Merry Christmas friends! I'm finally ready to share some pictures of our Christmas decor this year. I feel like I've been fussing with it for weeks now, moving things from one place to another, buying a little something for this corner, etc. But I'm done for now and plan to wait until next year for the rest of my ideas. For holiday decorations, I tend to keep things in the main living areas and don't do anything in the bedrooms. So c'mon in, have a look around.

The entryway got some simple updates for the holidays. Some pre-lit garland on the bottom of the table in front of a set of vintage Santa postcard that my mother-in-law gave me. On the table surface I added a snowman and a little sassy sign from HomeGoods. I had some extra vase filler that I added to the the hurricane.

The formal living room got a new artificial tree for the front window with a set a ornaments from Target. I put some spare ornaments in a bowl on the coffee table and then a little flower on the accent table.

The family room is my favorite area. Our tree with all the fun ornaments that we've collected or been given throughout our relationship. It's fun this year that we actually have wrapped gifts under our tree! To update our media center, I added a garland that I picked up from Target and added some faux wrapped gifts and extra ornaments. Garland and stockings added to the mantel and then some garland along the half wall dividing the kitchen. The best spot is to sit on the couch and look at both trees. :)

The dining room is the final stop on this little tour. I decorated our buffet (that's actually a revamped dresser) the same way I always do with a garland, and contained ornaments. The table got a small red runner, some festive vase filler added to the centerpiece, and some greenery added to the light fixture.

That wraps up our decor for the holidays! Hope you're enjoying the season (and lots of cookies)!

Love,
K

House Updates

It's been a few months since I gave any updates on the house, I think the last status was right after we moved in so we've made a bit of progress. Not a ton, but some. Baby steps.

The family room is probably the room with the fewest changes. I did get new slipcovers for our couch and loveseat (Ektorp, Nordvalla dark gray) and a new mirror for the fireplace mantel. I love the new slipcovers! They make our boring ol' furniture seem new again plus we got the deal of a lifetime on them which always makes me like things more.

I'm working on painting the room and hope to have that done soon. Next update. Also on the lookout for end tables and curtains. Long term we'd like to have built-ins on the sides of the fireplace so I'm trying to decide how much effort I want to put into decorating that area.

Things are moving forward in the living room as well. I picked up some furniture from a Facebook sale group, while it's not perfect the price was right for a room that's barely used. The rug is from Target that I managed to snag during a rug sale a few weeks ago and the tables are from Wayfair. The tables were such a pleasant surprise, much higher quality than I expected and I'm thrilled with them. The rug is good too.

I'm working on the curtain situation. I picked them up from Homegoods but they still need to be hemmed and hung properly. I like to use thumb tacks to test the waters! Painting the living room is also on the horizon. And lamps. As pretty as the bare bulb lamp with chipped paint is, I think actual lamps meant for the space would be a good idea.

The dining room has been painted and we have chairs! I painted the wall about the chair rail Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore (color matched at Ace Hardware with Clark & Kensington paint) and the lower portion of the wall is Simply White also by Benjamin Moore (also color matched at Ace). Loren and I also made a magnetic frame for our magnet collection.

The trim still needs to be painted and I need to get the curtains hung up but having chairs was a huge improvement. Oh, and I picked up the rug from Ikea. It's the DYNT rug and our store also had it in gray but I'm not seeing it on the website. I liked that it was low pile since chairs need to move easily but still had some movement to it. Plus, the price couldn't be beat for such a large sized rug. We're still looking for two more chairs, a new light fixture, and some additional wall decor.

I did get the entryway painted and a gallery wall added to the space. The paint color is Anew Gray by Sherwin Williams and it's the same color that I'm painting the family room and other areas on the first floor of the house.

As you can see, I picked up a table from HomeGoods but haven't decorated it yet. We plan to replace all of the white tile but we're still trying to figure out what the replacement is going to be.

Okay, I think that's all for now. Upstairs is still sort of a hot mess, but we do have a bed! No more mattress on the floor. :) Some progress is better than nothing, and little updates make it feel more like our house which is good for my emotional state. As always, thanks for reading!

Love,
K

The New House

We bought a house! 

I'm so excited to have a place to be able to settle into in the Chicago area. Living in our apartment has been fun, but it's been difficult not having our own furniture and decorations. Here's a few pictures from the listing. The house has good bones and we love the flow of the place. It's going to be fun making a new house home.

We're really excited for our Ruby girl to have a yard to run around in. Our house in Washington only had cement in the backyard and living in the apartment she hasn't had any place to run and play. There's big trees and she loved sniffing and running around when we let her in the yard after the inspection.

Thanks for reading, hope you'll come back to follow along as we settle into our new space and town.

