Hi friends! My first wrapped project to share with you for 2025 is one that started almost one year ago! When the client contacted me last February and we chatted about her project, I was immediately excited to get started! Aside from the fact that I connected with her amazing style, I really resonated with the context of this one: Her kiddos are officially past young toddler stage, and she was ready for her home to reflect that. I love that so much. I am very familiar with that hope of reclaiming our home a tiny bit after all the baby gates and high chairs were packed and donated away. While the closing of the baby and toddler chapter was a hard one for me, I did feel a sense of excitement about having a bit more freedom in how we could use our home moving forward. This project represented that hope for this family and it was such an honor to come alongside to work towards that together.

Here is where we started:

Some of the feedback I’ve received on Instagram is that it would be helpful to see more of the process behind a design, especially in regards to things I tried, things that didn’t work, etc. So below is the very first iteration of this space that I created along with the feedback I received from this client. I offer every client 3 drafts for each space they hire me to design with them, so their feedback is really important for getting it exactly right. 9.9/10 times we rarely need the third draft because the feedback from the first informs all the right edits for their perfect design!

Once I started on the edits for this design based on her feedback above, things started falling into place really well. Loved the alternative rug, but since it didn’t work with the original sofa so well, I went for a lighter chambray blue. Some of the minor details were further tweaked at the end, but we pretty much stuck to this second design in implementation:

And here is how that final digital design above came to life!

There is a tremendous amount of joy - close to giddiness! - that happens when I see a project in real life. It’s not just the time poured in, but the passion and hope for what could be.

This room feels like a sunset! While it’s a level up in sophistication from where we started, it’s still incredibly casual and family friendly. We chose performance fabrics for both the sofa and chair so food and drink spills aren’t a concern. The coffee table is cement and not only easily wipeable, but I’ve heard it’s climber friendly as well ;)

Reserving open floorspace for play and piling on pillows for movie night was another priority in here - I’ll spare you the boring digital floorplan rendering, but I played around with multiple sizes of sectionals, coffee tables and accent chairs to make sure there was a really comfortable flow about this space.

Well that’s a wrap! Thank you so much for popping over to check out this first design of 2025! I really appreciate having a space and community to share this most fun work with. There are 3 more projects on this ones tail that I’ll be photographing this month, so this is just the beginning! Back soon, friends!

Hi Friends! Jumping on today to share a bit of transformation in our home, and in my heart. When we moved into this, (our first), house, Colin and Shire we're 10 months old and according to BabyCenter.com Mason was the size of a kumquat, whatever that is. I had one main objective - to prove that it's okay to not surrender your home just because you have children. If I'm being honest, that's really what was on my heart. Just being real here!

In the name of proving a point and being brave, I opted for white slipcovered furniture. White appealed for so many reasons - aesthetically it felt calming and airy to me, and I figured I could always use bleach when running them through the wash. So for the better part of a decade that's what we've had as our babes have grown into active big kids, now 8, 8, and almost 7. White stopped working for us over the last year or so; I'm sorry to say this if your kids are younger than ours, but big kids sweat! And then they start getting kinda stinky. And they flop their sweaty stinky bodies on the sofas when they come in tired from hours of outdoor play. And sure, if the sofas are slipcovered there's no permanent damage, but here's the thing: If you are in a stage of life where you need slipcovered furniture, chances are YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO WASH THEM. At least, that's been my perspective. So I had a decision to make - either forbid my precious family whom I share this house with to not sit on the furniture unless they're cleaned up, or find furniture that can be more easily cleaned.

So despite my love for the white sofas and having a home that isn't just for the kids, I felt ready to jump in and embrace this new stage of life with older, sweatier, dirtier kids who are juuuuust starting to give off the first whiffs of BO. To be clear, I made this decision because I knew there was no way I could fully enjoy this new stage of life or my home with white sofas. That's me and my uptightness. Every person/family is different and there are certainly loads of people with white slipcovered sofas and kids and they're happy as clams because they're so laid back it's annoying. I wish that was me, but it's not. I've been ready to throw in the towel and tap out.

When I decided to part ways with slipcovered furniture I wanted something I could wipe clean, (leather), would get better with use, (leather), and had great reviews from others with a lot of activity in their home: This lead us to Article, and specifically, the Sven sofa!

This is not a 'which design is better' thing and I'm not making any case over visual appeal here. For us this is about maximum function in a house full of kids, many of which wander in from the neighborhood.

While we've only had the Sven sofa for a few weeks and I can't speak to the long-term quality just yet, (though the reviews were fantastic), we have been impressed with the comfort and durability thus far as our family has piled, (literally), on the piece numerous times since we unpacked it. I've already seen my kids fall asleep on it during our pre-bed reading time together and it's the first place they come in the morning to transition from sleep to awake.

A few more shots of the space show nothing else has changed. The ivory shag rug was an inexpensive Amazon find from Safavieh that has spoiled our feet all Winter long! It's SO thick and soft and when our new sofa is crowded, no one minds moving to the floor.

Even our chair is stain/smudge proof! That one wasn't intentional, though. After our very grown-up sofa purchase we didn't want to spend money on a new chair and this had been in the boys room for several years, (a $10 thrift store find that I got for free with customer loyalty points).

When I committed to embracing this next stage of life, I meant ALL. IN. We've got one learning how to play guitar, and we realized when it was in it's case put away he wasn't practicing much. The only solution I could think of was to get it out and seen; well guess what sound we wake up to now on Saturdays? All in.

Oh yea! Our new art :) After 15 Valentines Day's together, I think I got this year right; a canvas + a sharpie + my husband's favorite Philadelphia Eagles' trick play from the Super Bowl, the Philly Special. He's been running this play with the kids on the daily right here in the living room, so getting the play up on the wall just seemed right!

Thank you so much for coming by today! We sure appreciate you.