lord knows what kind of food into the fabric. Here are some of my favorite pins.

After looking at my pins, I'm really leaning towards a color palette of greys, blues, silver, and ivory. I like that the blue can be swapped out easily for mint, peach, pink, purple, aqua, and yellow and create a new feel and breathe new life into the room.

What are your favorite places to shop for furniture? We need basically everything and I'm up for any and all suggestions! What pieces are important to you in decorating? Any advice on furniture buying?