When we moved into the house, our plan was to leave the dated kitchen alone, waiting until we did a full remodel and basically start from scratch.

But if there is anything you should know about me and Ryan it is that we aren’t afraid to stray from the plan.

By day three of living here, we started a mini kitchen makeover (removing the upper cabinets, painting the lowers, adding a few can lights, replacing the sink and faucet and updating the hardware) and called it good for now. And it really did help!

Even though we both loved the dark charcoal we used on the cabinets, it was starting to feel really, really dark in our already pretty dark house. We went with that dark paint color to try to tie the floors and countertops together. Neither are surfaces we would choose, but they are what we have and until a full remodel is in the budget, they will stay. The dark cabinets looked really nice (especially in pictures – see them here), they were just too dark for our house.

So I decided to repaint. Just over one year later.

It took me about a week of painting and living in a very disheveled kitchen, but here’s how it looks now:

After much sampling and going back and forth on color choices, I decided on Anew Gray by Sherwin Williams. It is a light warm gray that pulled some of the taupe out of the counters, but still works with the cool gray of the floor and stainless appliances.

Here’s a pulled back shot of the whole kitchen.

So now that the cabinets are painted the new color, here are my thoughts:

It for sure makes the kitchen feel lighter.

Whereas before the floor and cabinets blended together to create a lot of dark on the bottom half of the room, the lighter cabinets help differentiate the floor and let it be the foundation.

In a perfect world, we would change out the cold gray tile floor for a warmer wood and I think that would make a huge difference in giving us the light and warmth we prefer. But for now, the colors work together.

The same goes for the granite tile countertops. They are not my very favorite and if I got to pick, I’d choose a solid surface without much variation – probably something light.

This kitchen is an exercise in creativity and gratitude and while of course I’d love to just redo the whole thing to make it look just as it does in my head, that isn’t the reality right now.

A friend dropped by a few months ago for the first time and she was so complimentary about our kitchen. She commented on the size and the counter space and how great it flowed with the rest of the house for entertaining.

All of these things are true. It is big. There is lots of counter space and ample room between the island and perimeter cabinets. You can fit a bunch of people in here at the same time. It is a great entertaining space.

I am tempted to point out what I want to change (and often I do) … the floors and countertops and wall between the kitchen and dining room, the beam … and then always feel terrible for how ungrateful it all sounds.

So while, yes, it is a little crazy to paint kitchen cabinets twice in less than two years, it is teaching me to be grateful for this big space and make the most of it.

When the cabinets were painted dark, we also painted out all the trim and doors downstairs. We initially tried the window trim in white paint and it just didn’t look right. So we went dark.

It probably looked more cohesive when the cabinets were the same color as the trim, but I have no interest in repainting all of the trim in the downstairs. That would be a lot of painting. And I’ve already done that once.

My mom suggested just painting out the window trim in either Anew Gray to match the cabinets or in white.

I’m considering. But not yet. It doesn’t actually bother me.

You can see how the cabinets work with the trim color as it wraps into the dining room.

Everything is so neutral and the colors look nice together, so for now, it will all remain.

The black chalkboard in the eating area helps tie in the trim color, too.

So that’s where we’re at with the kitchen. It is big. It is great for entertaining. And has gone from orangy maple to Iron Ore to Anew Gray.

I would normally finish a post like this with a question: what do you think?! 

But I am not sure I really want to know ;)

Mainly, because I’m pretty sure most of you will say the darker color was more striking/more on trend/better in photos. And I mostly agree with this.

If the floors were warm and we had less trees on our property and there were fewer gray days here, I would definitely agree.

However … these things are not true. The floors are dark, we’re surrounded by tall trees that block natural light and the sky in the Pacific Northwest is indeed gray more often than we’d like.

The dark cabinets were lovely and a great experiment and I would go dark again if the circumstances worked.

But for now, we’ll stick with Anew Gray.

I know. I just painted the cabinets a year and a half ago. And they look great! But I think I want to change them anyway.

Let me explain why.

(P.S. these are the exact reasons I’ve given Ryan who just rolls his eyes at me. And when a girlfriend came by the other day after seeing my instagram post about wanting to repaint, I told her these things, too. I’m not sure she left fully convinced, but she just smiled and shook her head at my crazy ways. Friends like this are good.)

