Happy Monday, everyone! There’s a pretty cool Tour through Blogland happening right now, and last week I was invited to participate by Christy, the lovely lady behind Confessions of a Serial Do-It-Yourselfer. So today, instead of sharing a project with you, I’m going to be answering some questions to give you a bit of insight about my work and my creative process, and then I have the pleasure of introducing you to three other bloggers that I think you are going to love!
But first, I have to give a very special thanks to Christy for inviting me to join in the fun! The home design/DIY blogging community is full of genuinely kind and awesome women who are so supportive of one another, and Christy is a prime example of that. I have enjoyed her blog for a long time, and was so thrilled to have the chance to finally meet her in person at the Haven Conference a few weeks ago.
If you have never visited Christy’s blog, you are going to be amazed by her DIY’s! She has such a knack for taking a piece of furniture that most people would donate or kick to the curb and giving it a new life as something beautiful! I mean, seriously, look at this office chair that she transformed from a navy blue and cherry wood “board room reject” to oh, so pretty!
I’ve never attempted an upholstery project, but Christy is great at walking you through the process and giving you confidence that you can do it, too! Please be sure to stop by her blog to see all of her other inspiring DIYs!
A Little About Me
For my newer readers {welcome!}, let me tell you a bit about myself before I answer the four Touring Through Blogland questions.
I am an attorney, a wanna-be designer, and most recently a stay at home mom. I have been married to my very best friend for the past seven years {we dated for the six years before that}, and I am mom to two of the most adorable little boys on Earth – Cooper who is 14 months and Beckett who is 2 and a half {ok, maybe I am biased, but they are pretty darn cute, right?}! We live in beautiful Denver, Colorado.
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| Photo from March 2014, taken by Technicolor Vision. |
While my kiddos keep me more than busy, in my spare moments my passions are all things artistic, and my house is my palette. It’s a constant work in progress – decorating, organizing, and DIYing! I strive to make everything pretty, while at the same time ensuring that our home is a fun and safe place for two adventurous little boys.
I enjoy doing a bit of everything – interior design, graphic design, photography, painting, crafting, organizing, organizing, and reorganizing. And for the past year and a half, this blog has been my place to chronicle all of our progress.
I love color! I love modern design! I love opening the door to an organized closet! I love the satisfaction of making something myself! And I love sharing my projects and meeting others with similar passions!
What Am I Working On Right Now?
A better question might be, “what am I not working on?” My current to do list is so scattered right now and spans just about every room of our house.
I’ve definitely been on an organizing kick lately! I finally tackled under our kitchen sink, which I’ll be posting about that later this week {here’s a sneak peek}…
…and up next I plan to regain control of my guest room closet, which is where I store all of my gift wrap supplies and lots of other random things.
Even though it’s still the middle of summer, I’m already starting to think about fall decor! I used to think that in order to swap out your decor for each season, you had to have a neutral palette – and neutral is one word that definitely does not describe our house. But I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to how I can inexpensively swap in some autumn-inspired accent colors in our teal living room and kitchen for the fall months, and I have some ideas that I am excited to share!
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| See more photos of our teal and grey kitchen here |
Other big projects on my radar include finally putting the finishing touches on our master bedroom and creating an awesome understair playroom for our boys for Christmas. Plans are in the works for both of these, so keep an eye out for the details in the coming months!
How Does My Work Differ From Others in this Genre?
I’d say that my personal design style is probably the thing that most sets me apart from a lot of other bloggers out there. If I had to put a name to my style, it would be Modern Metro with a touch of Urban Funk.
Here is what Modern Metro looks like in our home:
And here’s the Urban Funky side of our home:
You can see much more of our home on the Home Tour page.
I’ve been told that my design style tends toward the more masculine side of the scale, and I guess that’s a good thing since I live in a house of boys. I just know what I like. My favorite colors for my home are shades of blues and greys, but I also love to add in unexpected pops of bright colors like hot pink and orange.
