Happy Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite holiday, I think probably dating back to my Catholic School days when the day after was always a free day (thank you, All Saints Day). So, I tend to do it up big around here most years, both inside and out. 

This year I've toned it down a little bit, because A) I have a toddler I'm trying to get to love Halloween as much as I do, and I don't want to terrify her, and B) I'm still really into most of the interior decor I've installed post-move, and didn't want to mess it up with skulls and whatnot. 

Yes, having a life-sized skeleton and his hell hound companion on my front porch falls under my definition of "toned down," in case you were wondering.

I like how our hydrangeas are even getting into the spirit, having turned a deep purple color from their earlier bright blue. 

Of course mums and birch logs are always a good call for Autumn (someone really needs to rake those leaves): 

This is our first Fall in the new house, so I wasn't sure what the neighbors would think about all of my decorations. I was seriously relieved to see houses all up and down our street bedecked with orange string lights and all sorts of ghoulies! Love it! 

Inside, I just put out a few things in some key locations. Of course, I couldn't resist going full-on goth on our mantle:

Wait, is that Evanescence I hear? 

I love to use some of my spooky books as decor this time of year, and it doesn't get any spookier than Great Tales of Horror:

The library ladder always presents a fun opportunity for decor: 

In the front parlor (STILL not finished, but soon!) I went a little more traditional, thinking I'd leave the metallic pumpkins out through Thanksgiving: 

This little glass pumpkin is one of my very favorites: 

I picked it up in Half Moon Bay, CA (World Pumpkin Capital, and an all-around swell place to visit) on our babymoon, so it's very special to me. 

Finally, this bunny is not strictly speaking a Halloween decoration, as it's actually a sculpture by the artist Christy Puetz:

However, I admit it is a little creepy and weird though (in the most fabulous way), so it gets place of honor for the season. 

Lastly, a couple of gold bedazzled skulls and a fun striped pumpkin to round out the dining room: 

Happy Halloween, Everyone! 

Some of My Favorite Sources of Inspiration

As I was designing this house, I frequently got asked some variation of the question "how do you find this stuff?" To which I never had a great answer, because quite honestly, I spend a lot (like a lot a lot) of time thinking about home decor and consider it just another hobby.

I also consume information about home decor via a lot of different streams, so I don't necessarily remember where I first saw or heard about something. For whatever reason, I can barely remember what I had for breakfast today, but I can remember every detail of my favorite wallpapers or decorative objects and where to order them, but not where I originally saw them. Go figure!

So, I thought today I'd share a few of my favorite sources that I go back to time and again when I'm thinking about a project or seeking inspiration.

Of course, the big elephant in the room is pinterest (follow me here, if you wish). 



I run a bit hot and cold with pinterest. Right now I'm in a cold phase and haven't really been using it too much. I do find it helpful when I'm in the very initial stages of a project and am trying to get my head around a color scheme or decide if certain textiles will work together. It's super helpful to me to be able to look at all the elements I'm considering for a space on a single page and really start to get a feel for how they work together.

I find it less helpful to just scroll through to look at pretty pictures (that's what instagram is for!) and when used in that capacity by me, it just becomes a massive time-suck. 

That's not to say there's no place for electronic media in design for me. In fact, a lot of my inspiration comes from other blogs. I have around 10-12 that I read semi-regularly, but my favorites without a doubt are the ones I'm featuring today.

First up, Elements of Style, by Erin Gates (http://www.elementsofstyleblog.com/). Erin is a designer, author, and product designer who happens to blog as well. Her taste is absolutely on-point, though probably a little more strictly traditional than I am, and I love the keepin-it-real voice in which she writes. 

A few shots from Erin's AMAZING portfolio:








Also, I will do another post about design books, but I have to give a shoutout to Erin's gorgeous book here too (that black and white striped spine kills me!):



Lauren Liess (http://www.laurenliess.com/pure-style-home) also has a blog that supports her design work, and I love what she does. She also has a book coming out this fall, and I cannot wait for it! 



Her style is also traditional with a slight bohemian/natural twist to it. 








Bailey McCarthy (http://www.peppermintbliss.com/), designer and owner of Biscuit Home is my absolute #1 favorite and I instantly become obsessed with everything she does. Sadly, she rarely blogs these days, but you better believe I'm all over it when she puts something new up. 