Okay, so this is a picture you might see me post of our kitchen.

I took it with my phone on a very dreary, rainy day with all lights off. Then I did the normal photoshopping I do to most photos of the house – lots of lightening and brightening. It looks like such a bright, natural light-filled kitchen!

Alas, this is not true. Here’s the picture straight from the iphone camera:

See how DARK it is?! So dark.

So dark that it’s bumming me out.

Let me remind you the backstory of this kitchen:

When we moved into the house in October 2017 our plan was to leave the kitchen alone until we did a full remodel – removing a wall, adding more windows, reorienting the kitchen and dining rooms. We were going to just live with the perfectly function, yet totally not our style kitchen for a few years.

And then on our first night sleeping in the house I heard Ryan’s drill from the other room and knew just what he was up to. The upper cabinets just didn’t work for us.

And that started a mini kitchen makeover. For about $1000 we transformed the dated space to something so handsome and functional (see that before and after post here). The biggest change was painting the cabinets.

We went dark on the cabinets for a couple of reasons.

1. I adore a white kitchen forever and always but because this was just a ‘in the meantime’ update, trying something totally different sounded fun.
2. This house has pushed me in a more masculine direction with color choices.
3. We needed to find a way to tie the dark gray tile floor in with the speckle-y granite tile.

I would love to replace the counters and have seriously considered finding some sort of concrete-like skim coat product (is this such a thing?) to diy my way to something less speckle-y. We won’t fully replace the counters or floors until the full remodel which is still far-off so finding a way to make both of those elements work is essential.

This is the color palette we landed on:

Shoji White for the walls, Iron Ore for the cabinets, trim and doors and the Peppercorn represents the tile floor (although once I got home from the paint store I realized that the floor is slightly lighter than Peppercorn. But you get the idea).

It really does look nice.

As long as it’s either super bright outside, all the lights are on or photoshop does it’s magic.

So I’m feeling like I should try a new color on the cabinets to see if I can brighten up the space.

Again, keep in mind that this is all just a big experiment with very little risk. We are not planning on keeping these cabinets long-term so I don’t mind painting another layer on them. And while I want them to look nice, they do not have to be perfect. This takes all the pressure off. Also? If the new color looks terrible, I can just paint them back.

I should also mention that I find painting to be fairly enjoyable.

Okay. So here’s what I’m thinking for color. I’d like to pull some of the taupy gray from the counters and warm things up. My initial thought was to use my favorite neutral warm gray – Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore. We had it in our mudroom in the old house and it is the wall color up on the third floor (see it here).

I painted a piece of paper and taped it up to the cabinet just to get an idea.

I know it’s hard to tell from this photo. I didn’t do any post-processing to try to keep the colors as true as possible.

I like the color; Ryan thinks it might be too light. And I see his point. We might want something a little richer to tie the floors and counters together.

After the boys’ football game last weekend, I popped into the paint store to grab a few samples.

The shoji white is our wall color, peppercorn is close to the floors and iron ore is what the cabinets are painted currently. I pulled the warm taupe-y grays that caught my eye.

I was going to buy a few sample pots to bring home, but the Sherwin Williams lady told me they have another sale coming up next weekend and so I decided to wait (and save 40%!). So I just came home with the little paint chips.

It’s kind of helpful to see the colors next to the counters. See that medium taupe in there? I think that’s the color I want to pull out.

I think I narrowed it down to these four:

Fawn Brindle, Mega Greige, Shiitake and Agreeable Gray (which is a near-match to Revere Pewter).

Here are the colors pulled from the Sherwin Williams website, which all feel way darker and browner than the paint chips.  I’ll go in once the sale starts and grab a few sample pots to try out. It’s just too hard to choose a color based on tiny paint chips.

Just to give see what it might look like to go lighter, I played around with photoshop.

Truthfully, I don’t really love it. But I don’t hate it either. The dark cabinets will probably always be more photogenic and striking, but I’m more concerned with how the kitchen feels on a regular day and like I said up there, the dark is feeling so dark.

