Reader Design: Ashley's Farmhouse Boho Home

Ok, y'all (side note: now that I'm a Seattleite I never say that word outloud, but boy does it feel good to type it!). 

Daylight savings has happened. The days are officially darker, and Fall - and perhaps even Winter - are already here. Today, we're taking off to Montana and fully embracing all there is to love about this season with a tour of Ashley's home. 

It's some mutt-ish mix of boho, mid-century, and rustic and replete with all the Fall vibes. This is a perfect opportunity for an edition of "I Spy: StyleMutt Home Reader Design." Count the Fall references in this home - all things layered, cozy, and Thanksgiving-inspired - and we'll see if we come away with the same number. Deal? 

From Ashley:

“I strive for functionality that also looks good. I strive to promote a sense of coziness and cleanliness in my home. A space that is clutter-free but also has a ‘lived-in’ feel (because, yes, real people live here!) I take pride in creating an oasis for my husband to come home to after a long day of work.”

This oasis was created with a lot of DIYing, bargain hunting, and creativity. In the living room, Ashley and her husband transformed the cookie cutter box fireplace into the stunning stone masterpiece you see. All it took was a lot of sweat and, per Ashley, maybe a few tears!

In the living room, they negotiated and landed a "dinged" floor model version of the farmhouse table they were eyeing; those display scratches didn't detract at all from the table - in fact, they added character! 

In the master bedroom, they added some character again with a DIY shiplap wall. Now... I know what you're thinking. Thank you, Joanna Gaines, for the shiplap obsession that's rocking the nation. But Ashley knows that despite its current trendiness, the feature is still completely her. 

“I don’t pay too much attention to trends, but instead gravitate towards classic and timeless pieces. I don’t want to feel like my décor is dated only months after designing a space. With that said, I do have shiplap in my home which is very “trendy” right now. But shiplap isn’t new, and I love the interest it adds to a space – so that is why I have it in multiple rooms, not because it is “in”. There is already talk about people regretting their decision to shiplap their walls, but I love it and have no regrets! At the end of the day, as long as your space brings you joy, that is all that matters!”

At the end of the day, all that money and time is well spent if the results makes you feel content, happy, and home. 

“[I’ll always invest in] anything that is well built and serves as functional décor! I love finding pieces that are made with quality materials and will stand the test of time. With that said, I also love finding functional useful items and displaying them as décor in my home. This dual purpose makes it worth a splurge!”

Thank you for the tour, Ashley! Your home is so full of love and built to withstand any season. 

Follow Ashley along on Instagram @ashley.joyfullygrowing for more. See you all next week! 

Bedroom Re-Do || 2017 Flip List Item No.6

Like Chelsea said yesterday, our bedroom has always been a flat note to me.   We've tried a couple different looks over the past two years (see here and here).  Each time we rearranged, it felt like I inched a little closer to the vibe I wanted but without ever bringing the design to full fruition.

So I added item redoing our bedroom to the 2017 Furniture Flip Bucket List in the hopes of figuring out what was missing from this neglected space.  

The first thing that greets you when you walk into our bedroom has always been my nightstand.  I fell in love with this vignette ages ago so I used it as inspiration for the rest of the space: warm wood + pops of color + a glint of brass.

In the past looks I’ve tried, we’ve never had a headboard.  I think that made me feel like there was something juvenile about our space.  So this time around I needed to see if a headboard would help refine our bedroom.  And I gotta say I am loving the anchor of the plush blue velvet!

I also kept my beloved leather + brass cantilever chair in the corner by the window.  

I think one day I’d ideally like to use this chair at a desk, but until then I guess my husband can keep throwing his “clean” underwear on it *insert facepalm emoji.*

Next to the chair is our thrifted MCM dresser.  I found this bad boy for only $50 and eventually scored the sunset mirror to go with it.

Just outside our door you can peek the roadside rescue ladder I've often used as a lateral storage piece.  Our hallway doesn't have much going on so I added the low-profile vertical piece for some architectural interest.

In this redecorating process, I did figure out that I’m bothered by the lack of varied furniture height in our room.

I shopped our apartment to introduce something lower as an alternative storage piece - do you recognize it?  This bench was actually our coffee table but I liked the idea of converting it to a get ready station.

The pièce de résistance to the makeover however is new bedding... I never realized how grown-up it would feel to have a real duvet cover!  We scored the Marble Percale Duvet Cover and matching shams (guess what - their on sale!) from Cstudio Home and it’s perfect for me and my oven-of-a-husband (ok I’m an oven too).  

Don't forget to check out Chelsea's Cstudio Home finds in her bedroom reveal... Gasp!  That shag pillow cover!  *heart eyes heart eyes heart eyes*

True, most of this makeover is a series of subtle tweaks.  What can I say?  We’re still in a rental after all.  But this modest assortment of new things has me feeling right as rain.  Until I get the itch to change it again that is... ;)

And on that note, that’s officially a wrap on the 2017 Furniture Flip Bucket List!  After two years of late finishes, it feels good to cross the finish line with a month to spare.  I’ve already begun percolating what I want to tackle in 2018 so stay tuned for next year’s list come January!