Her archives also get a lot of play by me, as she combines the dramatic colors and playfulness I love in design, without being cutesy or too over-the-top whimsical. 

Seriously: 



















So good, right? 

In addition to design blogs, I'm also still old school when it comes to reading interiors magazines, and read most of the major ones in hard copy pretty voraciously. I particularly like Traditional Home, Veranda, House Beautiful, and House and Home (Canadian). 

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I not only love to decorate with art and design books, but also refer to certain favorites again and again for inspiration. Those of you have seen my home in person know I have a LOT of books, so I think they warrant their own post. More to come on those soon. 

As always, thanks for reading!

Master Bedroom

The master is one of the rooms that I really didn't want to put a ton of effort into at first, but then as we got further along with the renovation, I decided to go ahead and prioritize this space too. After all, we're tired parents of an energetic 2-year old. We need a relaxing place to retire at the end of the night as much as anyone!

My inspiration for this room was sort of a Hollywood Regency/Glam vibe, which mainly took the form of some mirrored, shiny, and sparkly things and a mix of textures. 

Here's a view into the bedroom from the hallway: 

Those double doors on the left are our laundry, which we relocated from the basement (SO much more convenient!). 

The room is basically an L-shaped layout. The open door you see in the picture below leads to the walk-in closet. It's nothing that exciting - it's big enough (but it could always be bigger!), and we put in an organization system via Affordable Closets, which I'd recommend. Josh (in Omaha) was great to work with and really maximized the storage for us, which was necessary. 

The walls in this room are Revere Pewter, as in much of the house. They set off the crystal ceiling fixture nicely, I think. 

Additionally, this is one of the only spaces in the house that is carpeted. While normally I'm not a carpet person, I decided to just go with it in here, rather than A) laying new hardwood and trying to match the narrow boards that are original in the rest of the house, and B) finding a huge area rug to soften the space once the hardwood was installed. 

The idea of doing all that work made me want to lie down and take a nap (at least I'd be in the right room for it!). So, we tore up the gross old beige carpet and had a nice dark grey with a super cushy pad installed. I think it was the right decision.

Most of the furniture in this space is from our previous bedroom in the old house, with just a few tweaks.

The dressers are a dark-stained wood, to which I added new crystal knobs to dress them up a bit.

The nightstands are pretty mirrored ones from Ones King Lane: 

I'm 99% sure they are identical to the ones they sell at Pier One, but of course I didn't realize that until after I'd ordered them. Anyway, they are simple and pretty, and give us good storage in here. 

The lamps are from Target, a simple crystal base with a grey linen shade. The mirror above the bed is from Homegoods. 

The bench is kind of hard to see, but it is black linen from Restoration Hardware. 

I don't often have buyers' remorse about home purchases since I usually think things through pretty carefully before I purchase. That bench, however, is a big exception. There's nothing wrong with it, but I ordered it custom made for $$$ when I see as good or better options at Homegoods on the regular. Lesson learned, I guess. Also, I think I need to hit up Homegoods for a sponsorship :) 

The bed is staying for now, but I think at some point I'll switch the metal frame out for either an upholstered one:


 or a modern canopy (like this): 


I'm also besotted with this velvet upholstered canopy: 




I mean, come on! It's gorgeous. Unfortunately, I'd probably need to sell an organ in order to make it happen. 

This piece is great for storage, and I like it much better now that it's coated in high-gloss grey. It was previously a rustic wood, and previously lived in the sunroom at our old house. 

The draperies and shades in the bedroom were custom made and came out beautifully. They are a heavy, luxurious silk fabric with a super pretty silk tassel trim. Unfortunately, they are very hard to photograph with window light coming through, so this is the best I could do: 

Here's a close-up as well:

The color is a mix of light and dark grey, with some soft blue/green mixed in. 

There's a nice sitting area at the other end of the room, which I haven't quite figured out yet (the sliver of doorway you see on the left leads to the master bath, which if you haven't seen, you really should).

That chair definitely is not staying. I thought I was certain I wanted a pair of traditional wingbacks here and just needed to figure out the upholstery. 



But, now I'm thinking maybe a settee would be cool instead? 


Who knows. 

