My sister-in-law Amy just came to visit. When she saw my home office, she asked, “Is this where the blog magic happens?” Yep. This is it, folks. I spend a lot of time in here, which may explain why I redecorate it so often. It’s come a long way from that boring white box of a room my daughter so happily posed in back in 2006, and it just got yet another makeover. But before I show you that, let’s take a look at how it’s evolved over the years…

For my birthday in 2007, my husband Dave gave my study its first makeover. He ripped up the carpet and put down hardwood floors. He painted the walls (“Tawny Green” by Waverly Home), added crown molding, and replaced the boring ceiling fixture with a new chandelier. Much better.

I liked the green, but it always felt a little dark in here. My window faces our wooded backyard, so it was like sitting in the shade. I needed it to be a little brighter.

So in 2010 I decided to lighten things up with a pale blue wall color (Eddie Bauer’s “Seaside”):

It was lighter, but there was something about that shade of blue that always felt a little chilly to me. I added some orange and yellow and hot pink around the room to warm things up a bit but it never seemed quite right.

Also, those silk curtains were always wrinkly and messy looking no matter what I did to iron them out, and they kind of drove me crazy. One day I decided I couldn’t take the sight of them another minute and took them down. I planned to get new ones, but the window was bare for the next 2 years (!). Funny how that happens…

Sharp-eyed readers will notice we switched out the brassy gold doorknobs, too. That was a major project but we finally replaced all of the cheapo door hardware throughout the house with something more substantial.

Last summer we painted our bedroom a teal blue color called Ocean Voyage (from Valspar) and I loved it:

It posed a new problem for me, though, because my office is connected to the bedroom. There are French doors between the two, but they’re almost always open. And you can just imagine how awful the light blue looked with the deep teal. Ick.

I wasn’t sure I wanted my study to be this dark, though. The solution? I painted it “Sea Song,” which is one step lighter on the paint strip. In these photos the colors look totally different, but when you’re standing between the rooms they look almost identical.

That was last summer. I finally finished it with new window treatments and a lamp this spring, and here’s how it looks today:

It’s a lot better than the original drab space I had to work in, for sure:

I wish I’d thought to get Lily to pose for me in it again. She made that little yellow pillow for me on the chair below with the heart on it “to match your study!”

I had been searching for some simple curtains for this room for years. I found these in the Pottery Barn Teen catalog, of all places. I guess I’m a teenage girl at heart!

When I saw they had a coordinating lamp with a hot-pink ribbon on the shade, I couldn’t resist it, either:

I’m always amazed when I see home offices that other bloggers work in who have small desks that have nothing but a laptop on them and straight-backed chairs. I couldn’t live without my big screen and a comfortable desk chair. Also, where do those bloggers hide the practical stuff like printers and file cabinets? (For the record, my files are behind that closet door!)

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years–I always keep a painting of my childhood home on my desk. I loved that house.

Another thing that hasn’t changed: the furniture. I’m still using the old repurposed kitchen table from my childhood as a desk and bookshelves we’ve had since our first apartment.

These cubbies were a Target find nearly 15 years ago, but they still keep me organized:

This was supposed to be a bedroom, but we added the doors leading into the bedroom to make it part of our master suite. (We added a bigger bedroom down the hall over what was supposed to be a two-story family room–you can see it here.) It’s the smallest room in the house but it’s all I need.

Once again, here’s how the room looked when we first moved in:

And here it is today:

It’s a bright, happy space to work in now.

Wonder what color I’ll paint it next? I think I just heard my husband groaning from the next room–just kidding, Honey! I’ll wait at least another year. Do you have a room in your house that you can’t seem to leave alone?

Visit “My House” to see more of it, including my bedroom makeover and…

When I woke up on Monday and saw snow falling outside my window, I thought it must be an April Fool’s Day joke. I mean, really. Aren’t we done with winter-coat weather yet? All the cold, snowy days we’ve had lately have made it hard to get in the mood for any kind of spring decorating…

But then I got a little inspiration in the mail–a case of 6 limited-edition Ball Heritage Collection Pint Jars. They commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Ball brothers’ “Perfect Mason Jar” that came out of Muncie, Indiana, in 1913.

