The Dreamy Getaway - Storybrook Cottage Vacation Rental in Tennessee

Do you ever see a cottage and think "Hell to the yes! That is the cottage of my dream!" Well, for those of you that have cottage dreams, anyway? No? Oh, well be prepared to be blow away, because I found it and it's been hiding in Tennessee with a bunch of other cute vacation rental properties.

Interior Design: Rustic Charm in the Polish Countryside

Oh, all know I have a soft spot for the rustic thing. I don't know if it'll ever go away, but there's nothing like a country style kitchen and a some reclaimed wood touches that get my heart racing. Yes, hearts can race for interior design and mine does all the time dammit! It was no wonder that this stylish country home caught my eye. 

Home Tour: A Chicago Apartment with Rustic Touches

Surprise! Today's home decor feature is my apartment! I was inspired by Compass, a real estate website in NYC, and their Starter Stories project to share with you my new apartment and all the work that my boyfriend and I have put into making it home. Since it's our first apartment together, it's most definitely been a learning process that has involved a lot of compromise. We've only been in the space for about 6 months, so there are still a lot of things that we're figuring out how to make work, but I am finally ready to do a little unveiling and let you all into my world! Especially since I've been talking about this new apartment constantly (like here and here and here, for example).

Loving Right Now: Kitschy Vintage Kitchen Decor

I'm still in the process of trying to make my new apartment feel like a home and it's been so hard to focus on just one room. I want to buy everything, for every room, all at once! Anyone else understand this feeling?

Of course, I can't do that because as much as I wish I am, I am not a millionaire. So, I've been doing it slowly — paycheck by painstaking paycheck and cutting corners where I can. Like the responsible human being that I am. Unfortunately, all this has allowed me to do is continue adding items to an ever growing list of "wants". That combined with my inability to focus on one room has created an odd list and caused be to buy things on impulse - making for some very odd, half-finished rooms. To combat this insanity, I've decided to share it with you! Aren't you excited? In an effort to focus, I'm just going to share my wants, my loves, my hopes, and my dreams for my new apartment room by room. Maybe that way I won't wonder why I have an extensive plate collection for the kitchen walls but still no table for the craft room (yes, this is a real problem).

Interior Design: Cozy Winter Cabin

Well, we're sitting pretty in the middle of a blizzard and when that happens, it's hard not to dream of cozy winter cabins and lots of blankets. So, in the spirit of the season, here's a chic and cozy modern cabin to dream about.

Interior Design: 7 Creative Work Spaces

I'm a lucky girl. I have the most wonderful and patient boyfriend who let me turn our spare bedroom into a craft room, while he suffers out in the dinning room with a table and a bookshelf. What can I say? I have more crafty crap and most of his hobbies involve the garage, so it seemed fair. But I've been feeling guilty lately because I'm not great at organizing, making it really difficult to actually craft in my craft room. Essentially, it's a giant, somewhat orderly storage closet. I have a tendency to grab what I need and just craft in the living room anyway. I know. I'm a jerk. So, I think it's time to start getting myself organized in a way that makes it easy to use the craft room. For that inspiration, I go to Pinterest (naturally).

Interior Design: Rustic Summer Getaway

This is apparently a summer home, however, I would absolutely live here year-round. It's bright, it's cozy, and it's got some serious family style. I love it. It's in New York state, but I don't really care because even if winters get snowy, all the windows and skylights would make is so worth living there. Now that I mention it, how does one clean a skylight? Hmmm...questions for a different time in my life.

Design Trends from IKEA: Colored Floor revolution

I'm sure by now you're well aware that IKEA is jumping on the mid-century design bandwagon and releasing a whole line of mid-century inspired gems. Great. Awesome. Love it. Looks great. Except, when I was looking through the new IKEA collection there is only one thing that really, really stood out to me...

Interior Design: Southern Farmhouse Charm

I think I could live on a farm. At this point in my life, I'm over the big city livin' and I know that sounds weird to say considering that I'm only 26, but I do think I'm over it. I could slow down for a while. Especially, if farm house living meant a quaint little home with a studio space and plenty of land to run around on. Now, that I could definitely live with.

Monday Design: New York Chic

There's nothing I love more than a home tour of an interior designer, because I always imagine that they live perfectly - no book out of place, no dirty laundry on the floor, no dishes in the sink. This is, I realize, a perfectly unrealistic point of view, but the magazine spreads make me believe it's true! Anyway, I found this home our of interior designer Rodman Primack, Californian living in New York, and was instantly smitten. It was definitely cleaned and staged, but something about it still feels beautifully lived in. And not lived in like my apartment is lived in, where you're constantly tripping over someone's shoes. No, not like that. See for yourself.

Sweet Dreams: 14 Beautiful Bedroom Design Ideas

Well, well, well, it's me again. I feel like this last hiatus I took was longer than most, but with Internet issues compounded by preparing for a trip to Paris, life has just been a little bit of a whirlwind. However, I'm trying to get back on the blogging horse for real this time, with plans for recipes and DIY tutorials in the very near future. In the meantime, to celebrate (or mourn, depending on how you look at it) by return home from a beautiful 2 week stay in the city of Paris, here's a collection of cozy, comfortable, and chic bedrooms!