The trim will stay the same for now (when we remodel we’ll replace it all with simple white trim) and so I don’t want the cabinets to clash. And I love the warm wood of the shelves so that needs to go with the new paint color, too.

So that’s what I’m thinking. I need to find a color that feels brighter, works with the gray floor, speckle-y tile and dark trim, and ties in with the wood shelves.

Am I crazy? Should I try it? (actually, don’t talk me out of it! I really want to see how they look lighter.) And which color should I pick?

The most asked questions about our mini kitchen makeover always center on the open shelves. This is the second kitchen we’ve gone with shelves instead of upper cabinets and I’m certain we’ll do it again when we do a full remodel. They function so well for us, we love the casual look and it gives me a place to style dishes, cake plates, baskets, glassware and plants to make the kitchen look lived-in and cozy.

In our previous kitchen, we used brackets and shelves from IKEA and were very happy with how they looked and how sturdy they were. If you need a refresher, here is what that pretty mostly white kitchen looked like.

This house has a whole different feel and when updating the kitchen we decided to try a new look for us. Our long-term plan is to open up a wall, add more windows and reorient the kitchen to allow for a larger island and focal point range. In the meantime, we did a quick makeover knowing that we had to work with the existing gray tile floors, granite tile counters and lower cabinets. By removing the heavy uppers, it brought so much lightness and openness to the whole space. But, of course, losing all of that storage wouldn’t really function well, so we opted for four sections of open shelves (see the kitchen before + after here and a more recent follow-up post here).

Once we painted the lower cabinets a dark gray (Iron Ore by Sherwin Williams), we loved the idea of bringing warmth into the kitchen with natural wood shelves.

What I really wanted were very minimal, thick floating wood shelves. But I wanted them at a reasonable price (aka inexpensive) and sturdy enough to hold lots of weight and we just were not able to find a solution that worked.

So instead, we found thick reclaimed cedar boards from our local salvage yard and the most minimal brackets we could find.
Now, just to be fair, the wood was not exactly cheap. We could have gone much less expensive with pine boards from the lumber yard, but it felt special to use a nice wood and worth the little extra splurge (although definitely not as expensive as solid floating wood shelves would have been).

We searched and searched for every bracket option we could find. Remember, I wanted very minimal. So while there are countless great bracket options, most were more decorative than I was going for. Looking back, it sure would have made it so much easier if I would have just gone with something mass market :)

Thankfully, Ryan obliged his picky wife and came up with this solution (after a few different tries and fails).

These simple heavy-duty stainless steel angle brackets were our perfect, affordable solution.

Ryan securely screwed the brackets into studs with heavy-duty screws to make sure they were going to hold the shelves and contents.

On the long shelf that holds all of our everyday dishes (see below), he also added screws from the side panel of the cabinet that sits next to the fridge into the side of the shelf. This gave these shelves the extra support they needed without having to put an additional bracket in the center of the shelves (which I didn’t want because remember: very minimal).

The other sets of shelves that flank either side of the windows and sit over the desk area are smaller in both length and depth (9″ deep versus the dish shelves are 11″ deep) so just two brackets screwed into studs work fine to hold them.

The wood we chose is not the heaviest of all woods, but the solid thickness of 1.5″ keeps them from sagging in the center.

Even though we did not get floating shelves exactly, the brackets we ended up using almost disappear against the wall and give us sturdy shelves that can handle the weight of stacked dishes, glassware and serving pieces.

If you are on the hunt for shelf brackets, perhaps the angle brackets we used will work for you, but also don’t forget to look at the selection at World Market, Anthropologie, Rejuvenation and House Of Antique Hardware.

Let me know if you have any other questions about the shelves. I’m happy to answer!

I saw a funny meme the other day:

“Throw pillows are the stuffed animals of grown women.”

How true is that? I can’t quite understand it, but men just don’t seem to value pillows like us women do :)

I recently added a whole stack to our couch.

Ryan, of course, was super pleased.

This family room is our most used room in the house. We bought the sectional first thing when we moved in because we knew we wanted a big, cozy couch for all of us to pile on for reading, gathering, watching movies, football games, Survivor marathons and lately, anything and everything Olympics (see details about the couch and why we chose this particular one here).

