When sharing some videos of our bathroom on Instagram recently, many of you noticed an easy update we added: a wooden, floating shelf in the window. It was such a simple DIY project that we did on a whim a while ago (and it was extremely affordable too!) so we wanted to show you the easy steps to make one yourself. For reference, this is what the window looked like when we first showed you the before and afters of this space back in 2020. We’ve always used the deep windowsill for some decor and greenery, but adding the extra shelf gave us room for more things, and just generally adds some nic ..read more

Raise your hand if you remember how much closet space our bedroom had when we moved in. The answer is zero. We used dressers for a while (and borrowed the tiny closet in our son’s room for our hanging stuff) and eventually added some floor-to-ceiling Ikea Pax wardrobes to our bedroom after about 10 months, which felt like we had arrived. A bedroom closet is so nice to have. And – big news! – as of writing this post, we’ve added another Ikea wardrobe to that wall… which means we have just as much storage in our current bedroom as we had in our last house’s FANCY WALK-IN CLOSET! I know. It’s do ..read more

We used some quick and easy upholstery techniques to add some softness and texture to a storebought bench in our family room. We even knocked it out just in time for the holidays, adding to the coziness of this room! ottomans | sofa | similar rug | similar mirror | similar bench | similar console | frame TV We scored this woven bench at HomeGoods mostly because it was the right size and we liked the woven texture. But as soon as we got it home, it was clear that the netted texture of the bottom was less-than-desirable. It wasn’t scra ..read more

For the first time in our lives, after four decades of living on this planet, we’ve upgraded to a king sized bed! We’ll get more into whys and hows in an upcoming post (it’s both bigger and significantly lower) and we see the obvious irony of owning a bigger bed in our smaller house – but let’s just summarize it as: “the things we do for our dog.” bed framelamppink sheetspillowrugcloset hardware You’ve also probably heard this before, but sometimes the way to feel like you’re living large in a smaller space is with fewer larger furniture pieces (as opposed to a bunch of small dollhouse-scaled ..read more

When we thought about all the functions that would be helpful to have in our son’s bedroom, which can definitely be described as “cozy” when it comes to the size (real talk: this room is small), he needed: a bed to sleep in clothing storage book and toy storage out in the open some concealed storage for papers and other toys/games added bonus: a hangout-y lounge spot for reading or playing with his sister or a friend who comes over he also requested his own desk for drawing/homework/playing with magnets (yes, we have a current magnet obsession going strong right now) We definitely could hav ..read more

We haven’t dropped in on this room since this post from more than a year ago about hanging our giant chandelier (how is that possible?! Where did that year go?!?!). This room in many ways has functioned well from day one for us – so I guess our infrequent check-ins make sense. We knew we wanted this big multi-purpose space to serve a few different functions like cozy movie room, a place to lay on the sofa and read/lounge, office/workspace for us, and an arts & craft desk for the kids that could also store all of their papers & creations while having another spot to store all of our bo ..read more

Anyone who lives in a small-ish space knows that thoughtful storage can upgrade so many aspects of your life at home when it’s done right (and it can be a daily frustration when it’s not done well or at all). No matter how big your rooms are or how many you have, you just want to be able to access things easily & keep them in a smart spot – and downsizing from our 3150 square foot house to this 1400 square foot home last year definitely challenged us to be even more mindful about how we incorporate the most useful storage systems into our home. Suddenly we were living in 6 rooms (down fro ..read more

When we shared pictures of our front porch last fall, we said that our decorating strategy out here was basically “plants and more plants.” It helps visually connect the porch to all of the greenery surrounding our house and – as we’ll show you today – it’s also helping us hide some less-than-pretty parts of this outdoor area. Let’s call them wall warts. Three large rectangular wall warts. But more on that in a second. white fluted planter | outdoor ceiling fan |wicker storage boxlarger white plantersimilar egg chair First let’s travel back in time to what this all looked like ..read more

Last week we shared how we built the DIY outdoor hanging daybed that we installed on our front porch. And as promised, I’m back to share how we hung it since, if you’re like me, hanging things that are meant to support the full weight of a human body (or two!) can make you a little nervous. It was actually extremely easy to do. So easy that we did it more than once (ha!) so that it resulted in the smoothest and most non-tipsy sway possible (our first hanging attempt made it tip forward and backwards a bit, which wasn’t ideal). Thankfully the second attempt worked like a charm. Plus it meant w ..read more

A ..read more