Alternative title: Chelsea Hasn't Blogged In So Long That This One's A Doozie
Hi there, dear friends! Long time no blog. :) As you might have noticed back in January, StyleMutt Home's site took on a whole new look. We really wanted to transition from a random musings blog to a service based business, offering experienced furniture refinishing and home design not only to our local community but nation wide. This step has opened up some new doors for us which we are both excited about and also learning how to navigate as two women with other full time jobs. Balancing StyleMutt Home work with our day-to-day jobs/life has limited our time to jump on here and connect with you as frequently as we used to be able to, but we are so grateful for the other areas we can connect such as Facebook and Instagram, (@cate_stylemutthome and @chelsea_stylemutthome). These interactive extensions of StyleMutt Home have been a wonderful way to keep up with you all when the time isn't available to post on the blog.
But fortunately, today, I have a bit of time. :) I've been looking forward to getting on here again and spending a bit of time with you. Thank you for stopping by!
I'm not sure we've mentioned this yet but to fill you in a bit on what we've been doing, we are now in the home stretch of a gorgeous design job in Washington DC, (the main reason we've been quiet on the blog front), and we hope to be sharing the full makeover in April! Thought it might be fun to share this sneak peak today, though:
The job has included an open concept dining room and living room with the need for office space and entry way storage. It's turning out to be a real 'style mutt' space as our client is quite the eclectic lover herself! The concepts above have been tweaked a bit and we are just itching to show you the real deal!
But for today, I can show you a real deal update in my own home. Our master bedroom! Before I go any further, there was nothing wrong with our bedroom before except the need for more functional clothing storage. We have been fortunate to have a family heirloom bedroom set that's been passed down through several generations, but the dressers were a pair of tall boys rather than a long and low of any kind. Since our bedroom is on the larger side, we definitely had the room for something with a larger footprint, so we stuck one of the tall boys in storage and replaced it with the ivy buffet I refinished at the beginning of the year, (and intended to sell. Oops!) We moved out excess furniture that wasn't really needed, (including a pair of leaning wall shelves, a table for the tv, and a chest at the foot of the bed). The space has really opened up, now! Take a look:
A pair of sconces, (found here), on the wall open up some space on our floating bedside tables.
If you recall from the post on the Ivy Buffet, I really despised the carved ivy on the cabinet doors at first and then ended up falling in love with it! To incorporate this sweet detail out in the room I found some ivy patterned shames, (here).
The rest of the space is pretty much what was already in the room before or shopped from around our home.
The reading corner was another flipped project I had intended to sell - I stained the old chair we had in the room previously, (found at an auto shop years ago, hah!), and gave it a fun pattern on the backrest. I wanted to give it a footstool that 'went' with it but wasn't too matchy-matchy. I used one of the seats from the pair of stools Cate and I had found last summer, and just added some legs I had on hand, (you may recall that the bases of the stools turned into this funky custom order!)
My grandma, (who's family this bedroom set is from), painted the pots on the windowsill. I love this original piece of hers and it inspired me to use our own windowsill as a makeshift bedroom library, (helpful since we moved out the old leaning shelves we previously used to store books).
This morning I sat here with a sleepy kid in my lap and watched her wake up in my arms. Glad we held on to this piece. :)
That's it for our bedroom! It's a much more calming space to me now as there aren't as many pieces competing. I'm hoping to be back over again this week with another little tour of our main living space. We haven't done anything big, but after lots of little switch-a-roos and updates here and there, it does seem to have a different vibe - plus I cleaned really well last week!
Thank you guys so much for coming by! It seems the longer I don't blog the longer my posts get. That's not a problem for you busy bees with lives and projects of your own to get to, right?! ;)