I painted the walls and trim this past summer to clean it up a bit (read about that chore here).

Someday we’ll change out the floors to a warm hardwood and add beams and woodwork to the vaulted ceiling. We’ve thrown the idea of a wall of built-ins around and I’m on the hunt for a great piece of artwork to hang above the couch.

Those changes all sound great and I feel slightly impatient about making this room into what we know it can be, but this house is an act of patience. We’re not quite ready for those more time-intensive/cost-intensive decisions and so for now, it’s all about the little things I can do to make the room look cozy, welcoming and pretty.

The last time you saw this room, it looked like this:

You know I have a thing for neutrals with lots of black and white, but this room was feeling a little blah. Maybe even cold. I am so afraid of committing to a color because I know I’m such a seasonal color person (warm colors in the fall, green at Christmastime, peaches and pinks in the spring). But this room – the whole house, actually – is craving some color. Until we have the warmth that wood floors will bring, I need to put it in the house with color.

There was a design show on years ago where the host decorated the room based on favorite items from the owner’s closet. I always loved the premise and the rooms felt more personal to the owner than other design shows on at the time.

When I looked at the family room – with all its black, white and beige, it dawned on me that I should take a cue from our closets.

Everyone in our family looks best in blue. Ryan passed down his bright blue eyes to each of the kids any shade of blue makes their eyes stand out.

As for me, I basically wear jeans everyday so if I am to take inspiration from what I wear, blue is definitely the color of choice.

Since blue is a go-to for both me and the rest of the family, and is a color that feels neutral, one that looks great in our house (like in our bedroom and up in the studio last summer) and is well represented in all of our closets, I decided I can commit to it for the family room. At least for now :)

I saw this denim blue throw blanket on sale at Anthropologie a few weeks ago and that is what started things. (The blanket is unfortunately no longer available. The key, though, at least for me was finding something in the perfect shade to be the jumping off point).

Then I popped into a few stores (HomeGoods, Pier One and Target) to grab a few new pillows to pull together my new blue + neutral color scheme.

I ended up bringing home a couple of blue pillows, a few white, one taupy brown and a woven stripe with a hint of blue. I wasn’t planning on keeping all of them, but once I put them on the couch and mixed in a few pillows that I already had, I actually liked the combination.

I mean, yes, the amount of pillows on the couch might be slightly excessive. But it’s a huge couch that is super deep and can handle loads of them. You actually do need a pillow or two behind you if you want to sit up straight (at least that’s how I justify it).

As I look at all these pictures, what I’m realizing is that I have a thing for texture. Every single pillow has some sort of interesting texture – stripe, woven, chunky, pom poms, faux fur, geometric.

We also switched out the tufted ottomans for our old wood coffee table and I think it helps add depth to the room.

And of course, no room of mine would be complete without fresh greenery :)

This iteration of the family room feels good. Fresh, light, happy.

And while Ryan and the boys have yet to come on board with my pillow-affection, Audrey seems to appreciate them :)

SOURCES

couch | rug | coffee table (similar) | floor lamp | curtains

pillows on couch from left to right:

woven stripe | stripe pom (no longer available) | woven chevron | white pom | blue geometric | faux fur | basketweave pom | mohair stripe | leather (hidden but wonderful!)

One year ago (almost to the day!) I shared our MINI KITCHEN MAKEOVER.

You’ve probably heard me say this a million times, but I’ll say it again: our big plan is to tear out the whole kitchen and dining room and reorient everything. New walls, new windows, new doors, new layout, new cabinets, new floors, new counters. Whew. New everything.

But … we’re not quite ready to do that.

So, in the meantime, we gave the kitchen a facelift.

Truthfully, it’s not my dream kitchen. But also? It’s not bad at all. In fact, it’s making us rethink our big kitchen remodel plans.

Over the weekend, I was thinking about our kitchen and about how while it is not perfect, it feels much more in line with our style. We spent about $1000 updating it and truly, the before and afters are impressive (if I do say so myself).

