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Fancy walls on the cheap: 36 easy, beautiful DIY art ideas

I was chatting with a friend the other day who’s redoing a room and looking for some inexpensive, beautiful DIY art ideas. She asked me, casually, if I had any ideas, and I morphed into an over-excited, crazed person, like “GOLLY GEE, DO I!!” And then started sending her a bunch of fun ideas I’d […]

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Watercolor Heinies: Art. Tragedy. Life.

abstract circles

Oh, friends. Do I have a story to tell you. A story of hope, of tragedy, of aspirations for greatness and the pain of loss. Of epic, epic failure. A story to bind all of humanity. It starts, as all good stories do, with the glorious draw of tiny, deliciously dimpled baby butt cheeks. Specifically, […]

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Moats, Guillotines & Macaulay Culkin: How we’re keeping our family safe

How to install a whole house security system

Listen, Andy and I (and our kids) are as weird and nutty as they come. We wave our sketchiness banner high. But we still like to keep other, more ominous forms of sketchiness outside our four walls, so we recently installed a whole-house security system. Y’all, I had no idea how easy they are to […]

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5 easy steps to a luxury guest bathroom on a budget + a giveaway!

Keep a basket full of toilet paper visible for guest bathrooms - plus other GREAT tips on a luxury guest bath!

Thanks to Homewerks for sponsoring this post! My little guest bath has come a long way from its days as a ballerina-bordered, pepto-bismol-colored “statement.” After we moved in and fixed it up, it had its hey day as a rarely used guest bathroom, complete with carefully placed soaps and new, fresh white hand towels… you […]

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That time when New York taught me about my husband + Better Homes & Gardens Stylemaker’s Party!

New York City trip

You know what they always say: You never really know someone until you take them to New York City! (Do they say that? They should, guys. They really should.) Last week Andy and I hit the Big Apple for the Better Homes & Gardens Blogger Workshop and annual Stylemaker’s party, and we made a long, […]

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Third time’s the charm: how to make watercolor letter pumpkins

How to make watercolor letter pumpkins for fall decorations

In the last post, I showed you my fall mantel with watercolor pumpkins: I was a little conflicted about the watercolor pumpkins I made. I think I like them? Sometimes, in the right light? But I KNOW I like them better than my first draft, which I neglected to show you because they were kinda […]

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Simple Fall Mantel

Fall mantle decorated with watercolor pumpkins and fall leaves

They say yesterday was the first official day of fall. But I don’t buy it. Maybe fall started up north already, but here in the South, everything is still fresh and green, and you can’t find an assortment of live pumpkins in any store… not even if you NEED them to decorate your mantel for […]

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Four Unrelated Things.

1. Weston’s Styling Tips One of my favorite parts of blogging is “styling” photos, even if I’m a total amateur. It’s just a fun decorating party every time, where the guests of honor are my favorite pillows and accessories. When I was taking photos of the bench for the last post, my favorite three-year-old stylist […]

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The headboard becomes a bench!

Turn a headboard into a glam, glossy bench for your foyer!

Oh, hi there little bench, and welcome to the foyer. Remember when you were just a simple white headboard, neglected at a yard sale with a $3 sticker slapped on your face? Look at you now! You’ve lost weight length. No, you’re not finished yet… I know you want to be shinier. There is no […]

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Inspiration for the headboard-turned-bench

Foyer with kilim rug

First, I have to just take a minute and say thank you. I can’t tell you how much your notes and emails and comments about Marley have meant to me. I read them all, over and over, each one helping me heal a bit more. It meant so much to know that so many other […]

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Marley

We weren’t even halfway home from Texas before I knew that this little sleeping bundle of floppy ears and puppy breath was mine and I was hers. Andy, my dad and I had come across the litter of half-hound and half-who-knows-what puppies while visiting family across the country, and my dad decided to bring one […]

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No more blank walls: 28 creative feature wall ideas

Well hi. Did we all have a fabulous long weekend? My kids were simultaneously leaking rivers of snot and coughing on everything, so we cancelled all our plans and holed up at home with Legos, library books, piles of kleenex and a foyer table project. It’s hard leading such a glamorous life, guys. You have […]

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Decorating 101: The biggest mistake that makes decorating 54% harder (Or: “Put down the paintbrush!”)

Little-known statistic: 64 percent of decorating mistakes are made because people choose a paint color first. That’s an important statistic that I just made up to illustrate my point. With five years of decorating mistakes behind me on this house, this is one thing I’ve learned the hard way: things go MUCH more smoothly when […]

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New Turkish kilim rug pukes glorious color all over my foyer!

Foyer with colorful Turkish Kilim rug

I did it. I bit the bullet and ordered up an antique Rug of Many Colors all the way from Turkey. There’s still a long way to go before I have the fun, colorful foyer we talked about, but it already feels like the happy, playful sister to my serious, safe foyer of yore. As […]

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All-natural carpet cleaning solution: discovery of the century! (Maybe not.)

Guys, it is official: I am way, way too old for all-nighters. Also: eating whatever I want and never seeing the effects. And possibly shopping in the Junior’s department, but the jury’s still out. Can I get a ruling on that? Junior’s section at age 29: socially acceptable or creepy-and-inappropriate? I’m asking, but I already […]

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