We’ve been living in our house for exactly a week and Amalia has finally started calling it home. For the first few days, she would cry whenever I told her we were going home, and then I realized that she thought our new house was called “new house” and our old house was called home. The sudden change in her semantics feels like a metaphor for how we all feel after settling in a bit.
Our new house, despite the fact that we have rooms without furniture, really does feel like home already. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy it makes me to wake up in this house, come home to this house, and to fall asleep in this house. We fought so hard all summer to make it ours and the fact that we jumped through every hurdle and obstacle feels like a miracle.
Prudence and I have been working on our living room and are close to a final design that I plan to share with you as soon as it’s done. For a little sneak peek of what we’re thinking, I’ve included links to some of the products we’re noodling on below. We’ve also done some work on the entryway, but that’s it so far. Anel and I want to be really intentional about every design decision we make and, frankly, we need to wait until we save some up some money to do my office, our bedroom, Amalia’s room, and the dining room. We will basically be designing the house in stages as we can afford things.
I’m also doing a paid campaign with Modsy and they are in the process of designing our family/TV room right now. I haven’t seen anything from them yet, but am excited to see how it all works out.
Our decor inspiration for the whole house is light, bright and classic Connecticut with a twist. Farmhouse chic seems to be the hot look right now, and while I love it, it doesn’t feel like us. Prudence is pushing us to step out of our comfort zone with patterns and textures that we might not have considered before. But I also want to make choices that we’ll be happy with for years to come.
The main color theme throughout the house will be shades of sky blue, a color that makes me feel calm and happy and one of the few that Anel and I can agree on.
Entryway
One of the first decisions we made for the house was the color of the front door. I saw this photo on Instagram and was immediately drawn to how beautiful and simple this entryway looks. If you missed my (extensive) stories on the topic, you can always go to the “new house” highlight on my Instagram.
I tested out three different light blues on the inside and outside of the door: Benjamin Moore Breath of Fresh Air (my first choice), Benjamin Moore Soft Sky, and Curator Paints Strandhill. After staring at them for way too long, Anel and I agreed on Strandhill because it felt warmer and more inviting. The coolest part of our front door is that we’re going to be painting the inside frame navy for another pop of color when the door is open. Prudence got the inspiration from this photo and I just love the idea. The navy we’re using for that detail is Benjamin Moore Blueberry, a brighter than usual navy, because it really pops against the light blue.
We picked out polished chrome door hardware and a knocker to tie it all together. The hardware takes 6 weeks to arrive so we’ll paint and install that all in one go. I found it locally and am still searching for it online. I’m hoping to find it and share details before installation. The brand is Baldwin and it looks like this one but is slightly different. Stay tuned.
We’re also in the process of narrowing down an entryway light and my two current favorites are this semi-flush pendant and the Calliope Lantern, both from Colleen and Company. Prudence turned me on to this company and I just adore everything I see. They are huge investments so that probably won’t happen for a while or we’ll go with something more affordable but those are my dream lights.
To add another statement to the entry, I want to get one of Kerri Rosenthal’s drippy hearts so that it’s one of the first things you see when entering our home. I’m kind of in love with this one and this one.
While we don’t have a long hallway like this for a gallery wall (our coat closet takes up most of the wall), I want to do something like this with all black and white shots on the stairs. I haven’t flushed it out entirely but I love the idea of displaying family photos this way.
Kitchen
Image via Caitlin Wilson Design
I love my new kitchen more than I can even put into words. It’s big and bright and I can pull out a pot without 5 others falling over for the first time in my adult life. It’s been a dream. It was also completely renovated before we moved in so we just have to add some finishing touches to make it ours. I bought two Katie Conical light fixtures for over the island (the same light we had in our old house) because I love how simple and clean they look. The only other thing we’ve added to the kitchen so far is 4 of these Serena & Lily stools.
Prudence suggested a chic little valence over the window and I chose this French blue stripe fabric with white piping because it’s classic and lovely. I’m still waiting on the fabric sample but I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re going with. We’re also going to add cushions to our stools for both comfort and a pop of color. There is a local brand here in CT, Flat Vernacular, that makes the coolest fabrics and I may or may not step outside of my comfort zone and go with this for the cushions. Although I also have my eye on this which I have in throw pillow form and just love.
We will also be changing the cabinet knobs and drawer pulls to polished chrome or polished nickel. I loved the brass in our old house but for some reason, I’m feeling the shiny chrome-y vibes here. But that is not a huge priority and can be pricey so we’ll probably wait a while on that.
Image via Caitlin Wilson Design
My actual life dream for our kitchen is to do a sky blue or French blue range like the one pictured below. I mentioned that on Instagram and the brand actually reached out about a meeting so fingers crossed we can make something work out! I can’t tell you the number of times of pinned this image slash stared at it for hours.
Living Room
It’s hard to find an image of what we’re looking to do in the living room, but this one is kind of close simply because the rug is similar to what we’re looking at and the blues are on point. That said, we will for sure not have so much pink and we have plans to add more depth to the space with patterned grasscloth wallpaper (this is our top contender, it’s vinyl grasscloth so will not fade in the sunlight) and some pattern mixing. Besides the wallpaper, we haven’t really landed on anything else for sure so stay tuned. It’s all coming together!
The top rug contenders are this blue one and this pink one. I’ve wanted a Caitlin Wilson rug for as long as I can remember, so I’m hoping that we love the samples when they arrive.
Powder Room
Image via Monika Hibbs.
We don’t actually have a true powder room because our downstairs bathroom has a shower. At first, I thought it was ugly and unnecessary but now I’m into it because we can have more guests stay over comfortably. We plan to put a pull-out sectional in the family room which is attached to the downstairs bathroom. Even though it’s a full bath, I want to have some fun with the design. I saw this bathroom on Monika Hibbs’s home tour and fell in love with the neutral tones and beachy vibes. This project is going to be way down the line. In 2020 or even later.
Amalia’s Room
Amalia’s favorite color is pink and she loves pattern and color. So, with her input, we are going to design her room once we move her to a big-girl bed so that we don’t have to do it twice. Right now my inspiration is a very girly, pink, pattern-filled room like the one pictured here, but a little less formal. We’ll see what her vibe is when we do it, but I want a design that she can really grow into, a little more mature than her nursery.
That’s about as far as I’ve gotten with design inspiration. Like I said, our priorities are the entry and living room for now and we’ll go room by room from there. I cannot wait to see how everything comes together and I’m trying very hard to be patient in the meantime!