Which then got me thinking that there are probably a lot of you, my favorite blog readers, who have a kitchen that drives you crazy. I’m sure you’d love to tear the whole thing out and start all over, but perhaps like us, you don’t quite have the budget or bandwidth to take on that project in the near future.

So, do you just keep living with a dated kitchen until you can redo the whole thing? Or is it better to spend a little bit of time and money to make it more your style now?

You know which option I prefer. This whole house has been an exercise in phase one makeovers. And what we’re finding is that those phase one makeovers not only transform our spaces into more stylish rooms, but also make us enjoy living and gathering in our home.

So I’m fully embracing the mini makeovers.

I put together a guide that shares six things you can do to your kitchen without tearing the whole thing out and I hope it will be helpful resource and an encouragement to think about what you can do with your kitchen rather than waiting until you can just start over from scratch. Get the guide RIGHT HERE, or keep scrolling down to the bottom for details.

Since our initial mini makeover, we’ve made a few new updates to the kitchen that I wanted to share. Styling my house and taking pictures is such a fun, creative thing for me, so any excuse I have to play stylist, I take it :)

CHALKBOARD

In our frenzy to finally clear out the dining room of all the random excess that has been stored in there for the past year, we had to decide what to do with this large, beloved chalkboard. We bought it at our local salvage yard in Seattle over 12 years ago. It moved to many different locations in our last house (here it is in the old playroom) and we never could find a good place for it in this house.

This wall in the kitchen eating space is literally the only wall where it would fit (or make sense to hang it) in the house. I was hesitant to put it in here because the kitchen is already so dark that I wasn’t sure how adding another large black item would feel.

But I actually really do like it. Especially with the worn wood of the old church pew. It was really pretty at Christmas time, too, with fresh garland and sweet messages written on it (see it here).

DISHWASHER

This was a really boring, but very necessary update: a new dishwasher.

The dishwasher that came with the house was old, loud and did not get the dishes clean. Our son, Mason, even took to using paper cups because he was so grossed out by the tiny flakes of who-knows-what that were baked on to the glassware in the dishwasher. Our children literally cheered when we told them we ordered a new dishwasher :)

We ordered this one and could not be happier. It is the kind with the top pull-out tray for silverware and I even like that part. It is quiet, efficient and gets our dishes clean.

Sometimes boring updates are especially necessary and wonderful.

P.S. Ryan is a big fan of this website called Wirecutter for finding the best appliances, electronics, home products, etc. That’s how we decided what dishwasher to go with.

SHELVES

Right before Christmas, Ryan suggested that we use the extra pieces of wood leftover from the kitchen shelves to add two more in the desk area. Why did we not put these up right from the start? I do not know. It helps tie that spot in with the rest of the kitchen.

And it gives me more space to store and style.

The biggest update I’m just dying to do is replace the floors. We will tear up all of the floors on the mainfloor and make it all consistent. We currently have wood in the entry, white carpet in the living and dining rooms, dark tile in the kitchen, bathroom and mudroom and a different carpet in the family room and front office. It feels very hodge-podge. And dark.

Floors are expensive, so half of our delay is just needing to save up before taking the plunge. But also, we don’t want to replace the floors until we know for sure what we’re doing with the kitchen and dining room. If we take out the wall between the kitchen and dining room and change the layout of the kitchen, it makes the most sense to do all of that at the same time.

And so, we wait.

But I couldn’t resist playing around with what the kitchen would look like with new floors. Thankfully, the power of photoshop let me magically give our kitchen warm wood floors.

Isn’t that fun? I think the whole house will feel so much brighter and warmer with the addition of wood.

If you’re looking for ways you can update your kitchen, I put together a guide for you.
If your kitchen is feeling dated and doesn’t reflect your style (but you are not quite ready for a full remodel), I have six suggestions for how you can make those updates without spending a fortune.

Click the image (or RIGHT HERE) to get the guide! I hope it will be extra helpful to you as you think about updating your kitchen.

Right before Christmas, we decided to give our dining room a makeover.

It wasn’t really on our immediate house-reno list since our ultimate plan is to take out the wall between the dining room and kitchen to open up the space and reconfigure the floorplan. However, we were hosting all of our family for Christmas and figured a little paint on the doors and trim would go a long way in making the room feel slightly more up to date.

