Inspiration images for our new place

You guys, I have so many things I want to talk about and share this year on the blog, but right now, all I can think about is our new place. I mean, is there really anything else worth doing?! It’s taking some serious willpower to not actually buy anything before we move in. . .   But, there is a lot of planning and coordinating to be done, and before I go pulling the trigger actually buying all the beautiful things, I want to be sure I have a clear vision of what I’m creating in our new space….

Why I don’t decorate for the holidays

This is not a picture of my house, but doesn’t it look festive?! Since October I’ve been seeing one blog post after another from bloggers showing their new fall decor, and then their new Thanksgiving decor, and now their Christmas decorations. While I love seeing the beautiful decorations and am in awe of some of the things people put together out there, sometimes it seems like it’s just a contest to see who can show us the most different ways you can decorate for Christmas because every year they scrap everything from the past and come up with something totally…

Let’s talk baby nurseries!

First let me clarify ~ no, I’m not pregnant. And while I will probably not ever have a need to design a nursery for myself, it just happens to be a space that I’ve always wanted to design! One of my teammates is preggo and so I thought, what better time than now to do a post all about baby nurseries, so that I can indulge this long held dream and share some of my favorite inspirations and pics for these spaces?! I thought about showing just one ‘most favorite’ design approach and ‘style’ for this blog post, but honestly,…

Finding your style, so that you can bring it to life.

Before we moved I did a serious closet purge and got rid of most of my clothes. {honestly, I could still get rid of more} I would literally stand in front of the closet every morning and, feeling defeated and uninspired, I would literally say out loud with a sigh ~ I don’t know what to wear. Every day. Did I love anything in my closet? Do I even have a style? Probably not. It’s so easy in our closets and our houses to just amass a random collection of things over time that we often unintentionally end up living in…

An Ode to all the ‘Bad Girls’ and Rebels

Sunday was the 98th anniversary of women winning the right to vote. Can you believe that? It’s hard to imagine not being able to vote… the more I think about it it’s hard to imagine not being able to do many things that women haven’t always been allowed to do. Work Own property Have my own bank account Wear pants That’s just a tiny few. It can really be such a big deal for us to have more of anything, ever. Sometimes just doing what you love is a supremely rebellious act. {Susan B. Anthony, a primary leader in the…

Bathroom Inspiration ~ the patterned floor tile trend

One new bathroom trend I am really loving right now is patterned floor tile. The new super cool look is Spanish influenced tiles that are fairly ornate. And while I do think this is one element that can be done very well and look timeless in it’s own way for a long time, it can also easily be overly trendy and look bad after jut a few years, depending on what you select. I feel like it can be hard to put in words what makes a good patterned tile and what is ‘bad’ or too trendy, that will look…

At the end of the day, it’s not ‘ours’… and what that feels like

I’m talking about our apartment. Lately we’ve been in a wee bit of a rut my manfriend and I… one of us, I won’t say who {totally him} is a bit way more messy than the other, and it’s caused some friction, to say the least. While we might only be in this space for a shorter time, I still want to make it nice and have it feel as much like ‘home’ as we can. My manfriend is more of the mindset that it’s just a temporary space so what does it matter if it’s messy? And as we’ve trudged…

Design 101: Listening to the language of your house

So how do you create a great design? There are many many rules of thumb and practical tips… and you can always pay lots of money to go and get a formal education to have all of the official answers for yourself… But maybe one of the most basic things that everyone should remember, and one of the most helpful, above {and before} everything else is to listen to the language of your house. What does that even mean anyway… A while back we helped a couple buy a mid 90’s frame house that was a contemporary style. Pretty clean lines,…

Recipe for a Spectacular Outdoor Space

Happy Holiday week! Hopefully you have some time off this week to enjoy the summer weather and some good company. Maybe you’ve got a bbq on a great rooftop planned? We’re going to be heading out for a lazy rooftop morning on Wednesday before we head out to the suburbs to spend the afternoon celebrating with friends… Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about great outdoor space, mainly how much I miss it and want it! It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything close to amazing outdoor space and man, am I seriously longing for it lately. In Chicago…

Bye bye subway backsplash… a new trend is in town.

Subway tiles are classic, and ~ if done right ~ are timeless. But they’ve been so popular for enough years now that even these are starting to feel a little tired and overdone. I’ll always love them, but I will admit, there’s another approach to backsplashes that’s been a rare sighting for a long time, but is getting a little more attention these days, and I couldn’t be more excited. The slab as backsplash. Personally I’ve been head over heels in love with this look for a long time. It doesn’t really get more sophisticated than this. And if anything is more…