designstiles

I can’t express enough how much I love accessorizing and styling. It’s the final touch that really pulls the room and makes it look complete.

Without these final touches, a room is just pretty fabric or furniture without any real life.

And I especially love it when my designer friend, Ever, calls me to help him out on installation day. And actually on accessories shopping day. We make a fine team.

You may remember last year when I helped him stile and accessorize this project. This year the client decided to work on the downstairs portion of the house.

Again working with a limited budget, Ever decided to work with existing furniture, mostly rearranging items and painting to give the living room, sunroom and family room a fresh, updated look, while keeping the client’s traditional style in mind.

Here’s the living room before.

Kept the existing sofas and rearranged them so they faced each other, moved wingbacks to sunroom, added chandelier, painted, purchased new rug, installed drapes and restiled the heck out of it.

Client already owned lamps and coffee table was brought in from family room.

I only snapped this one angle because the left side of the room wasn’t complete yet. I think (hope) you get the idea.

Same with family room. I only snapped one angle.

Kept sectional and just painted, rearranged some things, added drapes, new ottoman and accessories.

My favorite was the sunroom. I mean, what a difference. Amazing what some paint and rearranging will do to a room. Client pretty much already had all the furniture pieces. It was really just a matter of decorating it.

Before

After

These were the wingbacks that were in living room

After

Room already had the wall to wall sisal as well. It adds such great texture and feels perfect for a sunroom.

Room now feels like a sunroom; bright and, well, sunny. Great little room to sit and chat. And drink.

Happy Tuesday!

I’m so pumped to finally get to share this styling project I worked on with my blogger buddies turned friends in real life (FIRLs), Erika and Sabra.

A few months ago, Erika was working on transitioning her daughter’s nursery to big girl room, during the same time that Sabra was working on launching her own photography business. While Sunday brunching one afternoon, we discussed collaborating on something together. We decided Leighton’s room would be the perfect opportunity to teamup.

I came in to add some final touches Erika was looking for and get it photo ready for Sabra. The result was a Cute Bohemian big girl room for Erika’s daughter, Leighton.

I think she liked it.

She’s quite the artist too. Most of the art in her room is drawn by her.

So much cuteness and color. My kind o’ room.

Check out Erika’s blog for a list of all sources and see the room before as a nursery.

Happy Friday!

White trim highlights and contrasts against a wall color, but most recently I’m seeing trim painted the same color as walls, sometimes in a different finish.

This look feels dramatic, modern and seamless. And even when dark colors are used, the look still manages to feel soothing.

I’m itching to give this look a try.

Happy Tuesday!

I wanted to share a few insta-shots from my nephew’s first birthday. Mostly because he’s so cute. And I really don’t think I’m just saying that because he’s my nephew, or because I’ve been told he looks like me, he really is a cute kid. They say he looks like me. Did I say that already?

As mentioned the other day, the theme was Kentucky Derby. It was just a small gathering of close relatives and few friends. And lots of food. There was some KFC in the house.

First year pictures shaped into a one. All great ideas come from Pinterest.

Max and his momma, aka my sister.

centerpieces – jockey hats and horses. My sister cut out felt and put numbers on them.

drink station

one of the most moist cakes I’ve ever had. I’m not even a cake person, but this was as good as it was cute.

Time to start planning birthday number two.

Happy Wednesday!

Saturday evening and most of Sunday was spent putting our house back together. And although I’m still tired from reorganizing, I didn’t really mind it at all because I’m so happy with the way our floors turned out. I’d just look down and admire every time I had to walk back and forth. The house feels slighter bigger and I think all the color I have going on is toned down.

Even TH, who was so anti, couldn’t stop saying how much better this new look is.

So after emptying out every room and closet and managing to squeeze all of our junk into our family room..

                                                                                   (This must be what hoarding feels like)

..it now feels so fresh and so clean, clean.

Even though I didn’t end up going with gray, depending on the way the light hits these, you’ll notice some gray undertones. Or at least I do.

Now we just need to retouch our baseboards. But it were up to me, I’d have them replaced with ones with more height and detail. It never ends.

Happy Monday!