'Shire Green', SW

Hello, sweet friends! Well we are just barreling through the seasons here, aren’t we? Aspects of this new weird normal feel like a marathon, but I’m also getting seasonal amnesia - you know how sometimes when you’re driving and you end up back home but hardly remember how you got there? (this IS normal, ask around) That’s how the seasons are kind of feeling. The pandemic started when the weather was still cool in March, then we blew through Summer and are rounding the corner to Fall and the air is turning crisp. How’d we get here? I, for one, don’t intend to barrel through the Fall. I quite enjoy this season and we intend to take full advantage of all of its sweet gifts.

Since March work has increased, schools have closed, I released my Interior Design Starter Guide, and we finally started letting Albus upstairs to our bedroom level. Those are the highlights in a nutshell! In all seriousness, what has been hard about this season has also been met with all that is rich and precious about it at the same time. Life has been busy on an other worldly level, but at the same time there is nothing like being with my family to fill my cup. Gratitude has not escaped me and I know that is a direct gift from the Lord.

Towards the end of Summer Matt and I suddenly realized we had no established work spaces for our kids to do virtual school from this year. We thrust ourselves into creating functional desk areas in their rooms in time before the first day of school (yesterday!), and I’m relieved to share we got it done! It was a stretch, but done. Re-working Shire’s room to even make space for a desk was a challenge. But for me challenge and opportunity are synonymous and we really had a ton of fun! Since we were going to be moving things around I asked Shire if she wanted a fresh color which was an instant and surprising “YES!”

She’s loved her pink for several years, but she shares my curiosity and joy in creativity and wanted to try out green. After many swatches and samples, she ended up mixing two colors from Sherwin Williams and got to name it!

‘Shire Green’ is soft and minty with just a slight touch of gray. It’s perfectly dreamy; and so fun that our girl got to create it!

We went 3/4 the way up the wall, just like we did with the pink, but added vertical trim for some cozy texture and needed visual interest for such a light color. Before we added the trim it kind of just blended with the white, so I love that the trim work establishes the two colors.

Her bedding and curtains didn’t change, but it’s fun to see how the new color plays off both. Everything else in the room is new, new to us, built or on loan!

The light is a sweet borrow from Cate who used the pair in her master bedroom a few years ago and I love that it can bend out of the way when not in use!

Since Shire specifically requested her bed be placed in this nook (we were originally going to put the desk in the nook), we needed a slim nightstand solution, which Matt created out of scrap wood in our garage.

The desk is a piece we found at Target (linked here), and the chair I created from two Facebook Marketplace pieces I found, and the shelves….oh, those shelves. I really wanted corner shelves here so she could get as much up on shelves as possible, but it turns out the studs on this wall are every 24”, which didn’t work for your standard brackets. We found these horizontal brackets online (linked here), and while they ended up being the only possible way we could hang shelves where we wanted them, they felt like a visual eye-sore. Very garage-y looking. But honestly, as soon as I got her stuff up on them they grew on me!

That gorgeous mirror we’ll call a temporary trade - we loaned all our weight lifting equipment to my brother and Cate as soon as the gyms closed, and we got their mirror for when my sister was staying with us earlier in the pandemic. Weights for a mirror - not a bad deal! The dresser I am going to hold off on sharing because Shire and I have plans in place for the piece. She and I had searched all Summer for a refinishing project we could tackle together, and that cutie showed up just last week on FB Marketplace for a steal. It’s the perfect shape for our inspiration, (see here - of course, the project will be entirely dependent on our skills, so who knows where we’ll end up!)

Have you been cornered into updating any parts of your home during this time of COVID? Or simply taken on any refreshes in the name of creativity? Drop your project(s) in a comment below! Would love to hear what you all have been up to?

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Horse Tack Coffee Table

Confession o’clock.  I’ve been creatively spent during this pandemic. 

This time last year I was desperately clamoring for a “new normal” while transitioning back to my day job after maternity leave.  I had no idea how to do things with a baby in tow and certainly didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to absorb the larger problems of the world.  Admittedly, this is when my StyleMutt projects started to take a back seat to juggling family and work.  I sought fewer and fewer outlets to create and found myself too creatively spent to be inspired by many new projects anyways. 

I was just beginning to chip away and new work again (see my goals for 2020 here) when COVID-19 enters stage right.  Suddenly, my husband has turned half my workshop into a home gym and we are splitting up who gets what “me time” between working from home and engaging the baby without daycare. 

For some, stay-at-home orders and the lack of access to the rest of the world seemed to fuel many to alternative creative outlets (did you see this post about Chelsea’s home garden project?) but I actually found it to be quite draining. The unique challenges of this upside down world have been eating up all my creative bandwidth: how can I safely buy used project pieces now? How can I safely interact with clients in my in-home garage workshop?  How can I maintain proper social distancing when helping someone load up a piece?  I admit, these questions halted my already limited motivation. COVID-19, I would very much appreciate if you could exit stage left now pleaseandthankyou.