Love, K

City Living

Since moving to Chicago, Loren and I have been living right in the heart of downtown. I thought I'd share a little glimpse of our apartment with you. We live right across the street from Millennium Park, on Michigan Ave. I feel pretty fancy to live on Michigan Ave! :) The views aren't great but still exciting to us coming from the suburbs. 

Anyway, here's some not great pictures of our apartment. It came furnished and we tried to add some personal touches without spending a lot of money. 

We bought this cheapo bookcase off Amazon and found some inexpensive frames and decorative items at the Ross down the street.

To help with feeling lonely, I made a display of Sticky 9 prints using some twine and 3M command hooks. It's nice to be able to see friends and family and remember fun times.

So that's our little apartment. It's been a nice little home for us and nice to be in the city to get the lay of the land around here. 

Thanks for reading!

Love, K

The Slowest Makeover of All Time

I know it's been forever and a day since I even mentioned any progress on our master bedroom makeover but there has been a little. I think we left off last summer (eek!) when I shared our updated bedding and I figured it was about time to show you the updated paint job as well as the furniture update.

First things first, the paint. I took forever and a day to pick out a paint color. I wanted it to be a neutral color (I'm not brave enough for bold colored walls) but yet a little different than the other colors in our house. I finally settled on a Sherwin Williams color called Versatile Gray. I feel like that is the perfect description of the color. It's warm and cool at the same time and doesn't seem to have any glaring blue or green undertones that are so common with grey paint colors.

Next update is regarding the dresser and nightstand situation (pretend you didn't see the nightstands in the pictures above). Our original plan after getting the new bed was to find some different coordinating pieces to finish out the room. This plan didn't last very long. We tried looking around at local furniture stores and looking for pieces on craigslist but we just weren't able to find anything to suit our needs. When it came down to it we liked the Hemnes six-drawer dresser the best out of anything we'd seen so in July when Ikea had a sale on Hemnes furniture we picked it up.

We ended up getting the matching nightstands too. I had thought about getting the white shade for the nightstands but Loren wasn't into it and I think getting the same dark brown/black color was the right choice.

That's the long overdue update with our bedroom. So far we've been liking the furniture, I especially like the nightstands. I was previously using a hand-me-down end table so I love having drawers! The new year has given me a little giddy-up to get busy on finishing up the bedroom so I'll be back with more updates soon! 

Christmas Decorations

I have no idea why it takes me so long to get a post together about our Christmas decorations. It seems like every year it takes me forever! They've been up since the beginning of the month but I guess I'm slow with getting the pictures taken.

Anyway, this year I tried to keep things simple but still sparkly and pretty. I always love sparkle but I feel like you can really go at it during the holidays. I try to keep things within traditional Christmas colors: red, green, with a little silver and gold thrown in.

Let's start outside - we kept it really simple. My red sparkly wreath that I bought forever ago, a little potted pine tree, and some garland around the entry way to the porch. I added a couple red bows to the garland and to the tree and called it a day.

I think our outdoor lights are festive and Loren didn't have to break his neck trying to hang them up. Win, win!

Our entryway is where we hang our stockings, this probably looks exactly like it did last year including our personalized stockings.

I changed a few things in the dining room this year. I kept the garland on the buffet and filled the apothecary jars with red and green ornaments. I also put a couple metal "gifts" on the the other side of the buffet. I hung up some star lights that I grabbed at Ikea during our last trip. I'm undecided if they'll make a return next year or not.

The table got a new red runner with a sequin edge, and I added some sparkly decorations to our usual centerpiece. Another change I did this year, is to hang some garland on our light fixture. I'd seen it on Pinterest and thought it would make my hanging ornaments look better. I just used some cheap-o garland from JoAnn's and put a few little decorative things around it.

I like the garland but think next year I'll replace it with some that's a little more full.

The kitchen is the same as last year with the addition of two cute little glitter trees and my DIY holiday card display. The trees I found at JoAnn's on super sale, and they just barely fit on top of our cabinets. I really like the extra sparkle up there though so I'm glad they worked out. Just a side note, they're actually hinged so they fold up completely flat! So easy to pack away after the holidays!

The living room might actually have less decorations compared to previous years but I'm enjoying the look. I switched up the decor on the media center; this year we have garland and these cute red lanterns I bought at Target last year after Christmas.

We didn't put lights in the garland because Loren said it would glare off the TV and drive me nuts but I think next year I'm going to try it anyways. I think garland just needs to shine! I did use those fake candles in the lanterns though just to make sure we didn't burn the TV. I really love our TV. :)

Our tree is the same one from last year just with a few new ornaments. I love it. I turn it on as soon as I walk in the door. It's definitely smile inducing.

So that wraps up our Christmas house tour, I hope you liked it! Please leave a link to your Christmas decorations in the comment section, I'd love to scope out ideas for next year!