One thing I know FOR SURE is those awesome vintage (not C&B!) lucite waterfall nesting tables are staying. I met a questionable Craigslist dude from Kearney in a Cracker Barrel parking lot to purchase them (#nojoke), so I'm holding onto those babies for good! 

So, the master is basically 90% done with the remaining 10% coming as soon as I figure out the seating area. I'm glad I decided to go ahead and put in the effort to make this room pretty - it really is a great feeling to have a nice, put together room to relax in at the end of a long day. 

Thanks for reading! 

The Mudroom and Screened Porch

Off the kitchen at the back of our house there's a large space that we were able to divide into two separate zones: one is a mudroom, and serves as our main entry into the house. The other side is a screened porch, which has proven to be an amazing place to sit and enjoy the beautiful summer weather we are having lately.

The door pictured here leads into our kitchen, then there is another door leading to the outside on the left:  

The storage piece is this one from Ballard Designs. It is great for our little family since it has three separate storage cubbies, with both open and closed storage.

I originally planned to have our finish carpenters build something similar for out here, but when I found an existing piece of furniture that basically mirrored exactly what I was going to have built, I decided to save everyone the trouble. No regrets here!

The mudroom floor is definitely one of my favorite floors in the house (this being the other one). 

It's a greyish/brown wood-look tile laid in a right angle herringbone pattern. I am super happy with how the design turned out, and tile is absolutely the right choice for a mudroom floor. 

One thing I really wanted to avoid was having my beautiful kitchen cluttered up with papers, mail, calendars, etc., so we created this little command center space in the mudroom. 

It's just big enough to contain everything we need, but not so big that it becomes a black hole of miscellaneous papers and whatnot.

The door leading to the outside of our home has a doggy door so Murphy can enjoy the outdoors and the indoors when he's home alone.

He approves. 

The exterior doors, including the front door, are all painted Benjamin Moore's Van Deusen Blue, which for some reason looks much darker here than it is in real life: 

I chose this color because it complements the red brick nicely, and also since we have a lot of blue tones in our interiors I felt like this was a fun little preview of what's to come once you get inside. 

Then, the larger section of this part of the house is a screened porch:

In my mind I was thinking this would be a nice place to hang out in the late spring and early fall, but we have gotten SO much use out of this room already. 

The ceiling fan definitely helps make it tolerable on the hotter days, but honestly it is very pleasant out here on all but the 100 degree + days, which thankfully have been few and far between.

Of course, being surrounded by open windows helps a great deal. 

The sofa is Brown Jordan via Home Depot. I went with this outdoor sofa mainly because it was customizable, but also because Brown Jordan has a fantastic reputation for standing behind their furniture - it is guaranteed for something like 10 years, which is basically unheard of in the world of outdoor furniture (or indoor furniture, for that matter). 

It is super comfy and has proven to be an ideal spot for afternoon naps :)

The rug is also an indoor/outdoor one from Rugs USA. The vibe I was hoping to capture out here was "Nancy Myers Movie Set" and I felt like the blue and white color scheme from the rug helped achieve that nicely.

The round table is one from our previous living room, which I painted with white chalk paint.

It remains to be seen how this will hold up over the winter, but the table was headed for the donation pile anyway, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try and resuscitate it.

The chairs are from Target, and I am pleasantly surprised by how much I like them. 

I think the back detail is so pretty, and the navy outdoor fabric fits in perfectly out here:

On the wall behind the chairs I have a couple of larger decorative pieces, as well as a tall etagere, which I found at an estate sale and spray-painted white. 

Lots of outdoor-friendly decor and a basket full of throws for when the weather cools down. 

One piece I really love is this statue from Homegoods:

I think it's intended to be a bird feeder, but I just liked the sort of zen feeling it adds to this space. 

E thinks it's really great too since it's basically the same height as her. She especially likes putting her animal crackers in his hands.

The only other thing we might add out here is a tall plant, maybe something like this fiddle leaf fig:

Unfortunately, I have a bit of a black thumb, so I'm not sure I want to buy a big plant only to kill it off in a few months (which is what usually happens for me).  We'll see.

So, that's the screened porch. We love using this space, and I know we'll continue to spend lots of time out here even as the weather cools off into the fall. 

Thanks for reading!