Hi friends! I wanted to pop in to share some recent home decor favorites along with purchases we have made. Our house is a New England cape style home, so the bedrooms are all upstairs and the downstairs is all living area. We are focusing on the downstairs first. It’s an open concept so I need to ensure everything from the dinning room, to living room, breakfast nook and kitchen flow together nicely. You can see our empty house tour HERE!
I’m not sure how to classify our interior ‘style’, but overall I just want it inviting, calm and relaxing. For colors, I’m drawn to greys, whites and creams which is no surprise if you saw our previous apartment’s bedroom and living room. I will eventually tie in an accent color so it’s not purely white and grey, but we have time to figure that out! I’m thinking dusty blue.
Through decorating our spaces, I first start with Pinterest for inspiration. From there, I see what styles, pieces or colors are consistent through my board. It’s a clear indicator of what you naturally like!
Then I search for pieces that fit the style – whether a certain colored chandelier, style of barstool, specific textured rug, floral wallpaper etc. At this time, I don’t worry about pricing. This is purely sourcing the inspiration. I pull images of each piece into a style board via Photoshop which is key! I can share the one I have currently running for our downstairs if you’d like!
This style board is the best way to see if the style, material and colors mesh together. You can see if a jute rug looks nicely with your dinning room table, if a pair of curtains stays consistent to your color scheme or is just too busy, etc. I never made a purchase without pulling it into this style board.
From there, once I know the ‘type’ of item I’m looking for, ex: 9X12 jute rug, three pendant gold chandelier, I search for a piece that’s in our budget or I save for the ‘splurge’ piece I really want. We are investing in pieces we really, really love in this house, so if it takes me three years to totally furnish it – I’m a-okay with that. I hate spending money on things I sorta like or something ‘that will do for now’ because I hate wasting money.
I still haven’t even decided on a shower curtain for our master because I haven’t found anything I “love”. Even for something so little, I hate the thought of spending money on something I think “meh it’ll work for now”. Especially when you will be seeing the piece every day! Anyone else like that?!
Anyways – while this isn’t my style board per se, it pulls in a lot of pieces from it that I’m eyeing or that we have already purchased.
We bought this dinning room table and I’m absolutely in love with it. While we wanted a table before Thanksgiving to host, I wasn’t putting pressure on myself to find one. On our wedding anniversary weekend in Portland, we walked through the shops in the Old Port. I saw this table and fell in love. I thought we’d find a ‘modern’ feeling farmhouse style table [if that even makes sense] and nothing ‘rustic-y’, since that’s usually not my style, but seeing and feeling this one in person made me sold. When I told S I’d be down for it, he did a double take in disbelief! We only have white wood furniture in our house so far, so he was excited to have a piece like this.
Even when I find something home related that I like, I usually wait a month or so for it to sit in my mind so that I don’t make an impulsive decision and know I won’t get sick of it! During a sale a couple weeks ago, we pulled the trigger and are really happy with the deal we got. It’s a $1,100 table on sale for 20% off in the color I loved [Stone grey Pine] for $700. Pieces are even better when they are a deal, right? It’s still on sale, but I’m assuming they are discontinuing the shade due to it being the only color marked down that much.
I’ve wanted these chairs for five years, so we will get them eventually.. maybe next month! They are always running 20% off sales, so I’ll definitely wait until then. The style is so classic and they will last us years upon years. I’m debating between the cream or the grey [our table has touches of gray in the wood]. Once the table is delivered this week, I’ll have a better idea of which, but just from this collage and my style board, the cream looks super pretty.
I recently purchased this mirror which makes me so giddy. Another item I knew I’d purchase once we bought a house! Since a mirror isn’t a real ‘necessity’ right now, I just grabbed a bit of my weekly blog income and ordered it when it was 20% off. If you love it as well, it hardly ever goes on sale, but it usually in during the holidays so I’ll let you know when I see that deal! I’m not sure where it will live yet.. we left the space above our fireplace a blank canvas [absolutely did not want our tv above there!!] to play with so maybe there or a vanity!
Other than that, the other items are things I’ve been eyeing.. I adore Serena and Lily EVERYTHING including these barstools. They would live at our island bar in the kitchen, I think I can tie the material and texture into the into the dinning room that’s nearby if I layer a jute rug underneath this rug that will live under the dining table? Lol.. We shall see, but I love the Parisian take and am in L-O-V-E with them.
Thanks for stoping by and going on this adventure with us! Xo Mindy
SHOP OUR HOME