What started as two coats of paint turned into more paint and wallpaper and a new light fixture … and we’re so excited about how it turned out.

Let’s start with a before tour.

Here’s how the room looked in the real estate photos:

And the view from the living room on the day we closed on the house.

The bottom of the walls are bead board, the top was wallpapered in a sage-y green small leaf print with a border around the perimeter. I pulled the border off right when we moved in and the rest remained and basically became the dumping ground for all the things we didn’t know where to put.

Just to be clear: except for last Christmas for a brief moment, the dining room either looked like a version of the above photo or the below photo for the entire year we’ve lived here. We don’t really need a dining room and so it just stored all our extra junk and gave the kids a place to work on their cardboard + duct tape creations.

A week before Christmas, we decided to at least just paint out the doors and window trim white to match the rest of the trim. I used a coat of primer and two coats of our white trim paint we used in the studio and upstairs.

It didn’t take long and while it was definitely an improvement, that wallpaper still bugged us.

Then Ryan had a brilliant idea. I ordered a few rolls of this woods wallpaper last year for our son’s room (see his design board here) that we had not used yet. We decided to steal it and use in in here to cover over the old paper (Ethan was kind to oblige).

This was my first time installing real wallpaper (I’ve done removable a few times – here and here). After a few minutes of google-searching, I decided to try the paint-the-paste-on-the-wall method.

The install went surprisingly smoothly. I started in the left corner, cut a strip to size (plus a few inches), painted the wallpaper paste directly on the wall over the old wallpaper and then placed the new wallpaper. This particular pattern was fairly easy to match and the seams are nearly invisible.

We had just enough paper to do all four walls and loved how it looked in the room.

Except for one thing. 

The white trim did not look right. It was a creamier white than the background of the paper and the whole room ended up looking cheap and somehow off.

We keep trying to make this house light and bright and cottagy and it just doesn’t want to be. It wants to be rich and moody and handsome.

So new trim paint it was.

We’ve used this same color (Iron Ore by Sherwin Williams) all over the downstairs – the kitchen cabinets, trim and interior doors – and it instantly felt right in the dining room.

So what started as just a quick coat or two of white paint turned into several days of a dining room makeover just days before hosting 31 people and 5 dogs for Christmas :)

But, oh my goodness, didn’t it turn out so good?!

We moved the dining table and benches down from the studio (see it up there here) so we could seat our family for Christmas and we’ll just leave it down here from now on.

That crystal chandelier came from our first house we bought in West Seattle. It probably wasn’t original to our 1920’s craftsman but we’re guessing it was put in in the 50’s or 60’s. When we sold that house, we took the chandelier with us as a memento and moved it around in it our last house (seen in the old house’s dining room and master bedroom).

We weren’t sure it was right for this room – we were thinking something a bit more brass and modern – but since we had it in the garage, we figured we would give it a try. I removed the linen shades and replaced the clear bulbs with opaque white bulbs and now it feels just right for this room.

What I love the most about this makeover is how I no longer hate looking into the dining room from the living room and kitchen!

The makeover took a few days and just the cost of paint and wallpaper paste (since we already had the wallpaper, chandelier and furniture).

Someday we’ll pull up that carpet and put in hardwood floors throughout the downstairs and I can’t wait to see how these rooms look with natural wood grounding them. #someday #soonish #ihope

Also? Now that the dining room is updated and no longer a dumping ground for all our stuff, we’re feeling so much less urgent to tear out the wall and reconfigure the kitchen/dining room. Amazing what a little paint, paper and a few days worth of work will do!

Just for fun, here’s a side-by-side before and after:

SOURCES

wallpaper | table – old from Restoration Hardware | benches | bar cart | bay leaf wreath | wood tray (similar) | cake plate

Trim Color: Iron Ore by Sherwin Williams

Living Room Wall Color: Ancestral by Behr

One year ago, we were mid- one million projects around the house. On Christmas Eve, we finally hung the shelves in the freshly made-over kitchen and my parents were so gracious to come help us clean and hide moving boxes in preparation for our family to come the next day.