I almost never accept freebies from companies, but I couldn’t resist these. They remind me of my husband’s Grandma Blanche who had shelves lined with canned fruits and vegetables. We have one of her old glass jars that I keep on my kitchen windowsill and I always wish I had more.

These feature a “vintage-inspired blue tint and period correct embossed logo.” I knew I had to find some way to use them in my dining room, which had been looking a little lifeless and dull since the Christmas decorations came down in January.

At first I put little electric candles in them, which created a warm glow in the room at night.

But as soon as I was able to get my hands on some daisies, I turned them into vases. They made the room feel like it’s ready for warm weather now–even though it’s still chilly outside.

Do you use Ball Jars in your house? What do you do with them? You can learn more about them at Fresh Preserving.

When I looked down from the upstairs hallway and saw my daughter Lily dusting the dining room, I couldn’t resist snapping a pic.

Is it still cold where you live? It was in the 40s here today, but it’s supposed to warm up this weekend (fingers crossed). Our spring bulbs and bushes have hardly done anything this year. Usually they’re in full bloom by now! If you missed it, you can see how my house looked on a recent snowy day. Here’s hoping that’s the last we see of the white stuff for a while!

Visit “My House” to see more of it, including…

On Tuesday night it started “pouring snow” and by Wednesday morning the school called a Snow Day. Woo-hoo! There’s something thrilling about an unexpected day off, especially when the snow is piling up outside and everything kind of comes to a standstill. I snapped some photos around the house while the snow was falling and thought I’d share them with you today. Come on in!

We don’t use the sunroom as much on the coldest days of winter, but yesterday we cranked up the heat and settled in to enjoy the view.

My mom was here with us and said, “Your backyard looks like Narnia!”

Spring is right around the corner, so we’ll enjoy the snow while it lasts. Hot chocolate, anyone?

For Valentine’s Day, my husband Dave surprised me with this vintage strawberry jam jar:

I used to have one like it that I found at an antiques store, but last year he accidentally knocked it off the kitchen counter and broke the little green lid. He said was determined to track down another one for me. How sweet is that?

He also found two old Nancy Drew Mysteries that were missing from my childhood collection. I keep them in the playroom, so let’s head upstairs and I’ll show you…

They still make me smile every time I see them:

Dave noticed that I was missing volumes 12 and 15 and got them for me.

I can’t wait to read The Haunted Bridge and The Message in the Hollow Oak. Does anyone else collect those older editions with the yellow spines?

I love the view of the snow-covered backyard from the playroom, too. So peaceful…

Thanks for stopping by on this cold, wintry day. Anyone else enjoy a snow day this week?

Visit “My House” to see more of it, including…

The Day the Monkeys Took Over the Playroom

Summer in My Sunroom

So. Last time we talked about my master bathroom, I was feeling just a teensy bit emotional. We had just gotten new tile installed, which I expected to love. But it felt like a total FAIL to me because I hadn’t realized that the black grout we chose would line the edges of the room. And that it would look an awful lot like black mold…

Here’s a snapshot I took of it at the time from the bedroom, and you can see it didn’t look too bad from a safe distance:

But if you looked more closely, you could see that in the process of laying the tile, the black grout had stained the woodwork pretty badly and left a nasty black edge around everything:

I got lots of great advice from you guys about what to do about it.

Most of you suggested that all we needed to do was install quarter-round along the baseboards to cover it up. We got some trim that was a little smaller size than that for $20 bucks, and it only took a couple of hours for us to put it down. It turned out to be an easy and effective fix. Hooray!

Here’s how one corner of the room looked with the black grout lines before:

My neat-freakiness couldn’t handle that “dirty” look in my bathroom. Here’s how it looks now with the edges cleaned up:

When I stepped back and saw the difference it made, I heard angels singing. Ahhhh!

