Several years ago, when I threw our breakfast nook together, I slid these two chairs under the table as a temporary fix while I shopped around for a more cohesive pair. While I love the eclectic vibe of having two different chairs, I never really loved the ghost chair in there, and the danish arm chair always felt a little too heavy.  I searched for a while, then got busy, and well, these chairs were *fine*, so I just never got around to replacing them. Lately I’ve been itching to switch things up, so when Chairish reached out and asked me to share my two cents on how to successfully mix and match dining chairs, it was perfect timing. For those of you not familiar with Chairish, it’s an online marketplace filled with gorgeous vintage finds. It’s kind of like Craigslist or Ebay, but more curated and organized.  You don’t have to spend hours scrolling through pages of ugly Walmart chairs from the 90s while trying to get to the good stuff, and I appreciate that.

I don’t think most people want their furniture to be super matchy, they just don’t know how to mix furniture styles, so they run to the nearest furniture liquidator store, buy a generic dining table that comes with 8 matching chairs, and call it a day. It’s cheap and convenient. I get it. But honestly, mixing and matching furniture is pretty simple, it just takes a little bit of thought and intention. When done right, it can make a space feel interesting, unique, and fun.

An important key to making disparate styles of furniture look intentional and not like your drunk uncle’s basement, is to keep everything within a consistent color palette throughout your space. My color palette is mostly white, black, varying shades of grey, pale pink, warm metals, neutrals, and light/medium wood tones. If I’m shopping and see something I love, but it doesn’t jibe with my color palette, I let it go. It’s truly a lesson in self control. At a garage sale a few years ago, I impulse purchased a set of teal 1950s dining chairs. I *knew* the color was wrong, but the tiny delusional hoarder that lives in my head was like I CAN MAKE THEM WORK. Spoiler alert: They looked terrible. I hemmed and hawed about reupholstering them, but then I lost them in the floodpocalypse of 2014 anyway. Lesson learned. Stick with the color palette!

I’ve been re-envisioning my breakfast nook by playing around with a design board, virtually swapping different chairs in and out. Here are a few that I love, both new and vintage.

Clockwise from top left: Rug, hanging planter, set of bertoia chairs, wooden planters, rose chair, gold chair, acid/glam mugs, moscow mule cup, lucite bar cart, wooden chair, light fixture, dining table.

My house is tiny, so I try to maximize space, including visual space, as much as possible by choosing airy furniture with open backs and thin legs. This allows your eyes to travel through the furniture and makes the room feel visually more expansive. And obviously, lucite is great for the same reason.

So what do you think? Which ones are your favorite?  That gold chair is quite an investment but it makes me INTENSELY SWOONY.

We recently upgraded to a king-size memory foam mattress. After years of sleeping on a queen-size garbage mattress with a pit the size of Grand Canyon in the middle, it was long over due. I often woke with an aching back, hips, or neck and it made me depressed and annoyed. But now I wake up every day feeling like this:

A king size bed has been on our wishlist for years, and I figured if we were going to get a new mattress anyway, we might as well upgrade to a king now. I researched a bunch of the online bed-in-a-box mattress companies – Leesa, Brooklyn Bedding, Casper, Tuft and Needle, and honestly, they all seemed kinda the same. Free shipping, 100 night risk-free trials, a bevy of glowing reviews. In the end I chose Casper because, based on customer feedback, it seemed to be the softest of the bunch, which is good for side sleepers like me. It arrived in a sturdy box, just like my favorite wine, and was super easy to set up.  The mattress came compressed, so all we had to do was pull it out of the box, unroll it, and watch it expand to size. Mike D and I loved it immediately. It alleviated the soreness I was waking up with in my back and hips, which was great, but after a few nights, I began to notice some soreness in my shoulders. I made a quick call to Casper to see if they could recommend anything. The woman I spoke with was very nice and offered to send a free topper to alleviate some of the pressure on my shoulders. YASSS! So nice. She explained how the mattress is designed for an average size human, so those under 140 lbs might find the mattress a bit too firm. That explains why I (a grown woman trapped in a 12 year old’s body) had some shoulder soreness but Mike D was fine. I received the topper within a week and it totally did the trick. No more shoulder soreness, and I’ve been sleeping like a baby ever since. It’s the perfect combination of firm and soft now, and Mike still loves it, even with the new topper (in fact, he didn’t even notice a difference). This isn’t a sponsored post by the way, even though it seems like it totally is. I just wanted to share my good experience with you. Because y’all my dudes.

