90% of the time when we have free time, we’re looking at interiors. We absolutely love the design aspect and incorporating new and fun pieces into a home. We’d be lying if we said we weren’t tempted to pop in and see what people have done with a place when spotting an “Open House” sign, while driving around on the weekends. We haven’t done it since moving, but we get a good laugh out of the idea of it. 😉 READ MORE
With the weather being so beautiful lately, we’ve been spending as much time outside as possible. Now that we’re home owners we understand why our parents would obsess over planters and cleaning the front of the house once Spring rolled around. Over the weekend we found ourselves at the nursery with Henry, picking out flowers and planters to spruce up the front of our house. It was nice to be surrounded by so many other couples and families, embracing the sunshine, and filling their carts with fresh herbs and flowers. This place is coming together more and more each day and I don’t think we have ever enjoyed cleaning up a place, and making it look beautiful as much as we recently have.
Whether you have just bought a new home or just want to give it a little refresh for the change in season, we rounded up a few favorites that will give your home a big impact in three very different ways. READ MORE
Our master bedroom has come a long way since we first moved into our house back in November. It is a very modest, cottage-like space that we didn’t know we were looking for when we first started our house hunt almost a year ago. Most modern master bedrooms are MASSIVE and have tons of closet space, and seating areas and when we moved to Arizona we thought “yeah, we’ll take one of those!”, but man, when we first saw this house in the thick of our house hunt, we felt something special in the old charm of a very practical space. This Tudor has seen a thing or two since being built in 1930 and we are letting her do the talkin’. In our last apartment we made a conscious decision to make our bedroom a room for sleeping not an extension of our office or living room and we brought that theme over to our house. It isn’t a room with a tv, or laptops, or anything that would distract us from feeling rested. In our first apartment, putting a tv in our bedroom felt like a luxury. We loved curling up in bed and watching movies until we felt tired enough to fall asleep. It sounds great, and it probably was for a while there, but it definitely kept us from the rest we really needed. Distractions are all around us, and we work in a field that is constantly swallowed up with technology, so we felt that if there was one room in our house that was just for us it would be the bedroom.
A rug can really pull a room together and define it’s style. It’s like the third element to an outfit, or the cherry on an ice cream sundae. It just completes a space. We have most of the big furniture pieces in our dining room and living room, so now comes the fun part: textiles! Pillows, rugs, accents…we love it! We tend to lean more on the neutral side when it comes to rugs; it feels timeless and allows for an easy refresh with other accents in the room if you feel like mixing things up a bit. READ MORE
Lately we find ourselves browsing the web for some interior design inspiration at night, bookmarking different tile companies, vintage shops, and etsy finds. It’s something we enjoy doing when we have a little down time. We often think about who the original owners of this house were and what the street looked like. While watching Miracle on 34th Street on Christmas morning, we had a good chuckle with each other…our house was built 17 years before that movie was made. Just a little crazy. 😉 We love it though. The idea of so many families here, parties, and love…hopefully. Who knows?! There can be some crazy stories about this place too for all we know, but the idea of making this house our own, a safe haven, a comforting little place for us to retreat to after a long day, makes us so happy. READ MORE
Loloi rug | Osborn shoes | Vintage portrait art
After throwing around a few ideas for the living room and lusting over some of these pretty neutral living rooms, we think we’re going to take the plunge with a neutral fabric sofa. We are still holding on to our brown leather one from West Elm (I love that baby too much to sell it), and are thinking of using it in a studio space. For now we just want to mix things up (for us), with a black, gray, and white color palette. When we look at our current leather sofa, all we see is boho, which is pretty silly because it can totally be styled multiple ways, but we’re thinking we need a fresh start in this house. Clean and simple. Here’s a round up of a few favorites we’ve found:
We’ve been buried in home decor books, pinning to our home boards, moving furniture around daily and trying to give this sweet old lady of a house the best layout we can give her. It’s been a month and a half since we moved in and we are slowly figuring things out. When we moved in the night before Thanksgiving, we knew it would be full holiday mode for a while before we even got to the “normal” home style, so when we took down all the Christmas decorations a few days ago (that wreath was the last to go — it still smelled so good!), it was the first time since we moved in that we got to take a really good look at our Tudor. Our sofa has been moved to three different places since we moved in, and we’re thinking the third time was a charm. Our living room is a narrow rectangular shape, so we are trying to create an intimate seating area that allows for conversation without having to yell across the room. Bigger isn’t always better, and we found out quickly that we’d rather have a functional space than a space that just holds a lot of our things.
