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Home Tour on Apartment Therapy

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Home Tour on Apartment Therapy

I’m so excited to share that I recently did a home tour with Apartment Therapy. Having a home tour on one of my favorite interior design sites has been a dream since I was in design school and I can’t believe it has finally happened! I have spent the last year and a half pouring my heart and soul into this apartment and making it a home. It is truly my sanctuary. Here are a few sneak peeks — but you can check out the full tour here.

Home Tour on Apartment Therapy

Home Tour on Apartment Therapy

Home Tour on Apartment Therapy

A special thanks to Nancy Mitchell who photographed the feature. I met her working at Bar Convent Brooklyn with Angostura Bitters and we started following each other on Instagram. Shortly after she reached out telling me she also worked for Apartment Therapy and asked if I wanted to do a home tour. Nancy runs an amazing cocktail blog and IG account called The Backyard Bartender. Make sure you check out her drinks and her interior photography. You seriously never know who you’re going to meet and I’m so glad I got to work on this shoot with Nancy.

Hope you all enjoy the tour and let me know what you think by chiming in on the comments below. The beautiful baby blue monstera leaf wallpaper in the bedroom is from Wallflora Shop and the lemon mural in the kitchen was done by my very talented friend Blair Urban of Urban Lush Murals.

Not sure what I’m going to do now that the house is completely decorated. 😉

Christmas Decor Tour

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Christmas Decor TourOver the last few weeks, I’ve posted little snippets of my Holiday decor on Instagram stories. To my surprise, I got a lot of messages asking if I would be posting a Christmas Decor Tour. Sadly I didn’t get to decorate as much as I would have liked but the living room does look pretty glorious and festive. I decided to do a last minute Christmas Decor Tour post of the living room to fulfill some of your requests.

Christmas Decor TourThe first thing I knew I wanted to do was make these DIY Mid-Century Christmas Village Putz Houses from Krys Melo of Melodrama. If you don’t follow her or her blog please run right over there ASAP. Her style, use of color, and home inspire me so much. Plus she lives in Palm Springs which is my dream! I saw these Christmas village houses last year and I said to myself, “one day I’m going to make those”.

Christmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourA couple Sundays ago Ethan and I made boozy hot chocolate, put Christmas music on, decorated the pink Christmas tree of my dreams, and made the Mid-Century Christmas village. They turned out even better than I imagined and I think I want to make it a holiday tradition to make one every year. I guess if I start running out of space I’ll just have to start gifting them to people! They make the perfect Christmas decor for the mantel. My favorite part was decorating and styling them. I love bottle brush trees so much! At one point Ethan was like, “do you have enough bottle brush trees?”, and the answer is always no, never!

Christmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourWe decorated so much for the holidays in the house I grew up in and it always got us into the holiday spirit. Since then I’ve haven’t lived in a place with the space to accommodate holiday decorations and honestly, the holidays have never really felt the same. For the first time in my adult life, I have the room for a real sized tree and this made my heart so happy beyond belief. I collected a few ornaments over the years and have been gifted quite a few as well. I’ve been basically hoarding them until the day I could put them on my very own tree. 2017 was my year for this. 2017 has pretty much been my year for a lot of things.

Christmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourI decorated the bar cart for my Holiday Hot Cocoa Bar post and slightly tweaked it after moving the Keurig back to the kitchen. I love the Be Merry banner which is from Target. Most of my holiday decor is pretty budget friendly (Target, Michaels, Homegoods, DIY). I just had to invest in the tree which I got from Treetopia. It’s called the Pretty in Pink Tree which couldn’t be more appropriate.

Christmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourChristmas Decor TourLast year I found this Tom & Jerry punch set at a thrift store for $12. I’m so glad I can finally put it out on display for the holidays. I seriously can’t wait until next year to expand my decor a little more into other rooms of the house. What is your favorite Christmas decoration? Is it something that’s been passed down in your family? Perhaps a special ornament? I’d love to know. I hope my Christmas Decor Tour has brightened your day and puts you in the holiday spirit. Four days till Christmas!