Seven down, zero to go.  Catch up on the 2017 Furniture Flip Bucket List.

Chelsea's Bedroom Makeover

Hi, friends! We've had a lot of fun furniture and eDesign reveals to share around here lately, but it's been quite some time since we've shared anything new from our own home fronts! As our plates have been filled up with these various projects, the ones we've desired for our own homes have been set aside for quite some time.

But I can only partially blame the busy schedule.

I've always felt like our bedroom was the black sheep of our home. It's not that I never felt satisfied with it, but it's always stuck out as an entirely different style and feel from the rest of the house. Our home has evolved to this cozy minimal bohemian look that's very laid back, understyled and layered for function. Since before we were married I've had the pleasure of using a family heirloom bedroom set that was anything but laid back! The carved antique wood was completely unique, remarkable and unlike anything I've ever seen.Still, I couldn't figure out how to make the large and ornate pieces work in this house. Here's a shot from last Christmas:

Like I said, this was beautiful to me! I loved our bedroom, truly. But as I really started to embrace a style that felt a lot more 'us' as a whole, I needed a clean break with the fancier bedroom set so our home could be consistent the whole way through. I found inspiration from a very simple shot I took last year of a chair, a plant and a wall hanging:

Don't worry, you're not missing anything here; it's really about as dull an inspiration pic as one could strum up. But here's what I liked and why I thought it worth setting as my guide - it's both simple and interesting. It's monochromatic yet cozy. It's fresh. These are the things I wanted for my bedroom and I did revert back to this photo to keep myself in check when I was tempted by evil things like color and pattern. HAHA! I'm totally kidding. I love color and pattern, just in very particular execution for my own home. So let's take a look around at our brand new bedroom!

My main objective was a quiet and calm space that still had that interest and unique appeal that I so love. I knew I didnt' want another headboard, but also that I didn't want nothing. After using the idea for horizontal trim in this clients bedroom, I loved that touch of something on the wall that didn't scream for attention. I strummed up this idea to install vertical trim pieces that start close together at the center of the bed, and then fan out, getting wider and wider. The pieces that are close together anchor the bed just as a headboard would! Don't you just love visual tricks?! I think I get those kicks from my Mama. Looking around, I kept my white dresser that I had refinished a couple years ago, but the bed and Matt's dresser were lucky Craigslist finds. After many years of a matching bedroom set, I've welcomed some inconsistencies and mixed pieces.

The idea to use floating dark green two-drawer file cabinets as nightstands came a while before I actually found a pair of dark green two drawer file cabinets. These guys were tucked in the corner of a local antique shop for $35/ea. Not a bad deal! (Of course, Matt was the one who handled the installation logistics) Fun fact: My kids have been writing each other a lot of notes lately.. They write apologies when they've been unkind, thank you notes when they've been helped, and don't even get me started on all their correspondence to the tooth fairy. Now I have a 'Small Letters' drawer for these precious small letters.

Another major component to pulling off an interesting beige and white room is choosing the right bedding. When you go monochromatic, texture and pattern can make a huge difference! When Cstudio Home reached out to introduce themselves, I was smitten with their use of texture and tone-on-tone pattern! The way their blankets are stitched, the subtle weave of the sheets - it's all a minimalists dream come true! We've got the Studio Quilt in Sandstone, the Canvas Sheet Set in Moss, and the Woven Shag Pillow Cover. I've made our bed and am more than willing to sleep in it!

I love the subtle pattern on the sheets - I've never had sheets worth looking at so I've never turned them down like this before! But the subtle mossy green is just so lovely with the white and beige pieces. Fresh, just like the plan.

Of course the only true way to make your space truly unique and one hundred percent you, is with your own personal pieces. I may not be able to look at this photo of my grandpa yet without a lump forming in my throat, but I absolutely want to see this every day. I miss him so. The dish to the left is a saucer from my grandma's china collection, and it's where I keep all my studs. I haven't found another way to keep them organized until now! (Well, they're still not so much organized as I can just see them all better)

This vanity mirror hung horizontally was an estate sale find last Spring. I loved the wood pieces of the frame fit together like a puzzle, and it's such a lovely shade of wood; couldn't turn it down.

That's a wrap! Thank you, friends, for coming by. I realize it's a pretty underwhelming room reveal compared to what's out there, but I really believe simple can be interesting, too, and wanted to share my own experience with this room's evolution. Onward and upward, I say! Grateful to finally be at this end of the transformation. :) We would love for you to come back tomorrow to see what Cate has whipped up in her room!  It's so beautiful, completely 'her' and I'm just smitten...oh, I can't wait for you to see!