I love the blog Design Mom despite the fact that I don’t have kids because I find Gabrielle Blair to be an extremely compelling person. My favorite column on her site is “Living with Kids,” where thoughtful interviews with moms are paired with home tours. The most recent feature was so good I had to share a snippet here. This home is by far more minimalist and modern than the ones I’m usually drawn to, and the color palette is much more muted, but for some reason it really struck me — I stared at several images for minutes each, just taking in every detail. It’s clean and cozy — a tough combination — and it’s curated in the best way, where everything seems meaningful and treasured, not styled. Of course, the beautiful architecture and copious fireplaces don’t hurt. All in all, it seems just right as we transition into fall.

You can see the whole feature here, and I highly recommend you do! I had way too many favorites to post here.

We hung our gallery wall! Hooray! And we’re really pleased with how it turned out! But before I share it with you (though you’ll see a little peek here), I wanted to finish up another post that’s been sitting in draft for awhile.

We decided when we moved in that we didn’t want to jump into any big purchasing or decorating decisions — especially expensive ones — immediately, as we thought it’d be wiser to live in the house for a bit and see how we naturally used the space. I’m glad we made this decision. Very quickly, however, it became apparent that our first big purchase would need to be a rug for the living room area. We love the wood floors throughout the downstairs, but without any soft surfaces of any kind underfoot, the overall effect was pretty cold. Plus, I don’t think our cats approved :) We also wanted a large area rug to anchor the seating area and set it apart from the adjacent dining area.

So, the search began! I virtually visited all the usual haunts, including Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Wisteria, Serena & Lily, World Market, Restoration Hardware, Lulu & Georgia, Overstock, Rugs USA, Ikea, eSaleRugs, and Layla Grace. One tip: Make sure to look at the baby, child, or teen version of a store, if one exists (like PB Teen or RH Baby & Child) — they often have lovely, cheaper designs!

Complicating the search a bit was the fact that I was kind of shopping for two rugs, even though we only had plans to buy one at the time. We are probably going to buy a rug for under the dining room table at some point down the road, and because the spaces are so close, I want the rugs to work together well. As an aside, this issue has actually come up a lot as I think through choices for this space, from lighting to curtains — it’s really like decorating one giant room in three parts as opposed to one room or three distinct rooms.

We would eventually like some sort of vintage Turkish/Oriental rug (kind of like this) for under the dining room table (all of those colors will help hide spills!), so I honed in on something simpler for the living room. I tried to keep my mind open and my search wide, so we ended up with options in several of the colors in our palette — which, coincidentally, is pretty much the same palette as this blog. I know what I like. More on that later.

Here are just a few of the options we considered:

A. Overstock, B. Layla Grace, C. Shades of Light, D. RH Baby & Child, E. Shades of Light, F. Overstock, G. Layla Grace, H. RH Baby & Child, I. Shades of Light, J. Shades of Light, K. Rugs USA, L. PB Teen, M. Rugs USA, N. Overstock, O. Rugs USA, P. Rugs USA, Q. Shades of Light, R. Overstock

This was such a hard decision, friends!! If we hadn’t had a deadline (see below), I think we probably would have been hemming and hawing still. A rug is visually such a large part of a room, and such a large investment, that we wanted to get it 100% right. Yes, you can return a rug, but shipping can get very pricy, and you often have to pay a restocking fee. We spent our time on this decision not because we’re overly concerned with how our house looks (I don’t think), but because, as with every other purchase we make, we wanted to be sure we were spending our money wisely on something we would love for years to come. We are trying to be good stewards of what we’ve been given.

We finally decided on the Surya Frontier Pale Blue Hand Woven Wool rug from Layla Grace, and I’d say we got it 90% right.* I’m particularly proud of the price — we pounced on a 40% off sale over the Fourth of July, and got free shipping, too! Our 8×11 rug was less than $500. (Dina posted about purchasing a rug for 75% off from Rugs USA over July 4th, so I made sure to sign up for all possible store emails and be ready with our decision in advance! Highly recommended!)

Before:

And after:

Anyone else purchase a rug recently? Did you find it as nerve wracking as I did??

*Though we are very happy with the look, I’m taking 10% off because it’s not as soft as I had hoped (duh, it’s wool). We don’t get down on the floor too much in this stage of our life, but I imagine it wouldn’t be the most comfortable for kiddos in the future.

One of my July goals is to hang art downstairs in our new house, and we’ve been making some progress: we hung the chart and the Abe Lincoln print, both of which you can see in our apartment tour. We’re held up on a number of other pieces because we want to paint the walls they’ll hang on first.

The art that I think will make the biggest impact in our combined living/dining room and kitchen is the gallery we’re planning to hang on the back wall. I’ve been collecting pieces and trying to analyze inspiration photos I like so we can possibly implement this weekend. A few favorites:

via The Everygirl

Black, white, and wood frames (almost all with mats) mixed with canvases and “objets d’art.” Asymmetric arrangement. Colored wall.

via Young House Love

White and cream frames, all different and thicker, some with mats and some without. Stand-alone objects and photos mixed in. Tight arrangement. Light gray wall.

via Lonny

Gold and black frames, all with mats. Neutral and black and white artwork. White wall.

via Darling Dexter

Mostly white and cream frames. No mats. Colorful artwork. Canvases and objects (mostly circular) mixed in. Taupe wall.

via Les Confettis

Birch frames with pops of color. Colorful artwork in a tight palette. Thinner mats. All framed pieces. Blue wall.