We sold our queen sized bed it and replaced it with this  bed in sky gray. It’s a real grown-up kinda bed – it’s sturdy, comfortable, looks nice, and you can’t beat that price! I picked up some new sheets (on sale! Hurry!) and traded in my great grandmother’s chenille bedspread for a down alternative comforter for the winter. It’s all so comfy and warm now. I just want to spend the rest of this stupid dark winter lounging about on my new mattress-in-a-box, drinking wine-in-a-box and watching dick-in-a-box.

Our bedroom is tiny, so with the addition of the king sized bed, there was room for only one nightstand. The mirrored table I had there was pretty, but I  always kept a pile of junk on the nightstand – a book, lip balm, eye cream, remote, vitamins, you get the picture, so I wanted something with storage to hide all that garbage out of sight. I looked around in stores and online, fruitlessly, before remembering I had an old nightstand from my parents house in the basement that might work. I brought it upstairs to try it in the space, and low and behold, it was the perfect size and scale. It just needed some zhushing.

Ok, fine, it was totally whacktastic. First I wiped it down with some Mrs Meyers soap and warm water, then I lightly sanded the surface to roughen it up for paint. I brushed on two coats of “Soot” by Benjamin Moore in satin finish (the same color I used on my dresser a few years back) and it was looking pretty good. Then, the pièce de ré·sis·tance – these fancytown handles from Anthropologie.

I bought 8 of them on clearance several years ago, but only needed six for my dresser. I’m so glad I held onto those two extra handles. They are bringing the heat and they are bringing it hard.

Is your head, like, totally exploding from the transformation? Just wait until you see the drawer liners I cut to size with my very own hands.

DAYYYYUM those drawers are SECK. (Like your mom).

That blanket and that dreamcatcher were totally separated at birth! Now they’re best friends and plan to bring their wayward parents back together.

That’s our sassy ghost cat. She came with the nightstand and terrorizes us in our sleep.

NO BIG DEAL.

The end!

Recently, the incredibly nice humans at West Elm invited me to share some photos of my home on their blog, Front & Main, and I was ever so happy to oblige. You can see the full interview here.

As we head into the new year, I want to thank you all for being here. I truly appreciate every single one of you who support this creative endeavor of mine. I LOVE YOU GUYZ! I hope you all have a very merry New Year spent with the ones you love! xoxo

Happy shopping! xoxo

I love promoting my favorite sellers here on the blog, so when Uncommon Goods asked me to share some of my favorite items from their shop, I was more than happy to oblige!  I’ve been receiving the Uncommon Goods catalog in the mail for years, and I’m always impressed with their selection of cool & funky pieces. There are so many great things to choose from. If you need art, lighting, jewelry, barware, or unique gifts, they’ve got you covered. I also love their company mission. As a socially responsible company, they offer all of their full-time employees (and most part-time employees) heath insurance and provide a living wage. They work with their suppliers – artists, artisans, designers, and small manufacturers – to make their products in a more socially and environmentally responsible manner. Since their founding, they have not sold products containing leather, feathers, or fur. Their goal is to sell no product that harms humans or animals. And for every purchase you make, they will donate $1 to the non-profit organization of your choice.

Very, very cool.

I decided to share with you a few of my favorite items, mainly from their art, home decor, and housewarming gifts sections. I want all of these things.

Art (clockwise from top left):  Sun Mountain,  All the Mountains in Colorado, The Connection, Lost Map, Zodiac Embroidery Hoop Art

Decor (clockwise from top left): Moon Phase Clock, Personalized Maple Wall Clock, Pixel Rose Rug, Astral Wall Hangings, DIY Terrarium Kit, Rocky Mountain Coat Range, Track Your Travels Cork Globe, Handmade Knitting Basket

Gifts (clockwise from top left): Rose Gold Lips Necklace, Meow Cat Cave, Slate & Bronze Necklace, Lomo Instant Camera, Wooden TV Dinner Tray, Owl Touch Lamp, Wooden Wine Glasses, Guatemalan Handmade Slippers

I know it may seem a bit early to think about the holidays, but trust me, time will fly by and you’ll be Christmas shopping before you know it. You’re already going to be shopping for the special peeps in your life, why not shop for gifts that also give something back?

