Reader Design: Brooke's Tranquil Tree House

The owner of this self-proclaimed "tree house" has it going on. Brooke is busy mothering, renovating her St. Louis home, operating her business, Sucre Shop, and managing the social media for West Elm St. Louis. WOAH! Color me impressed.

And, Brooke is a serious, self-diagnosed style mutt. From Brooke: 

The house is mid-century modern, and that kind of simple, inside / outside aesthetic is what we wanted to stick with. But I’m no mid-century expert, and at the end of the day, I like what I like. It ends up being eclectic, and that doesn’t bother me at all.
I call our house the tree house because it is so open inside and open to the outside, with its huge sliding doors, floating stairs, and tall windows. I fell in love with the backyard that you could see from almost anywhere on the ground floor, but the house needed a ton of updating!

Every surface you see has been touched in some way or another - the tiger stripe bamboo floors which replaced a mix-match of carpet and hardwoods; the amazing orange that looks vintage but was a splurge Brooke and her husband agreed on early in the renovation process; the raw, uneven, and totally unique kitchen backsplash; and the bright walls that went in to cover up the stained woven wallpaper.

We have so many windows on our ground floor that there isn’t actually much space for pictures or art. To fit in all the pieces that are special to us, we did a gallery wall around our TV in the living room. A smart friend recommended I use Command hooks to test things out and make sure I liked everything before I committed. It may be the best advice I’ve ever gotten!
The ‘I carried a watermelon’ poster on the wall is from Etsy and is a tribute to my childhood. Fun fact: I was an extra in the movie Dirty Dancing when I was 7 years old! I was doing the merengue in the gazebo in my Kellerman’s t-shirt! People get such a kick out of seeing that on my wall.
 
 

Now, you can tell why Brooke calls her home a "tree house" - it's light, bright, and airy. The only problem? No privacy! Luckily, Brooke had a solution. 

Our a master suite is a loft area above the living room. It used to be a sunken living room, which we converted into a closet, because there was so little closet space. The master bedroom has to be closed off with a cardboard accordion door. The huge sliders we put in give us privacy, but we can open them all the way and still have the open feel and views original to the house.

We commend you, Brooke, for achieving beautiful design with some serious practicality! 
Follow Brooke along on Instagram and check out her shop! 

See you next week, Mutts! 

Tricked-Out Industrial Desk

I seriously never know what's going to jump into my cart when I go thrifting.  But that's kind of the point though: go out with open expectations and see what projects will reveal themselves to you.  And on a recent treasure/ trash hunt, I came home with these babies:

Sawhorses.

Right away I noticed they were just the right height for an industrial-style desk but I needed to find a desk top.  In the spirit of using what you have, I dug up that old  tri-fold chalkboard we used as a giant program at our wedding and decided to repurpose one of the panels.

The chalkboard had been collecting dust in our garage for a few years with the exception of when it got a moss & bookpage makeover to be the "something borrowed" at a dear friend's wedding:

But collecting dust does no one any good (especially if you have allergies) so I introduced a chalkboard panel to one of the sawhorses and they hit it off!

How perfect is that?  The chalkboard surface makes it easy to jot down tasks that can be wiped clean when completed.

I built the hutch out of 3 old drawers that can be reconfigured to suit.  They were also collecting (saw)dust in the garage from a dresser that was too damaged for me to repair and were serving no purpose until I also introduced them to the sawhorse and chalkboard.

They're like a blended family - Mr. industrial Sawhorse meet slender Chalkboard and they adopt three orphaned drawers to make a little desk family.

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The desk also comes with a pet cLamp (which is Cate for "clamp lamp").  

It has adjustable angles and an on switch on the cord.  And unclamps for easy repositioning.

(To be honest with you, I'm not sure what person I staged this piece for: a college-bound hipster majoring in psychology with a double minor in botany and art maybe?)

Chelsea and I are currently hatching a plan for the other sawhorse as we speak so you'll have to stay tuned to find out what juicy client project that will turn out to be...

Oh and the lucky buyer of the Desk family can also opt to take home uncle Chair (complete with black leather and thick retro vibes) at no extra charge. 

Industrial Sawhorse Desk [ + Hutch + Lamp + Chair]
SOLD
[Sawhorse Desk] 72"L x 17.25"D x 30"H
[Re-Configurable Hutch Drawer Shelves] 34"L x 14"W Each
Price: $245

If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, please contact cate@stylemutthome.com.

Color of the Year: Did Pantone Get It RIght?

Hi friends! Over the better part of the last decade I have found a tremendous amount of enjoyment from home decorating and styling. I desire to further my knowledge and soak in as much as I can both from a creative standpoint as well as the business. A large part of this business is understanding the ebb and flow of trends. Trends have always fascinated me even well before I stepped into the interior decorating world. How does an idea take off and become trendy? Who gets the ball rolling? Is it every day people or the rich and famous?

Then you have trend predictions which further add to my curiosity. One of the first trend predictions I started following a number of years ago was the Pantone color of the year. Didn't know there was such a thing? Here, take a look at some of their recent selections:

How do they pick the color year after year? I understand it from a marketing standpoint. With every declaration of which color will be leading the way that year you see the ripple effect right down to the most accessible and popular shopping destinations, such as Target, HomeGoods, Pottery Barn, etc. And then the celebrity designers partnering with those stores, (think Emily Henderson and Target), start styling their projects with the newest goodies available, showing everyone just how to incorporate the declared color of the year in a tasteful, manageable way.

This year the color turned out to be a twofer! They picked not just one, but two colors for 2016: Rose Quartz and Serenity. Here, they created this image of a faceless woman wearing a flowing cape to make the announcement:

Since this is an honest place I'll admit, I wasn't terribly excited by this combo. It brought me back to the days of when we had new boy-girl twins under our roof and everything was baby pink and baby blue. And really, other than a blush crocheted throw pillow at target I've barely noticed these colors make any strong statement this year.

Then something strange happened. I started noticing a different color breaking through the color-of-the-year combo - dark green!

If you're a big Fixer Upper fan you may recognize the photo above and the one below. They're just two examples from Joanna Gaines' strong use of dark green in their latest season which finished earlier this year. I noticed this color in just about every episode and I absolutely adored it.

And with the Fixer Upper cult following, I wondered if anyone else noticed as well. So I picked up a can of dark green, (Behr's 'Secluded Woods'), to refinish a mid-century dresser last Spring and it got scooped up within days. I had so many inquiries on that piece that once it sold, I had an immediate request for a nearly identical custom piece, (below on left).

I took the Summer mostly off from refinishing to focus on my family and some design jobs, but as soon as the kids went back to school last week I painted this beauty below in Ralph Lauren's 'Scholar Green', and it was taken within two days.

 
 

Is there a new color trending? Will it carry over to 2017? I sure hope so as we've got a little surprise to show you in a design job we're working on right now! But until we're ready to reveal, here are some more stunning examples of this moody color casually staking its claim:

Thank you all for stopping by!