Hello, friends! It has been such a whirlwind in our world over the last few weeks, but we shot these photos of our fall front porch decor a while back and it feels like high time I give you a little peek at our house all decked out for fall. At least, my version of “decked out” which is probably a bit simpler than most of the front porches you’ll find on Pinterest this time of year, but that’s how I like things. Oh, p.s. We got married! If you haven’t yet seen it you can catch the quickest sneak peek on Instagram, and I’ll be sharing a few more photos here and there while we wait to get our hands on all the amazing photos our photographer shot. Because we had our wedding at our home, I wanted every aspect of our exterior decor to feel warm, welcoming and cozy, so taking some time to really make the front porch feel inviting was important to me. I used a lot of pieces we already had and just made sure to add enough color and texture to give it that warmth that fall begs for. (Keep scrolling for all the details and shopping sources below!)
Home + Living
A couple of winters ago I shared my extensive collection of favorite winter skincare products, which is kind of what inspired this post. Over the last couple of years I’ve settled into some favorite everyday beauty products, the kind I purchase over and over again or even stock up on during sales. In the past I always flirted from mascara to mascara and product to product, but recently I’ve been pretty loyal. I personally love seeing what makeup products other people are loving. Watching YouTube videos scoping out what people are digging? I’m totally into all of that. That said, I admittedly keep it pretty basic. I’m not big into creating “looks” mostly because I think I lack any makeup application skills that involve eyeliner and/or eyeshadow and/or contouring. I have a few little tricks I can bust out for dressier occasions, but for the most part I honestly like having my makeup done professionally when I’m going to more formal occasions or even weddings. A lot of days it’s me, in yoga pants, no makeup, trying to keep a baby from base jumping off the dining room table while I’m working so having a small arsenal of simple but mighty products is where it’s at for me these days. Even better, most of these are super affordable drugstore products! My skincare regime tends to be a bit more high end, but for makeup I’ve found a great combination of items that just get the job done for me. Click through for all the details!
When we first bought our house last year, it was practically begging for an amazing backyard patio. We considered putting one in right away, but figured we’d first live in the house for a while to see how we really used the backyard. And, let’s be honest, there was the whole budget issue too since we’d just bought a house and had already tackled big renovations in the living room and dining room most notably. As it turns out, we lived in our backyard all last summer. Long, lazy dinners that lasted well into the evening, copious bocce ball matches, the grilling of numerous homemade pizzas and the construction of one very fun homemade slip ‘n slide defined our summer days. By the end of summer, the patch of grass closest to the house was brown and beaten into oblivion from being constantly trampled over and we knew constructing a patio would be a top priority come spring of this year. Then spring came and it didn’t stop raining. For months and months and months. (Which, no, is not our normal weather pattern.) That derailed our “must have a patio by Memorial Day weekend” timeline, but sure enough come early July we were finally ready to begin construction. After one seriously intense month of work (which so many of you followed along with on Instagram Stories), our backyard makeover is now just about complete as of a few weeks ago and we’ve been loving using living in this space. It feels like a huge addition to the back of our house and we just can’t get enough of oohing and aahing over the transformation. So today, I have all the before and after photos for you! Plus a few photos of the construction process, too, just for kicks. Scroll through for all the details and chime in below with any questions.
A few times of year I sit down and write a post that makes me uncomfortable. In the past I’ve talked about surviving divorce and about how I never wanted to be a mom. Sharing in that way is always liberating, but also really frightening, which I guess is a good segue for admitting that writing this post scares me. Today I am writing a post called, “The Very Real Reason I Don’t Share Photos of Myself Online” and I’m opening that post with a photo of myself. In a word, I am terrified. Over the last nearly ten years I’ve built a brand and a business online, and I’ve done so in a way that puts nearly all of the focus on the work I’m doing and the things I’m creating, and very intentionally not on myself. As much as I cherish my relationships with my readers, I’ve also been completely freaked out by the idea of making myself and my face the center of attention in any way shape or form. And the reason is simple. I don’t look like a lot of bloggers do. I am not perfectly thin, and petite and cute, and no clothing brands are going to want to send me their fall collection to feature on my Instagram feed.