I can’t be the only one who’s yearning for “normal” out there can I? I want you to know that I feel you friend and I do believe it’s going to be ok.  I may be mourning what used to be, but I don’t believe this will be forever.  And it’s ok to acknowledge that.  I have to acknowledge that if I’m ever going to find a way to a new normal.  I have to call it what it is and try to move on - even if it took me 8 months to share my first flip of 2020 (let’s be real… that’s like 19 in Coronayears.)

So I clumsily got back in the saddle, trolled facebook marketplace for a new project, put on my facemask, and bought myself a big fat box from a nearby horse farm:

Don’t let the listing pic fool you. I could probably quarantine in this thing if I needed to - it’s that big. The original owners said it was handmade by grandpa and basically used for garage storage, but it was in great shape and it had that warm wood stain I like so much so I thought why not? It would make for good project to flex my atrophying creative muscles.

At first I thought I would add legs and make it a bar cabinet but I felt like it needed a shelf or two. I was looking for a simple project to get my sea-legs back so in the end, I opted for some small embellishments to make a simple storage coffee table.

I’m calling it a horse tack box to pay homage to the farm I bought it from although it’s in such good condition that I doubt it was ever near a horse.

All I did was add a few black accents: black casters so it can roll away if needed

Some black corner braces for character

And a black hasp (aka a latch) for the lid

And this guy has loooooooads of storage. We’re talking blankets, or board games, or bodies - whatever you’re into these days. (Oh come on - don’t tell me you don’t need your own secret hidey-hole just to get away from your family during quarantine?). Huh - must just be me ;)

Large coffee tables are fun to style - there’s such a large surface area to play with.

I went with several stacks of coffee table books, some backyard branches, and a few figurines.

I have a few more pieces coming your way as I get my mojo back (here’s a tip: check out the shop to see what’s available). But if you’re looking for big blanket chest, email me so I can work with you for a contactless pick-up.

Horse Tack Coffee Table
Now Available for Sale
48”L x 24”D x 19”H
$295

If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, email me at cate@stylemutthome.com

Lightened Up With Magic Linen

Spring is so close we can practically taste it! With the warmer temps already upon us it is the perfect time to lighten things up around the home. The easiest way to do this - textiles! We sure love the feel of soft velvet and fur over the colder months, but we can’t get far enough away when things start to warm up, (both of us style mutts happen to run hot)! Enter, linen.

We have the privilege of helping introduce a small, family run textiles company that prides itself in luxurious linen goods. Please meet Magic Linen - even a brief browse through their goods and we feel confident you’ll be as smitten as we are! With a couple quick swaps we’ve been able to transition our beds in preparation for the warmer months ahead. Take a look!

Funny thing - as our family has grown, so has the number of pillows on our bed! My minimalist lean is at odds with truly desiring a family home where our kids are invited to cuddle up for a Friday night movie or Saturday morning Sports Center. I had more pillows on this bed this past winter than ever before, and you know what? They got used hard! That was the whole point, after all. So when thinking about refreshing our bed for the next seasons, I felt compelled to retain the pillow count, even if my style preference is less.

A few extras that our kids can drag to the foot of the bed or the bench at the end doesn’t hurt one bit. And these feel so light and airy that I still get my visually lighter bed!

I already had the green linen duvet so all I really needed were a few pillow covers to replace the velvet and fur ones I’d had all winter. Aren’t those wood buttons sweet? Magic Linen sets itself apart by the details. (White pillow case)

(Natural and White Stripe pillow)

(Blue Lumbar pillow)

Across our bed I finally hung a family gallery wall that I started last October! I had those pictures taped there for months until I could find and save up for the right frames, (turns out the frames I wanted ended up only being $8.99 at Michaels). And with that, our bedroom feels fresh and ready for the reprieve from the steamy days ahead!

You know the best part about linen bedding? It can be wrinkled AND luxurious. Like unpacking your suitcase after a fabulous Greek vacation.

In our house, the bed is officially made for 30mins each day AT MOST. Caleb will only make it each night right before we get in it so that it’s perfectly smooth to settle into.

I wouldn’t mind starting each morning with the discipline to make our bed but honestly there’s no point because when we’re out of the house…

Our sunshine-loving pup will undoubtedly make himself comfortable no matter what state the bed is in (even curled up on the bare mattress in laundry day that hooligan).

Maybe it’s the dog with white fur or the fact that I love to accessorize our spaces with vibrant colors and warm tones, but I’ve always gravitated towards white or light bedding for our bedroom.

Plus a fluffy white bed gives me all the hotel feels…

I don’t even mind that our bed is perpetually unmade - somehow our new Magic Linen bedding makes it feel all the more inviting.

(White Linen Duvet Set)

There you have it! Couldn’t be happier with our Magic Linen bedding. If you’re in the market to refresh your own we suggest giving them a browse!