We touched up the baseboard paint while we were at it, which had gotten kind of beat up by all the grout-slinging, and went around the door frames (where there couldn’t be trim) with white silicone.

Let me just back up a bit and show you where this bathroom started. It’s come a long way. Here’s an overhead shot I took of it from a ladder when we started painting it. The wall color was originally something pretty bland, called “Camel.”

And, as you can see, we had old carpet in the vanity area and vinyl in the water closet. It wasn’t pretty.

After we painted our bedroom a teal-blue color called “Ocean Voyage” earlier this year, we had to bring the color into the bathroom because the two rooms are vaulted and open into each other. That’s the first thing we did:

We tried to get that giant plate-glass mirror off the wall, but it wasn’t budging. So we did the next-best thing and framed it with moldings. But it wasn’t easy.

My husband Dave has worked a lot with crown molding and trim, but this turned out to be a new kind of challenge for him. Why? Because you have to glue it to the mirror. You can’t just nail it into place. And the trim was a little warped after sitting in the garage overnight to dry (after we painted it). That normally wouldn’t matter, but look at the (frankly ridiculous) lengths we had to go to to hold it in place until the glue dried:

When it came time to hang the top piece, we were stumped because there would be nothing to hold it up there overnight. Then Dave had the idea to wedge a ladder into it–and it worked!

The mirror looks a little less “naked” now:

We also trimmed out the window (which was a much easier job!) and painted the bench black. Here’s that corner of the bathroom before:

And after:

I just hung window treatments I found on sale at Pottery Barn (Elena Palampore Linen Sheer Drapes–don’t you love the fancy names they give them?). From the bathroom you can see the heavier lined Alessandra drapes in our master bedroom, so they had to kind of coordinate.

In case you missed my earlier post about it, the tile I chose was a design that reminded me of something you’d find in an old house like the one I grew up in. It’s called Sausalito.

Our laundry closet is directly to the right behind double doors. There was supposed to be a giant tub there, but I knew I’d rather have my washer and dryer in my bathroom so I would never have to haul baskets of clothes downstairs and through the kitchen. I’m lazy like that.

We put a tub in the water closet instead. That freed up the laundry room off the garage to be a dedicated mudroom, which I honestly don’t know what I’d do without.

In this next photo you can see how the bathroom is open to the bedroom. I don’t know who started that trend, but this is the second house we’ve lived in that had this set-up and I HATE it.

We added the double doors between the bedroom and bathroom, at least. Otherwise it would have been completely open.

Those mirrored doors lead to our walk-in closet, and the laundry is on the left. It’s a pretty efficient set-up. I pull clothes right out of the dryer and hang them up in the closet.

So there you have it–my pretty-much-finished master bathroom. I’m still tinkering with some of it. Since I took these photos I hung some hammered-brass sconces and a few other things.

I feel like our master bedroom and bath makeover took up most of my decorating energy (and budget) for 2012. Now I’m trying to decide what to focus on in 2013. Lots of rooms need new flooring, including our bedroom. I think our finished basement will get some attention, and I’m itching to redecorate my family room. Do you have any “house goals” for the new year?

P.S. I used the same tile but with white grout in my daughter’s bathroom:

 And you can see the post about my bedroom makeover here:

My Boring Bedroom Gets a Wake-Up Call

(Visit my new “My House” page to see more!)

We keep hearing that dining rooms are “out,” and no one needs them any more. But I have to say one of the (totally frivolous) reasons I love mine is because it’s fun to decorate for the holidays.

It really starts to feel like Christmas when my daughter Lily helps me glitter up the room with silver and gold. We set the table and light the candles. Turn on the white tree so it blinks merrily at neighbors driving past our house on the street…

One of Lily’s friends was here for a sleepover recently, and when her mom stopped by the next morning to pick her up, she walked in, took a look at the dining room, and then opened her arms wide. “Ahhhh!” she sighed. “Your house just feels good.”