This post was written in partnership with Uncommon Goods, but I support this company wholeheartedly, and all words are my own. Woo! 

Several years ago, I inherited a stack of family photo albums dated from the 1990s all the way back to the late 1800s. A hundred years of family photographs! I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-y scanning, retouching, and archiving the digital files. There are so many I’d like to enlarge, print, and frame, but it’s one of those chores on the to-do list that just never gets done. Not to mention the thousands of digital photos I’ve taken with my own camera, filed away and forgotten on my hard drive.

I am often asked what’s the best way to print, mat, and frame photos, and the truth is, it can be tricky, overwhelming and expensive. Most people don’t have a high quality photo printer at home, so they have to send their photos to a local or online printer and then find another company for the framing. Anyone who has walked into a custom frame store and had to choose between 100 different mat options and a million different frame options can attest the process is intimidating. And the quote is usually enough to make you cry.

So when a new company from Portland called Livestock kindly offered me a complimentary frame, I was excited to try their services out. Livestock is a really simple site that allows you to have your photos matted, framed, and shipped to your door without the headache. It’s just three simple steps: upload your photo (you can even upload directly from your smart phone), choose a frame from 6 classic styles in 4 colors, select your size, and they ship it to your door! They’ll also adjust the color, sharpness, and contrast of your image for free.  The custom framed photos start around $75, which is not nothing, but cheaper than most custom frame stores for sure. And shipping is free!

I used a photograph of my grandmother from 1952 . The original photo was pretty beaten up, so I retouched it in Photoshop before uploading it to the site.

I knew I wanted to use a photograph of my grandmother, but I  had a hard time choosing which picture to use! During the Korean war, my grandmother sent my grandfather a bunch of flirty photos of herself with sweet handwritten messages on the back of each one. This one reads “Here’s thinking of you (wow). Want to come home now, honey???”. Was she not the cutest?

The process of ordering on Livestock was so easy, I was done in under 5 minutes. Less than two weeks later, the frame showed up at my door and it felt like Christmas morning! I was so impressed with the sturdiness of the shipping and the quality of the materials. It even came ready to hang with the proper hardware. The materials are true gallery quality and I couldn’t be happier with it.

I’m reminded of my grandma Jean’s smile every time I walk into the room now. And isn’t that the point of taking pictures in the first place – to remember and cherish the people and places that mean so much to us?  I am sure I’m not the only one who has photographs in need of framing, so I encourage you all to take a look and get in on this cool service. It’s super fun to walk through the process and see your photo go from something buried in your phone or hard drive to a piece of art you love to display.

Miss you, grandma!

xoxo

This post is in collaboration with Livestock. All words, opinions, and cute grandmas are entirely my own.

I still have to replace some caulk, seal the grout, and hang a couple towel hooks on the back of the door, but it was time to pull the trigger on shooting it for Design Sponge so I may as well let you in on what I’ve done.

If you remember, the bathroom looked like a moldy tortilla put in a blender on HIGH when I moved in 11 years ago.

I like a lot of original 1950s tile, but that tile was U.G.L.Y. Seven or eight years ago we took the entire bathroom down to the studs, except for the tub which we had resurfaced, and installed new tile, fixtures, lighting, and drywall. In this post I talked about my “builder basic” thought process for the remodel and why I regret some of those decisions. I truly wish I had chosen a more classic/sophisticated tile, but let’s chalk it up to a learning experience, eh? Several years after that, the bathroom was ready for a refresh.

Man, was I waaaaaay over that moss green color. If I learned anything while living in this house, it’s how important it is to pick a whole house color palette.  When I first moved in, I hastily picked a different color of the rainbow for each room without considering how they worked with each other. At one point the master bedroom was blue, the kitchen was yellow, the bathroom was green, and the dining room was turquoise. If you stood in the living room you could see all the colors in one glance and it was visually chaotic and jarring. Now I understand that in a small house you want continuity and rooms that feel like they flow, not like they’re chopped up with different color schemes. I’ve been slowly repainting each room in varying tones of grey which work together without evoking that chaotic vibe. The result is that the house feels bigger, airier, and more connected. Repeating the same color in multiple rooms may seem boring, but it doesn’t have to be. You can make things more interesting by pulling in colors and textures from furniture, art, pillows, rugs, etc. And if you don’t want to repeat the exact same wall color, sliding one or two shades lighter or darker on the same paint chip will ensure your rooms will feel connected and cohesive.

