I’m having so much fun thinking about the best ways for my friends to transform their living room! Earlier this week I shared some ideas about how they could redesign the main part of the living room. The living room has a half wall separating it from the kitchen. Usually the kitchen table is on the side of the wall shown in the photo below. I’m focused on the side of the wall that faces the living room, as shown in the photo below. As I mentioned in this post, they plan to sand down the…
Two dear friends of mine moved into a new house and are in the process of making it feel more like home. They have two little boys, so they don’t want anything too precious. But they also want to feel comfortable and cozy in their living room, which is the main hangout area of their house and opens to their kitchen. They use this room to watch tv, read, and hang out as a family. They don’t use the fireplace very often, and they love looking out of the windows. As the pandemic winds down, they…
One of the many, many things on my list for 2022 was organizing our kitchen. Every time we open the Tupperware drawer or the water bottle drawer, the crazy mess inside is so disheartening. It’s silly, I guess, to let something like that affect one’s mood, but I can’t help it. A few days ago when I emptied the dishwasher, the crap in the drawers finally overflowed, and I couldn’t close them. I took it as a sign to purge and organize! First up, I tackled our random collection of plastic cups…
Serena & Lily has the most beautiful home decor, but it’s so pricey! Their catalog arrives at our house every few months, and I love to sit down with a cup of tea and leaf through it. One of my favorite bloggers, Nesting with Grace, uses a lot of Serena & Lily items throughout her home–if you haven’t seen her blog, it’s drool-inducing–and she often features the gorgeous Poetto vase. I’ve coveted this vase for a while but can’t justify the price tag. This weekend…
When we moved in, I added some personality to the main level by painting a few of the interior doors. I started by painting a few of the doors Tricorn Black, and I love the way it turned out! I think the black paint makes the hallways look more pulled together and adds to the historic feel of our very old home. About three years ago, one of our sons requested a green door for his bedroom. With the four kids and the dog running around the house and even playing basketball in the hallways (can you believe it??), the…
We finally broke down and ordered new kitchen counter stools. The seat on one of our old stools had cracked in two, but we continued using it for months and called it our “trick stool.” It was all fun and games until a visitor almost fell off the broken stool, and then we had to address the problem. Because our house is so small, the counter stools back up to the dining room table. We already have a lot going on in the combined kitchen and dining room, so I wanted something neutral. Plus, to allow for more…
We spent a wonderful weekend in San Francisco! John’s dear friends’ daughter was becoming bat mitzvah, and we attended the ceremony honoring this beautiful young woman. We spent the rest of the weekend wandering around the city, eating and drinking. It’s such a magical place. Everywhere we went, I was blown away by the architecture. Seriously, I was standing on street corners gaping at people’s houses. The whole place felt like a movie set. I hung out the window of a cab to photograph some of the beautiful homes on California Street! The…
This week I tackled the two closets in our front hallway, between the front door and the kitchen. We don’t have many closets in this small house, and these two are workhorses. We access each of these closets multiple times a day, and it was driving me crazy that they were so messy. Ugh — you can see why I shuddered every time I opened one of these doors. For closet #1, I donated some of our coats and winter gear. Then I corralled my winter gloves and scarves into one basket and put the girls’ winter…
Do you have a Monica closet? I have about five of them!! And they’ve definitely gotten worse in 2021. Plus, one of my stuffed closets was in the basement, right next to the bed where our youngest son now sleeps. (It’s not ideal, but this is what happens when you have a very cozy (small) house. We’re saving for a renovation and would love to make a big bedroom for the two boys to share.) A few weeks ago, right around New Year’s Eve, I stumbled onto Ruth Soukup’s website…
Lately I’ve been really struggling with time management. Do you feel the same way? It’s ironic because, due to the pandemic, many of us have more flexibility to work from home. We don’t have to spend time commuting, and we can easily throw in a load or two of laundry while we’re working remotely. Life should be easier, right? But I still feel like there are never enough hours in the day. I’m always running around buying cupcakes for school, paying bills on the fly, and making dinner, but I…