When I say that my house is my palette, it’s no joke! I have no fear of color and neutral really isn’t part of my vocabulary. You name a color, and chances are it shows up somewhere in our house!
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| This is my on-the-go paint and fabric swatch kit that I carry with me everywhere. |
I also find that my writing style differs a bit from other bloggers. I like to share a lot of details about my projects. When you read my posts, you are going to get the full who, what, where, when and why. I’m wordy and I know it, but it’s my hope that I share enough details to make it easy for anyone to replicate my projects. I like to provide lots of step by step photos, and lots of detailed instructions. Some say less is more…I say more is more 🙂 {but feel free to skip straight to the pretty pictures if you are ever so inclined}.
How Does My Writing/Creative Process Work?
My brain is constantly spinning, so lists are my best friend. I make a LOT of lists in an effort to track all of the ideas that pop into my mind, often times adding to them in the middle of the night when I’m woken with some inspiration that I’m afraid I’ll forget by morning.
I generally don’t have too much trouble coming up with ideas, but when it comes to executing big projects, I am definitely not one to dive right in. I have to have a clear and detailed plan before I feel ready to start – no doubt that’s the analytical, attorney side of me coming out!
If I’m organizing a closet, I start by making a list of everything that needs to end up in that closet, then I sketch out rough plans before taking detailed measurements and buying the supplies I need.
When it comes to designing a new room, I often start with lots of divergent ideas, and creating separate mood boards for each concept helps me get all those ideas out of my head. This also helps my husband to visualize all of the crazy things I am trying to explain to him. For example, here are the three totally different mood boards that I put together when we started planning our older son’s “big boy room” last fall.
In the end, we often pick and choose elements from multiple mood boards, but seeing each idea on paper helps us make those decisions. From the above design concepts, we ended up picking the Vintage Preppy design plan for our son’s room, but a lot of the details from the Planes, Trains and Automobile concept ended up in the room, including a hanging play tent, the airport poster, the lighted globe, and the license plate map. {Click to see the completed Vintage Preppy Little Gentleman’s Lounge.}
Even once I’ve decided on the overall design plan for a room, my type A personality continues… I generally end up using Photoshop to created a to-scale floor plan before buying any furniture. It might seem like overkill, but the way a room lays out in my head often doesn’t fit with the actual dimensions of the space, so drawing up the floor plans is a big help to me, and saves us the hassle of making returns.
I’ve even been known to go so far as to draw up a rendering of a project to help me make decisions before starting a project. When I was trying to decide what colors to paint the frames for my upstairs hall, I created a quick Photoshop rendering to compare the two options. Turns out my husband was right, and we ended up adding one pink frame.
And when I was planning how to paint the argyle wall in my son’s room, I drew up renderings to help me make numerous decisions, like how many rows of diamonds to paint, as well as the placement of the colors. In the end, I was amazed at how similar the finished project looked the rendering that I started with!
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| Click to see the full Vintage Preppy Little Gentleman’s Lounge room reveal |
My type A personality almost always wins out on major organizing projects {ones that involve installing shelves or closet systems} and on big interior design projects. In these cases, lots and lots of planning occuring before any real progress ever happens. But when it comes to smaller projects – especially crafty projects – I am much more likely to just jump in and let things evolve as I go.
I am also very fortunate that my husband and my mom are always willing to talk things over with me and offer input. Both of them often make brilliant suggestions that improve the outcome of my projects – whether it be suggesting a design idea or coming up with a better way to get something done. My mom goes above and beyond helping me with the sewing aspects of projects that I don’t have the skills for, and my husband is my partner in crime, often staying up with me until all hours of the night to get things accomplished while our little people sleep.
When it comes to my writing process, I take a very step by step story telling approach. I like to be detailed and thorough, but I work hard to keep my posts from sounding too “lawyerly” – in other words, to not let them be too boring! 😉
Why Do I Write/Create What I Do?
I started this blog about a year and a half ago, when Beckett was 14 months old, I was six months pregant with my Cooper, and I was still practicing law full time. It probably wasn’t the best time to delve in to something new like blogging, but I jumped in with both feet anyway.