And so! Back in July of last year I created a mood board for how I wanted to spruce up the loo (OMG has it really been over a year since I started talking about this?! Am I 37 or 38 now? Did I do my taxes? Is Downton Abbey back on? Where am I?).

No expensive upgrades, just a refresh with some paint/accessories/shelves/textiles. Here’s where we are now.

I wanted to bring a little personality and kitsch into the room because where’s the fun in decorating if you can’t express your inner crazy lady? I just think a cat checking out your butt (literally) is funny. And a large feminine abstract is slightly off-putting in this context.

The color I chose for the walls is Ominous Cloud by Clark & Kensington but I had it color matched to Valspar’s Zero VOC paint. This tone of grey works great in here at all times of the day. It doesn’t turn blue, purple, or brown like a lot of greys do under artificial lights. I decided to add open shelving above the toilet because look at my cute stuff! And I switched out the old mirror for a medicine cabinet with hidden storage because don’t look at my ugly stuff! The unfinished pine shelves were super cheap ($3.99 a piece) from Ikea.  I brushed on two thin coats of white stain and two coats of poly before hanging them.  I added plants and various textiles to warm up the space and to make me look like a kinder, warmer person. I’m also so glad I decided to splurge on the acrylic towel bar and toilet paper holder. I don’t know, they’re kinda glamorous. Just like you.

xoxo

Sources! shelves, white stain, brackets, moon & eye planters, nightlight, press for champagne, towel bar, hand towel, candle, tooth trinket, Turkish towel and yellow basket (souvenirs from Spain), black & white pot and incense holder (vintage), marble tray (Homegoods), graphic art print (purchased from an art show in Detroit, artist unknown).

I’m so thrilled to have my dreamcatcher DIY included in Natural Modern magazine! It’s a special interest Fall issue from the company that produces magazines like Atomic Ranch and Flea Market Decor. The magazine focuses on midcentury lines, natural elements, and a laid-back aesthetic. Inside you’ll find tips for personalized decorating from Elsie and Emma of A Beautiful Mess, easy & stylish DIYs, a houseplant guide, a how-to for creating gallery walls, and a bevy of inspirational boho-modern ideas for your home.

You can snag a copy from your local Target, Barnes & Noble, or grocery store. You can also buy it online here. I hope you check it out!

Xoxo

A few weeks ago, the kind folks from Design Sponge asked if I would do a home tour for their Sneak Peak column. At first I was like WHUUUUUT and then I was like YAAASSSSSS but then I was like STRESSSS BARFFFFF. I ran around like a maniac straightening photos, replacing dead plants, sucking up dust bunnies and rearranging my knick-knacks 900 times. All in all, I’m super excited with how it turned out. Everything in here makes me happy and I want to stare at it all day.

See the rest of the photos and interview here!

Beautiful photos by the talented Kate Sassak.

Last Summer I worked with Goodwill Detroit curating items for their boutique pop-up shop at Eastern Market in Detroit and this year I’m back at it! Goodwill Detroit will have a pop-up shop at Eastern Market’s Sunday Street Market, the second Sunday of each month throughout the Summer. Hours are 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. Each shop will be curated by a local Detroit stylist (there are four, including me) and will contain gently used clothing,  accessories, furniture, and unique vintage housewares.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been digging for treasures at the local Goodwill stores and I’ve pulled so many great things for the pop-up shop. You can expect to find vintage record players, a metal bar cart, mid-century furniture, several large trunks, handbags from Coach, Fossil, BCBG, and Dooney & Bourke, Polaroid cameras, vintage fiber art, pyrex, dresses from Zara, Top Shop, and Asos, vintage jewelry, designer shoes, men’s vintage belt buckles and so much more!

Here’s a sneak peak!

Come see me THIS SUNDAY, June 14th, at the Goodwill Detroit pop-up shop inside Eastern Market from 10-4. If you want the good stuff, come early! Remember, these are Goodwill prices (not fancy vintage store prices) so people line up early. Bring cash, credit cards, and all your fashionable friends!