This year, we’re hosting our family again for Christmas and it feels a little less frantic on the project front. We love having everyone here and also enjoy how having parties means we’re motivated to get the house looking its best.

There are still plenty of big projects we’d like to do in the house – and at some point we’ll get to them – but for now, it feels good to have furniture and art in place and a few christmas decorations making the house look festive.

You’ve already seen the studio decorated for Christmas (or if not, click here), a few shots of the kitchen and a little bit of the family room. Today I’m showing the entry and living rooms and in the next few days I’ll try to take advantage of our sunny weather and snap a few more photos around the house.

In the entry, we moved a few things around and finally found a place for our old theater seats. We bought these years and years ago at a local salvage yard (they came from a Seattle high school). Hanging above is my favorite canvas from Lindsay Letters of the Doxology. Ryan’s grandma always prefers the sing the Doxology at family gatherings, and while it is always just a little too high for me to sing along to, I love the song, the words and the memories.

I put up fresh cedar garland on the painted stair railing and popped in a few branches of boxwood cut from our yard. It looks so pretty … and makes such a mess. But it’s worth the daily vacuuming :)

Let’s move into the living room.

We painted the walls dark blue/green/gray (Ancestral by Behr paint) and it sets a nice moody tone in here. Earlier this year I painted the fireplace tile surround (here’s the full tutorial) and still smile every time I walk by the room. It adds a graphic, modern touch to a pretty traditional and fancy room. And it sure looks pretty with garland and stockings.

couch | coffee table (similar) | rug | side table | lamps (similar) | curtain rods | curtains

On the coffee table are a few Christmas favorites.

The brass nativity set is from Potterybarn (no longer available) and sits on a vintage tray with faux snow. Was it snowy during Jesus’ birth? Doubtful, but it sure looks pretty :)

Also on the table is a bowl of my delicious sea salt caramels (make them!) wrapped in natural parchment, which makes them look particularly fancy. And then a vase filled with winter greens leftover from my wreath-making moment. I think this is my new favorite winter ‘flower’ arrangement.

wood tray (similar) | noel pillow (similar) | wool stripe pillow | floral pillow | dot pillow

And saving my favorite picture for last:

The garland only looks this fresh and green for a day or two, but I sure love it!

Now off to deck more of our halls …

MORE SOURCES

Wall Color: Ancestral by Behr
Trim Color: Iron Ore by Sherwin Williams
Ceiling Color: Shoji White by Sherwin Williams

Rug | Sofa | Coffee Table (similar) | Floor Lamps (similar) | Throw Blanket | Ikat Pillow | Curtains | Curtain Rods | Curtain Rings | Wood Tray (similar) | Noel Pillow (similar) | Wool Stripe Pillow | Floral Pillow | Dot Pillow | Canvas | Ceiling Light

Living Room Reveal

DIY Painted Fireplace Tile

Painting the Trim in the Entry

You know those gorgeous front porches decorated for fall with cascading pumpkins and overflowing flower pots? (Maybe something like this?)

Yeah, if you came over to our house, you wouldn’t see one of those.

What you would see is my half-hearted attempt to bring life to our charming, yet totally dated front porch.

Let me pull back a little bit so you can see the whole thing:

I mean, how adorable is this house?!

I fell in love instantly with the cottage-y dormers and deep porch. The way the house is positioned on the lot means we usually enter through the back of the house, but guests do come to the front and this summer we spent a surprising amount of time sitting out on the porch.

There are some out-of-place details that need to be fixed … like the front door, the ornate (and oddly oversized) trim around the door, the light fixtures and rounded windows. The floor and steps need a new coat of paint and the posts are trimmed out awkwardly.

None of these things deterred us from buying the house, but here I am one year later and I’m itching to give the front of the house a makeover!

Until then, I’m making the most of it with fall flowers from my favorite local market:

Here’s a helpful hack – I bought a pre-made planter and just popped it right into my terra cotta pot.

I pulled out a couple of fall-toned pillows for the porch swing:

And added another pot of trailing greenery and deep red pansies between the rocking chairs.

This year, that’s the best I can do to add a hint of fall to the front porch. Maybe next year I’ll go all out with the pumpkins :)