After Cooper was born and I made the decision to stay home for a few years, the blog really helped me with the transition. It gave me something that was just mine, and it provided the much needed motivation to continue being creative and getting projects done. With two little ones in the house, it can be so tempting to just drop on to the couch as soon as they fall asleep at naptime or after bedtime {and there’s nothing wrong with that!}, but blogging motivates me to use my free moments to accomplish projects that make me happy {sometimes after the dishes are done, and sometimes instead of doing the dishes}.
We’ve lived in our current home for nearly six years now, but our “to do” list seems to continue getting longer instead of shorter. My mind never stops going, so the projects never end.
I don’t do any projects just to do them – just to create blog content. Everything you’ll find here on my blog is something that I have chosen to do for myself or my family.
Sometimes they are projects to make our house feel like home to us, like the nursery, where we’ve spent so much of our lives these past two and a half years…
and the guest room inspired by our honeymoon travels in Greece…
…sometimes they are projects to make our home easier to live in, like our organized pantry…
or our bathtub toy storage that quickly swaps out when we have guest visiting…
…and sometimes they are projects that make life easier when we are away from home, like the restaurant kit I created for dining out with our kids…
Many of my projects are also motivated by my desire to save a little money! I am really not that much of a DIYer {you won’t find me building furniture any time soon}, but when it comes to smaller projects, I am always willing to look at something and figure out how I can recreate the look for less. My favorite high low projects include my vintage industrial letters…
…the belt shelves in Beckett’s room…
So that answers why I create what I do. But why do I write about it? In addition to blogging keeping me motivated and accountable for completing projects, I really hope that along the way my experiences and projects can inspire others to create projects that make them happy or improve their lives in some way. It makes me feel so good when I receive a comment or an email from a reader telling me that I helped them in some way! I love that blogging allows me to be part of a larger community of people who share my interests and passions!
And with that, let me now introduce you to three more bloggers who are not only talented, but also super sweet to boot!
Hi there! I’m Katie from Addicted 2 DIY. I’m a former firefighter, turned stay-at-home mom. I live in hot and sunny Arizona with my amazing husband, our two rowdy boys, and our crazy dog. Our home is a never-ending project, which is part of the reason why I created my blog. I wanted to share our journey towards making our house a home. I love creating home décor projects, as well as building furniture. I live for coffee in the mornings and the smell of freshly cut lumber. I love the challenge of stepping outside of my comfort zone with projects, and my goal is to inspire other women to do the same.
I love that Katie is definitely not afraid to break out the tools! Check our this Pottery Barn inspired console table that she and her husband made:
Hi Blue i Style readers! I’m Melissa from A Prudent Life. I started my blog almost a year ago to escape from a corporate career that wasn’t fulfilling my need to create things. Now I have an outlet for my deep love of bookplate labels, gold rub ‘n buff, & all things aqua. My favorite projects involve turning messy spaces into smile-inducing ones through organization, unexpected paint, & funny labels. In between bigger reveals, I share fun things like DIY décor, upcycles, and Silhouette projects. I couldn’t do any of this without my super-supportive husband, who occasionally gets roped into being my photographer, graphic designer, and financial backer. We share our home with Maddie, our German Shepherd who wants to be a dog model. She makes frequent uninvited appearances in my project reveal photos. Lucky for her, she’s adorable.
Melissa’s blog is filled with genius projects that turn ordinary items extraodinary. I love the way her mind works! She constantly has me thinking “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Take her Kate Spade inspired wine tags for example – can you guess what she made them out of?
And look at the sunburst mirror that she was able to create from a foam floral wreath, thumbtacks, and wood shims! So smart!
I have been inspired by these three ladies for quite some time now, so it was really a treat to getting to know each of them personally at Haven Conference a few weeks ago. I hope that you will take the time to visit each of their blogs to check out their amazing projects. Next Monday, on August 4th, the Tour through Blogland will continue, and each of them will be answering the same four questions that I answered in this post, giving you a chance to get to know them even better!