That was one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten. Despite the general disarray from having a bunch of 10-year old girls running around the house all night, she thought it felt good here. That’s what we all really want, right?

Back when I worked as a design assistant, I got to spend time in million-dollar mansions. And let me tell you, they didn’t all feel good. They looked fabulous by the time the designer I worked for was finished with them, but I was usually happy to go home to my humble one-bedroom townhouse with the sloping floors at the end of the day.

My house is not perfect or perfectly designed. I decorate on an IKEA and Target budget. I have a “House Projects” list as long as my arm. But it’s home, and there’s no place I’d rather be with my family, especially at this time of the year.

Wherever you’re spending the holidays, I hope they’re filled with love and cheer! I’m joining Nesting Place’s Christmas Tour of Homes today, so head over there to see how everyone else is decorating for the season!

 P.S. Want to see more of my rooms?

Visit “My House” Page.

When we initially started planning our sunroom addition about 2 years ago, it was supposed to be a screened porch. But then I started thinking about how I’d like to spend more time out there, so I asked how much more it would cost to add windows. How about insulation under the floor and in the walls? A little heating unit sure would be nice, too…

Before we knew it, our humble screened-porch project evolved into a sunroom that we could use year-round. And it was one of the best decisions we ever made.

It can feel a little chilly out there on the coldest days of winter, though, with all those windows and electric heat, so I warm things up as much as possible. Replacing some of the yellow with red seems to help! A few thick, soft throws to wrap tootsies in do, too.

And in the afternoons after the kids get home from school, mugs of hot chocolate do the trick with whipped cream and chocolate chips on top. Yum.

I love listening to the Indie Holiday Station on Pandora when I’m out here (we have a Roku box hooked up to the TV so we can stream Netflix and Hulu Plus movies in the sunroom, too).

I’m always mixing things up out here. For example, here’s how the sunroom looked a couple weeks ago:

And here’s how it looked after I found lime-green velvet pillows at Target that I couldn’t resist and then moved some things around:

My mini Shih Tzu Maizie can usually be found right here on the sofa (it’s an Ektorp from IKEA). She loves to lie in the sun. She seems to think she’s a cat. She doesn’t ever really bark, just kind of makes little “purring sounds” when she wants our attention.

For a long time we thought it was the result of her injuries. But then when my mom’s (adorable!) Yorkipoo pestered her a little too much one day, trying to get her to play, Maizie finally turned and yapped at her. We were stunned! It was like, wow, she can talk!

Thanks for stopping by my sunroom on this cold winter day. Maizie and I hope you come back for another visit soon. There’s plenty of hot choc for everyone.

To see how it looked when the weather was warmer:

Summer in My Sunroom (Or Visit My House for More!)

P.S. I’m joining the Holiday Home Tour Parties at The Inspired Room and Cottage Magpie! Check ‘em out!

When I was growing up, there were basically two colors to decorate for Christmas with: red and green. It wasn’t that long ago that seeing other holiday colors was pretty unusual–in 2008 I posted photos of a blue Christmas that got mixed reviews from readers who felt it was straying a little too far from the traditional.

But now there are so many other color combinations being used out there–pale greens, sky blues, hot pinks, daring purples, you name it!–that I’m actually starting to feel a little old fashioned with my tried and true traditional reds.

I still love bringing the red out every December, though. It just feels “merry” to me.

In our last house, red didn’t work at all with our furniture and wall colors. I went with burgundy and pink for Christmas, which seemed really daring at the time.

When we moved here and changed to a more neutral palette, I was able to go back to classic red. I had missed it.

I do love seeing how other people decorate with different colors, though. And sometimes I wish I could try something new. When we turned our front living room into a dining room, it gave me a chance to play around with silver and gold:

I love the way my dining room glows at night with the silver and gold. But I think I’ll always have to have a little red somewhere in my house.

What colors are you using for Christmas this year? Are you trying fresh new combinations or rocking it old-school with red?