Camp Collection romper | UO blanket and socks | Eye Buy Direct glasses | Domino book
Nursing a nasty cold this morning with some tea and puppy cuddles (Henry will take any excuse to nap on the bed), while going through the new domino book. Last fall we had the pleasure of shooting with Michael Wiltbank for domino magazine. We posted about it a while back when the feature on their website came out. (You can view it here.) At the time we were completely unaware of the new book they had been working on, but were pleasantly surprised when we received an email from the team in June asking if we would like to be involved. Of course we said yes!
Our passion for interior design is something that we didn’t really discover until the last several years or so, which is pretty funny when we stop to think about it because it’s such a big part of our every day lives, as well as our blog. Maybe it’s because over the last few years we’ve actually had a place of our own to express our style in and experiment with various patterns and textures. We’ve always been obsessed with interior design shows and we love a good before & after photo, but it wasn’t until we moved into our last apartment that we really felt the creative juices flowing and found ourselves reading more about mid-century design along with various architects. Our style has recently taken a turn and we’re slowing gravitating toward something a bit different. We have so many ideas floating around for a future home, but until then we’re gaining a lot of inspiration from this pretty pink book below.
Divided into various topics such as seating, artwork, shelving and entertaining, the book has a little of everything to help you identify you own style and then fully execute it. We have definitely spent many hours hunting down a light fixture or textile that we’ve admired from a photo, so the mood boards complete with product sources are a nice touch! We are so honored to have been able to contribute to the book, sharing our love for filling our home with plants and how we use them as a design element.
There are so many incredible features in this book including fun flooring with Elsie from A Beautiful Mess, lighting solutions with Stephanie and Robert from Workstead, and DIY shelving with Claire Zinnecker.
We’re giving away a copy of the book on our instagram, so head over there and tag a friend who you’d love to share it with or gift it to for the holidays! Good luck!
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It might sound strange, but we never thought we would want a house. Apartment living was always something we felt content with and thought we’d happy with for years to come. Maybe we never felt settled, maybe we didn’t want the commitment, maybe the dream of traveling often was too appealing (well, it still is)…whatever it was, it wasn’t something that was part of “the plan” for us. As time goes on, and we feel more and more comfortable here in Arizona, it becomes more clear to us how much we really love it here and want to make it our permanent home. Coming from New York, the appeal was how extremely different our way of life would be in Arizona and how cheap real estate is, was an added bonus. Both of those are still true, but its remarkable how less expensive real estate is in community homes and new builds vs. older homes. It seems with newer homes you get a lot more for your money. Sounds weird, right? Don’t get us wrong, custom homes can obviously cost you a pretty penny, but we have been more drawn to the older 1930s-midcentury homes in Phoenix. The charm has completely sucked us in and apparently we’re not alone, because they’re selling like hotcakes! Over the last few months we’ve seen a few dozen homes. We’ve been actively looking, but nothing has really spoken to us. The one or two that did were sold just hours after us seeing them, giving us little time to discuss anything or let it all soak in. It’s so strange, because its one of the biggest investments of your life…you should be thinking everything through and not be impulsive, yet if you don’t strike while the iron is hot it can just slip away. We’re still on the hunt! One of the things that surprised us the most about these older homes is just how big the yards are. We’ve seen some that are completely decked out (fire pits, crazy tile, even a spot to park your airstream) to some that are literally dirt lots in the back (a blank slate for whatever your heart may yearn for). It got us thinking about all the possibilities and dreaming of the perfect outdoor space. Here’s a few from Pinterest that we’re loving…
Follow along with us on Pinterest for more daily inspiration.
We’re a little pillow obsessed over here…there’s no denying that! One of the biggest questions we get asked about with home decor is about our pillows and where to find indigo, mud cloth, and shibori prints. There’s a lot of places selling them nowadays, but some bigger retailers can be really over priced! We love searching on etsy for pieces like these…you can usually snag a better deal and you get to connect with some independent business owners. Here are our top three favorite etsy shops for pillows, throws, and blankets!
BOHO PILLOW
Monica is a local business owner in Arizona, and one of the sweetest people! She has a lot of variety in the different prints she carries,
and some with a great pop of color.
MAE WOVEN
If black and white patterns are your thing, this shop is perfect! Amelia has a ton of black and white mud cloth pillow options,
along with some great baskets and throws.
ONE FINE NEST
This was the first shop we found when we were searching for indigo and shibori print pillows for our living room.
Since then they’ve add some great blankets too.
You can see some other home + design posts here:
Office Refresh | Our Kitchen Nook | Living Room Makeover
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We are Robert and Christina: husband and wife, photo takers, adventurers and best friends. We like to laugh too hard, dance all night, and explore together. Here is a little glimpse into our lives in sunny Phoenix, Arizona.