A few times over the summer I’ve eluded to the fact that I had some big projects in the works and today I am so excited to share one of those with you! A while back the folks at Sutter Home reached out to me and asked if I wanted to team up with them to throw the ultimate backyard party. Because I can never turn down a reason to throw a good party, I had to yes, naturally. Then they asked if they could bring in live music, have a bunch of our friends and neighbors show up and film the whole thing. And again, my answer was an enthusiastic yes! Today is the day it’s all going down so you can follow along with me on Instagram Stories all day long to see how it’s all coming together and witness the fun for yourself. In a few weeks we’ll be sharing all the details right here, but in the meantime I wanted to share a bit of my planning process including some really gorgeous printables and a fun DIY project I incorporated into the mix!
Today my sister is 27 weeks pregnant with her first baby, a little girl who is already loved so very much. I was pregnant myself at this time two years ago (Emerson turned 18 months a couple weeks ago), so naturally we’re talking a lot about babies these days, and the things you need for babies and all the crazy large and small ways that babies change your life. One thing that has come up more than once is Ash saying, “I have no clue what I’m doing!” And that honestly just makes me laugh. Because no one knows what they’re doing when they have a baby, am I right? I sometimes still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing and my baby has quickly morphed into a tiny toddler girl with an abundance of spitfire and sass. So today I’m joining up with my fellow mom friends to dish on finding confidence as a mom.
A year ago today, Bob and I carried a little baby girl into an attorney’s office across town. There may have been a lot of nerves. There may have been some pinching to be sure we weren’t dreaming. We sat across a big wide table, with our tiny girl sitting with us, and thanked the now former owners for selling us their childhood home. Their parents bought the house in the early 1950s (making us only the third or fourth owners of our 100+ year old house) and having lost their mother in her 90s back in 2014, it was a bittersweet day for them as they said goodbye to more than six decades of memories.
This time of year I almost always have fresh cut flowers around the house. It’s almost a little crazy just how happy a big bunch of blooms in the center of the dining room table or tucked on the mantle can make me. Now that the snow is finally gone and the screen doors have been opened up, flowers around the house really drives home that spring vibe and they make me insanely happy. I get a lot of questions from friends about how I take care of cut flowers and I’ve shared them before here, but it seemed like a good time to revisit my favorite easy tips for how to keep flowers fresh, alive and perky for as long as possible. Any other tricks you can share with me? Fill me in!
To call this space a playroom per se is a little bit of a stretch, but when we embarked on our living room renovation, I knew I wanted to carve out a space at the end of the room just for Em. Since it’s right in the living room I was pretty passionate about wanting it to look as chic and well designed as possible, but at the same time I’m totally ok with our house showing evidence of children living here since this is their house, too.
Over the last few years I’ve seen several people share their favorite items from Trader Joe’s, and while I love Trader Joe’s as much as the next gal, the one nearest to us is an hour away. When we’re in the area we usually have a long shopping list of stuff we want to stock up on (we love their coffee and I’m crazy about the dried baby sweet pineapple), but we only make it there every month or two. Instead, I do our daily shopping at Aldi. I just started shopping there regularly less than a year ago and since then, I’ve become a huge fan. I think Aldi has a bit of a weird, mixed bag reputation (even though it’s owned by the brother of the guy who founded Trader Joe’s), which is why I kind of always avoided the place. The truth is, they have some incredible stuff at really unbelievable prices.
Since things are really coming together with our living room (see the latest update), I’ve started to make plans for our dining room. Since sharing our renovation progress, I ordered and rolled out a big jute rug that really looks amazing in the room. Now it’s all about curtains, some cool wooden blinds and those few extra special touches that really bring a room together. In trying to decide what I wanted to do about window treatments, I was trolling my Pinterest boards for inspiration when I realized that I clearly have a thing for bright, light, mostly white dining rooms with great wood tones and lots of natural textures. Today I’m sharing 10 that all mostly fall in line with those characteristics, all of which make the cut for rooms I really love. Consider this a little dining room decor mashup!
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, my thoughts almost immediately turned to childcare and how on earth this little babe of ours would get fed and diapered during the day while we were working. Almost as quickly, I knew that at least for the first year I wanted to try really hard to make it work without any kind of full time childcare. Call me crazy, but knowing she would be my first and my last all at the same time, I wanted to have that time with her and I thought I’d regret shipping her right off to daycare. Also, I was really really worried about the finances behind paying for childcare, which is where the “real talk” part of this conversation is about to come into play.