When I collect inspiration photos on Pinterest I’m usually not pausing long enough to figure out why something appeals to me, just that it does. But when I’m actually trying to draw from that inspiration, I find it helpful to go back and really pick out the individual elements to get clues as to how I might be able to create something similar. That’s what I was trying to do here!

Have you ever hung a gallery wall? Did you lay everything out on the ground first? Use the wax paper trick? Just wing it? I’m considering winging it, but any tips are welcomed :)

Welcome, welcome, friends! I’m finally ready to deliver on my promise of a tour of our first (and only) apartment!

John and I moved to North Carolina four years ago this week, fresh out of college. My Mom and I had visited the Triangle a few weeks prior to scout out apartments, and ended up signing a one-year contract for this one. Honestly? If you had told me we would still be there almost four years later, I would have been quite skeptical — I was MISERABLE and horribly homesick when we first moved, and began making plans almost immediately to move back to New England once our lease was up. Obviously things have changed since then (thankfully!).

Since we didn’t know how long we’d be living here, we chose not to make too many substantial decorating decisions. We only painted one room (a bathroom, of all things), and avoided purchasing investment pieces that might have not worked in the next place we lived. Over four years we did collect several larger pieces (a mattress, a sofa) and many smaller ones (mostly artwork); each was chosen based on how much we loved it and how much longevity we thought it had.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Couch: Macy’s | Bookshelf: Ikea | Pillow and frames: Target | Berry basket: Anthropologie | Cat: Calvin’s Paws :)

The bulk of our apartment was essentially one large room encompassing living room, dining room, and kitchen. We loved the openness, as well as the high ceilings. The top watercolor of the Blue Ridge Mountains was a gift from one of John’s sisters, and the piece below it was actually a letterpress card from Meredith that we framed!

Chairs: DIY | X-bench: Target | White loveseat: Ikea | Trunk: Vintage

The trunk is one of my favorite pieces we own — it was transplanted from my Dad’s family’s cottage in Maine after the last burst of decluttering, and made it safely to NC via car and boat transportation!

Wire card holder: Pressed Cotton | Letterpress states poster: Beauchamping | Planner: Emily Ley | Desk: Vintage

They say you can tell a lot about a person (or family) by looking at their bookshelf, and though I think that’s true, I’m not sure what you might surmise from looking at ours, with its poetry next to politics and economics next to etiquette. Perhaps just an appreciation of all the colors of the rainbow? :)

Our dining area was just behind the brown couch. The table is by far one of my favorite pieces we own — it was my college graduation present from my parents, it’s white-washed solid mahogany, and it expands to seat 10-12!! Pretty perfect for an apartment, no? The Windsor chairs were rescued from my best friend’s parents as they downsized (conveniently at the same time as we were moving!). I’d love to have them professionally sprayed one day.

The chart is from NOAA of the region of Maine where my family has a cottage; we had it professionally framed. My parents have always had one hanging in our house, so I wanted to continue the tradition!

A question: Do y’all keep your table set at all times?? Despite these photos, we most definitely do not, and I had never heard of such a thing before I moved down South — but it seems to be fairly common here. Thoughts? P.S. Wedding china!

Abe Lincoln print: Mary Kate McDevitt

Our kitchen was nice and large, and we loved how open it was to the rest of the apartment — great for entertaining! My extensive cake stand collection lined up on top of our cabinets :)

Duvet and blanket: L.L. Bean | Shams: HomeGoods | Lamp: HomeGoods | Lampshade: Target | Bedside tables: Ikea

Our bedroom was super simple — just the basics. The shams, which perfectly matched the other bedding, were a serendipitous find at HomeGoods.

No-sew curtains: DIY

A few notes here: I know the bench by the window is hard to see, but it’s covered in leopard fabric and was my very first upholstery project, in high school. I’ve been on the leopard bandwagon for awhile. I like to file the woven basket under the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” category: John had a penchant for leaving his pajamas on the floor instead of folding them, so I figured we might as well just toss our pajamas in the basket instead. Worked like a charm!

To finish, I wanted to share this neat little book with you. It’s a devotional that was published in 1904, and has been in my family since that time — there are handwritten notes throughout detailing certain days on which relatives died and were born. John and I have been reading from it most nights, and have been pleasantly surprised by how fresh-sounding and relevant it is!

I hope you enjoyed the tour, friends! I didn’t get around to photographing the two bathrooms or the guest bedroom/office, but rest assured pretty much all you missed was a gigantic explosion of tinsel due to my Etsy exploits.

We’re starting to get things settled in the house, and I look forward to sharing our new space as it comes together!! In the meantime, I have one more thing to share with you from our apartment — our very favorite thing about it. Check back later this week!