Styling: One Hour to a Curated Collection

Hi Friends! With several design projects wrapping up simultaneously right now, I've got styling on the brain 24/7! It's not uncommon for our design clients to have few to no styling accessories, (with the exception of books), so we're always keeping our eyes peeled for shops that we can head to when we need a lot of goodies!

Now, Cate and I love to find accessories when we're out at thrift stores, barn sales and vintage markets. Little by little, we've curated styling accessories that suit our taste and the spaces we need to fill. This exploratory approach has taken each of us years of digging and picking up and turning over in our hands. So how does one create their own collection in a single afternoon? When it comes to the final touches in our clients spaces, we turn to the great world wide web!

Here are some of our favorite online shops where we can find all the patina or polished, modern or time-worn goodness we need to complete any space.

As seen in a StyleMutt Home project:

As seen in a StyleMutt Home project:

As seen in a StyleMutt Home project:

Example pottery styling in a StyleMutt Home project:

We hope you find these sources as useful and inspiring as we have! Now, I'm off to round up some final touch shopping lists for some very awesome clients! This weekend we are off to shoot a finished project that combines my love for industrial urban spaces and bohemian flair. I CANNOT wait to share it with you, friends! Here's a quick peek of the progress our client sent last month:

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Custom Campaign

Early on into our move, I found a fixer-upper campaign piece for sale on Facebook.  We hadn't unpacked everything and my workshop was nothing more than a junk drawer for empty boxes and miscellaneous curtain rods.  But the price was right (and it was an easy pick up on my way home) so I brought it home without a plan. 

After posting the cabinet in my stories on Instagram, I immediately got a DM from a client who was looking for a cute little storage piece for her living room.  After a couple conversations about colors we landed on an old favorite as our inspiration - this piece from 2016:

Since the paint color from our inspiration piece was a custom mix, I got the paint color-matched to finally get a name: True Taupewood by Behr.

It's a warm shade of greige that reminds me of wet potters clay.  

This color is super moody when it wants to be.

And plays really well with the bright gold tones of the original campaign hardware:

Like these brass recessed pulls.

And corner braces.

Despite what it looks like a first glance, those pulls aren't on individual drawers - they are actually on a pair of doors that open up into a cabinet.

For styling, I broke out my with diy chandelier which sadly doesn't have a home in our new place... yet ;)

This little guy was shipped off to it's new home in Richmond. But, if you are interested in a custom order like it, email me at cate@stylemutthome.com.

Check out Instagram for more of our Portfolio

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Wool + Twig || A Small Business Collaboration

It's no secret that our generation is flooded with entrepreneurial fervor.  By the time I graduated college, a large chunk of my peers entered the workforce with a "side hustle" or two to make ends meet in a bleak economy.  We at StyleMutt Home firmly believe that small businesses should band together instead of compete against each other because...

“A rising tide lifts all boats”

— John F. Kennedy

Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for the large businesses that we've partnered with over the past.  But it's these small businesses that really make some serious magic happen with nothing more than their personal grit and determination.  So it's even more titillating (yes I said it) when you can combine some serious small-business-sized forces to do something really, really fun.

Wool + Twig

Vintage Rugs

Brittney Rossie

Brand and Business Strategy

The Silk Mill

Event Venue in Fredericksburg, VA

StyleMutt Home

Furniture + eDesign

So what do you get when a curated rug vendor, a brand and business coach, an epic factory venue, and yours truly band together in support of each other?  A beautiful display of small business collaboration and...

a really, really fun photoshoot

A while back, my dear friend and business guru Brittney Rossie connected us to a new small business in our area to see how we at StyleMutt home could help them grow.  An email brainstorming session later, we had cooked up this cockamamie scheme to do a photoshoot to promote overall brand exposure and also exercise our collective creative muscles.  

But to do such a photoshoot, you need an epic location.  And I new just the place...

The Silk Mill

which also happed to be my wedding venue

Source: Jillian Michelle Photography

With such a large factory space, we could easily set up some fun vignettes featuring our products:

The rugs were obviously the star of the show.

But one of our made-to-order benches in camel + nude did get to play a supporting role to those delicious imported rugs and kilim pillows.

As if the opportunity to play with some gorgeous rugs wasn't enough, Aly from Wool + Twig was a HOOT to work with!  She was seriously up for anything - including some fun headshots.

Both with and without her actual head lol

Scroll through these images to see just some of her amazing inventory:

After seeing her carefully curated collection in person, I couldn't help but bring home another pillow child.

We certainly had a lot of fun behind the scenes

And I'm not ashamed to admit I did a few carpet angels the first chance I got...  They were soooooo plush....

But the fun doesn't stop here.  Wool + Twig was generous enough to offer us stylemutts a juicy discount for 3 days only!

Shop Wool + Twig

Just click the image to shop her entire inventory and enter the code STYLEMUTT at check-out to get 30% off your purchase!  Happy rug and pillow shopping mutts!