July 6, 2020

Cheery Updates to Your Home (Part 2)

Molly here, again!

Since my husband and I have been working from home since early March with two little kids in the house, I’ve had a lot of time to think about all the things I’d love to change about my house but cannot afford to/don’t have the energy to. Also, as some of you may recall, a few months ago Erin mentioned that I was selling my house. Unfortunately, those plans fell through, and we’ve decided to take our house off the market until we find a new house that we love.

SO, I wanted to include a few of the items/updates we’re making around the house here for you, as follow up to Erin’s post this spring about impactful yet relatively inexpensive updates (admittedly, not all of these are under $300 like Erin’s were – you’ve been warned!)…

Click images for links!

The first room we tackled is our office/study/den/former playroom. We needed a dedicated, parents-only space to get work done (sound familiar?), so we went ahead and made it a full-on office.

The rug we had in this room before before was SO GROSS. I think it had some viscose in it, and, as such, stained very easily. Combine that with two disgusting toddlers and 5+ years of use, and you’ve got something special. After I fell in love with the rug below from Linda’s Barn (she has SO. MANY. beautiful options and is so sweet and knowledgeable), I decided to layer two rugs to warm (and fill up) the space.

We also changed up the artwork. Ever since scoring antique engravings at Brimfield last year for Kit’s nursery featuring different scenes from upstate New York (where I’m from), I’ve become obsessed with finding more that have a special meaning to me and my family. In this case, I emailed Prints Old & Rare to see if they had any drawings of the UVA campus, where my husband went to grad school, and they found the perfect one for me (there are also a ton of options on Etsy)! I ordered a frame from Custom Picture Frames, so all-in-all, this special piece cost about $140 total.

We’ve also been working on turning our basement into a sweet playroom. I’ve said for years, I wish we could create a padded cell somewhere in the house where we could lock the kids in and let them go nuts, and this is as close as we’re going to get.

The lighting was dismal down here, so we had new flush mounts installed and had the shades covered in a favorite fabric! Etsy shop Cruel Mountain, who made our custom shades, now has ADORABLE scalloped options too!

We also needed more storage to hide away toys, and plenty of seating options so there are fewer battles.

Stay tuned for more updates, including what we’re tackling outside – like raised veggie garden beds! I’ll be including a Q&A with the kitchen garden designer/coach I’ve been working with next week!

Finally, we’ll be sharing Eliza’s Style Solutions for long living rooms this week. I know you’re all eager to see the “afters” – we’ll be sure to post them once they’re able to actually execute the design :)

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