P.S. I’ll be showing you more of my Christmas decorating soon, so stay tuned. Oh, and several of you asked about Christmas linky parties, but since every blogger in the world seems to be doing them now, I’ve decided not to host one myself this year. Sorry!

Visit My House to See More!

When I was interviewed by the blog CECY j, one of the questions she asked was, “How would you describe your decorating style in one word?” I had never been asked that before, so I had to think about it a bit. Only one?

I looked around my house. If I had never been here before, what would stand out to me? What things am I most drawn to? How would friends describe my style?

Then I started thinking about my personality. What do I like and need in my life and from my home, and how does that translate into how I decorate?

I finally settled on the word simple. It’s one that resonates with me in many ways beyond just decorating. I like to keep things simple in both my house and in my life. I focus on the handful of things that are really important to me and try to forget the rest.

As an introvert who is also a “Highly Sensitive Person” (that book changed my life!), I need plenty of breathing space. I don’t like “busyness” in either my calendar or my decor. (Any other HSPs out there? I bet a lot of my readers are, since being so sensitive to our surroundings makes us care about how our homes look and feel.)

It’s important for my house to feel calm and relaxed and for me, keeping things simple is a way to achieve that. I hate clutter and have a minimalist streak. My house supports me with several quiet corners I can retreat to–like my sunroom, which is my favorite spot to “breathe” in.

I don’t like things that are too fancy, formal, or scream for attention. Nothing high-maintenance goes into my house. I’ll take a milk glass pitcher full of daisies from my yard over red roses in crystal any day. I guess I’m just a simple girl at heart.

So now I want to know, how would you describe your decorating style? Can you boil it down to just one word?

More Thoughts on Home:

• What Would Your “Emotional Floorplan” Look Like?
• Are You Blind to Your House?
• Is the Era of the Perfect Home Over?

(Stone cottage in Connecticut via Front Door.)

F

all is one of my favorite times of the year to decorate around. I love how all the orange, gold, and brown makes my house look glowy and warm. I’m not one of those creative-crafty DIY types who goes all out, creating an Autumn Wonderland that has Better Homes & Gardens beating down my door. But I do like to swap out all the summery stuff for orange throws and pillows, pumpkins and gourds, and lots of candles (I discovered the joys of flameless ones this year, so I have them flickering all the time now!).

I’ve been enjoying the coziness of our family room. Come on in…

You may remember I used to have a black coffee table with a glass top in front of the sofa. Here’s how it looked before:

You also may remember me complaining about how it drove me crazy. That glass top was impossible to keep clean. Everyone wanted to put their feet up but the table was higher than the sofa, which made it uncomfortable. And because the table was black, it showed dust approximately 5 seconds after dusting it. Not only that, but dust would seep underneath the glass and taunt me.

In one of those “I’ve had it!” moments, I relegated it to the basement rec room, where I don’t care how dusty and smudgy it looks.

Problem was, we had nothing to replace it with. For a while the family room was kinda empty. Then my husband pulled this poor old footstool up from storage, and it sat in the middle of our family room all summer.

It was not only too small, but it was ripped in places and missing two of its buttons. I felt compelled to tell everyone who came to my house that the footstool was “Only temporary!”

At one point I ordered a black ottoman from Target.com, but it was immediately obvious that it wasn’t going to work. It was like a big black hole in the middle of the room. And the square shape didn’t look right in the space, either:

Finally, I found an ottoman I both liked and could afford in a Grandin Road catalog. It came in lots of colors (I chose Natural), was the right size (a rectangle, not a square), and was only $249–a lot less than most of the others I had looked at. Woo-hoo!

I like how it lightened things up in here, especially since it’s such a small room:

I have so many more things I want to do in here. We got an estimate on installing hardwood floors. The carpet is worn out and needs to go. But as you know, I already spent a lot of money on new flooring this year, so it might be awhile.