One Room Challenge Week 3 of the Hallway Refresh

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One Room Challenge Week 3 is upon us and things are speeding along. The Hallway Refresh has progressed a little bit and almost everything has been ordered but I’m still waiting to receive the items. Luckily there isn’t a ton to do once all the items get here (except the stairs and wallpaper). I’m going to update you on some changes I am making to the plan and what I put on order. Plus I picked out the colors for the stairs. Yay!

The bench from Ikea that I originally decided on was unavailable. I found a great substitute that is a little bit more compact and way more stylish.  I actually like it better. Everything happens for a reason, right? The bench is actually a coffee table, but I saw it styled at the foot of a bed and seating for a dining room table as well. It’s going to work great as a landing space for my purse and a home for shoes underneath. A cat will probably enjoy some naps on it as well.

I’m starting with a very soft pink at the top of the stairs and fading it into a dark coral that I will be painting in groups of 3 of each color.  I chose paints by Benjamin Moore in Soft Pink, Creamy Peach, Perky Peach, and Summer Sun Pink. The stairs are going to be so happy to look at, I can’t wait for this to come together!

I had to order the wallpaper in a custom size so I contacted the shop.  Hopefully, I hear back soon so I can place that order. I went ahead and ordered the hook rack, ceiling light, macrame plant hangers, and a rug. Also, I had to change the rug because the size I needed wasn’t available, but I found this one that is 2’3″ x 3’9″ which I think should work perfectly.

We’re in the middle of the One Room Challenge with 3 more weeks to go. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all turns out and finishing another space in my home. Full speed ahead! Check out my One Room Challenge Hallway Refresh board on Pinterest to stay up to date with my ideas and items.

One Room Challenge: Progress and Perspective

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Happy week four of the One Room Challenge everyone! For those of you that have been following along on this non cocktail related journey, thank you! I promise there will be cocktails flowing on the big reveal day! Thus far all the progress for this project has been shared over on Michelle’s page but this week I’m very excited to be sharing my perspective and what the ORC has been like for me.

A few months ago I remember writing a blog post and mentioning how desperately I needed a change at home. When we lost bids on quite a few houses, we decided that maybe renting for another year or so and finding a new place was the way to go. And that’s exactly what we did! I found an amazing apartment right before we left for Palm Springs and actually signed my lease while I was still there. It was a scary decision to leave my apartment of nearly a decade for a new one but I am SO glad I did. Especially because it led me to working with Michelle Gage on my new livingroom.

I had been such a fan of Michelle over on Instagram and when she contacted me about the One Room Challenge, I pretty much fell off my chair with excitement. I shared my vision for the room with her and she seemed even more excited to make this room a reality. The crazy part about this is that all the design has been done via email and on Pinterest for the most part. I was a little skeptical about how e-design worked but now that I have done it I can understand why most designers are doing this method more and more and I would honestly do it again. The internet is a wonderful place guys.

I measured the room, made a floorplan and we contributed to a Pinterest board. The hardest part about this for me was worrying if my vision for the room was going to come through in the design but I feel as though Michelle has really listened to me every step of the way, which is really important to me. She is an absolute dream to work with and is so good at what she does, I couldn’t be happier with the way things are going.

In the past, I feel like I impulsively bought things over time and never had a room that was 100% cohesive. Planning it all out ahead, having a clear mood board to refer to and then placing items on order has defintely made me feel confident on how the room is all going to turn out. As items arrive, every day I get even more excited for the final outcome and I can’t wait to see how Michelle will style the final room.

In the meantime, I’ve been unpacking old treasures and putting props we ordered on the existing shelving. This is totally unstyled but all the pops of color already put a smile on my face!

I can’t wait to go plant shopping this weekend!

I’m really happy that we wound up using an existing rug because it looks great with the couch. I was a little bummed about the first bar cart falling through but in the end I got the one that I really wanted.

Almost everything for the room has arrived. The only things I am waiting on are some framed art, wallpaper, and the barcart should be here Friday. I can not believe I own this barcart or this pink couch. I’m here to tell you that dreams do come true!