Interior Design: Country Livin'

I think I'm obsessed with Country Living magazine, which is hilarious because I used to make fun of my mom for buying it all the time. I would think "psh, who wants to live in the country anyway?" The answer is, apparently, a lot of people. But that's besides the point, Country Living isn't just about living in the country, like I so foolishly once thought. They have a massive collection of adorable cottages and farm-house style homes that anyone would be jealous of - this born and bred city girl included. Anyway, I bring this up because I feel like I've been sharing a lot of homes from there lately and I thought I needed to explain myself. So there you go. Now on to the good stuff.

This sprawling country retreat in Kentucky reminds me of country cottages in the south of France and if I can find a place to stay that reminds me of Provence without the 8 hour flight, I'm a happy girl.

Interior Design: Eclectic Design and Kitschy Details

There's a delicate balance between cluttered crap and eclectic design and I am definitely good at always crossing over to the crap side of it. When trying to decorate with kitschy or eclectic details, I always end up in the "more is more" camp, which can look cluttered and junky when not done right. And my spaces always look cluttered and junky. This space, on the other hand, has it totally figured out. The overall design is minimal, but the house as a whole incorporates all the fun details you'd want in a home. How do they do it?

Interior Design: Industrial Work Space with Soft Touches

I love creative work spaces, especially if you work in the creative field. I don't think any type of artistic person can work at their best capacity in little grey cubicles with fluorescent lighting. Maybe that's just me, or maybe it stems from the highly visual world we live in, but it's obvious that modern offices are striving to attain style, not just function.

Let's face it, in today's fast-paced world, we all basically live in our offices. Even if you're not putting in any overtime, it sometimes feels like you spend more time at your desk than anywhere else. If you're spending so much time in one place, it's only naturally that you would want it to be visually appealing and tranquil. This office space for Bitium manages to do just that. It obviously has sectioned off areas for desks and a conference room, but each room flow into each other and the industrial elements are combined with soft touches to make the entire space feel more homey.

Interior Design: White Interiors with Lively Details

It's summer, it's sunny, and the plants are coming in. There's nothing more warming for your decor in the summer time than house plants. Do they have to be over-abundant and difficult to care for? Absolutely not. Just like this minimalist home demonstrates with them scattered delicately throughout for a little touch of life.

Monday Design: Outdoor Dining Decor

It's summer! Well, mostly. I wish it was a little warmer most of the time, but it's still sunny and warm enough to hang out on my brand new back deck. With a brand new deck come brand new fantasies of decorating an outdoor party space! Even though I am a terrible host and mostly just like hanging out alone, doesn't mean I can't dream of a perfect outdoor hang out that people would love to chill in - if I would ever invite people over.

Anyway, in preparation for summer fun, I've pulled some inspiration for outdoor decor.

Interior Design: Watercolor Walls

Phew, let me tell you something about moving. It is the worst. Moving sucks. Dragging moving out over the course of two weeks, sucks even more. BUT, I'm finally here. I've done it. I've moved! There are still a million boxes to unpack and a ton of things to do before this new place feels like home, but it's getting there. One long, busy day at a time. Anyway, getting settled also means getting back to blogging! (My favorite, obviously.) 

With all of the planning I was trying to do for the new place, I found a bunch of interior design inspiration and a few things that I had never seen before, like watercolor walls! Yep, can you believe it? My first thought was "How do I do this? What kind of paint do I need?" and then I quickly realized that this technique was a little something called wallpaper. Which, whatever, I probably would have royally screwed up a wall trying to watercolor paint it. The wallpaper is probably the smarter choice. Either way, these walls are awesome, inspiring, and add color and movement to a room like you've never seen.

Interior Design: Mint Green Kitchens

Newest update in my new apartment adventures: I now have mint green walls in my kitchen! Two walls to be exact. We left the rest of the kitchen white. In a fit of paint whimsy, I bought a whole gallon of mint green paint because I was really excited about the color, without having a plan for it. (I'm the worst) So it went in the kitchen. While I was extremely excited about it during the painting process, I started second guessing myself afterwards (naturally) and hating it inwardly for being too bright (naturally). So what does anyone do when worried about their design choices? Turn to Pinterest, naturally! I immediately turned to Pinterest to confirm that my design choice was, in fact, not insane and that we could absolutely pull off a mint green kitchen with dark wood accents and black floors (Pictures to come soon, I promise. It was already dark when we had finished painting.) - and Pinterest did alleviate all my design woes.

New Meets Old: Vintage and Modern Interiors

I'm always very impressed when someone is able to decorate their home with thrift store charm and new pieces without making it feel cluttered or tacky. I have the unfortunate habit of liking too many things and wanting them all, so instead of a very well curated space, I have a hoarders haven. Now that I'm moving into a new space, I'm trying to be really particular about what I'm buying and keeping so that my space has a cohesive feel. I found this space the other day that masters in secondhand decorating and I definitely need to take a few lessons from this estate sale maven. 

Interior Design: Gallery Walls

I'm moving into a new place June 1st and I couldn't be more excited to have the ability to plan and decorate this time around. When I moved into this apartment, my first apartment, everything was kind of rushed and I didn't take time to really plan out the space. It's come together in the three years that I've lived here, but now not only will I have time, I'll also have space! I'll get to have space and lots of white walls to decorate. So I've been imagining a gallery wall above my TV for a long time and just haven't gotten excited about anything. Now that I'll have the space to fill, my love of gallery walls has been renewed!