Also worn out: the sofa. I’m constantly having to fluff the cushions back up. Lots of throw pillows are required to hide the mushed-up, lumpy cushions. But it’s comfy and the kids love taking naps on it, so I’ll put up with it for a little while longer…

About this point in the photo session, Maizie decided she wanted to be a part of it. She’s the Shih-Tzu we adopted last year. She was in bad shape when we got her. But after surgery and lots of TLC, she’s doing great. And she is the sweetest little thing. You’d never know she had such a rough start in life. (You can read her story here if you missed it.)

We were recently told by someone who works with small dogs that Maizie is actually a Micro Shih Tzu. The woman was very excited to see her because apparently there aren’t many of them around. We had no idea–we just thought she was small for her breed. (She usually looks even smaller–she needs a haircut!)

Then the kids came home from school and crashed the photo shoot, too…

Within 5 minutes, the family room was wrecked again, the throw pillows tossed off the sofa and the floor littered with book bags, dirty socks, cast-off hoodies, and homework. But let’s just pretend it always looks this neat and tidy, okay?

Thanks for stopping by! How do you decorate for fall?

P.S. I won’t be hosting a linky party this year but there are plenty out there if you want to participate. A good place to start: The Inspired Room’s annual month-long Fall Nesting Series. If you’re hosting one, feel free to let us know in the comments!

Visit “My House” to See More of It!

You already heard about my misadventures in bathroom tile (it was a “Decorating FAIL” in our master bath). Let’s just say I didn’t realize how it would look with black grout all around the edges of the room (think black mold). We used the same Sausalito octagonal tile in my daughter Lily’s bathroom but with white grout, so I thought I’d show you how that project turned out.

But let’s back up a minute and take a look at how the bathroom looked when we first moved in:

That was nearly 10 years ago, before I had a digital camera, which is why this scan of the old photo is so lousy. Gives you the idea, though.

For some unfathomable reason, the builder put in a long mirror that went not only over the sink but across the back of the toilet, too. Then, to add insult to injury, there was a long, bright brass light fixture centered over it–instead of over the vanity.

So one of the first things we did was take down the mirror and lights, patch the wall, and hang a new mirror and lights centered over the sink.

The bathroom was looking a lot happier, but the vinyl flooring was kind of a brownish color and just wasn’t helping the small space in any way.

So when we decided to get our master bath tiled, we had them do this one, too. We chose American Olean’s Sausalito white ceramic tile–same as in our master.

The morning before the tile went in, I woke up with a start, realizing that the black grout wouldn’t look right in the kids’ bath. It needed to be switched to white. Whew! Thank goodness I thought of that in the nick of time because after all the trouble I had with the black grout, I’m relieved I didn’t have to deal with it in here, too.

On the day of the install, I snapped a last pic of the sad old vinyl:

The room is so tiny it didn’t take Dave the Installer long to rip out the vinyl and put in the tile. Now it looks nice and fresh and white:

Better, right? It’s so hard for me to get decent pics of such a teeny room. You’ll have to use your imagination a little. But it’s a bright and cheery little space, especially now that it has the new tile.

Lily and I found the outdoor hanging lanterns at Michael’s and thought the colors were perfect for her bathroom:

The paint color is called Craftsman White. I actually bought it for another room and was shocked when it turned out a pale yellow. So we used it in here instead.

This room is so small and so short on storage that we added a little hanging cabinet for hand towels and washcloths:

Lily loves her bright and cheery bathroom.

I just realized that you can’t tell from the other photos, but we added crown molding to the room, too–here’s a shot where you can see it:

I got about 200 comments on my black-grout bathroom mess, and several of you mentioned how much more practical the black actually is than white. I heard stories from readers who used this tile or something similar with white grout and now regret it. Oh, boy. So now I’m worried about how this floor will look in a few years with the white grout. I’ll let you know if it’s still bright and white a year or two from now…

By the way, we’ve got our master bath looking a lot better now than when I showed it to you. I’ll try to give you an update on it soon!

P.S. I think Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick had the right idea. She used this tile in her laundry room with a warm gray grout. I’m wondering if I should have gone that route myself. Check out how her laundry room floor turned out.