I have just majorly up-leveled my living room! (I hope I used that term right.) Point is, I have a unique, long, skinny living room in my historic Tudor revival house and there is just no way that a modern standard rug was ever going to be the right size. Back in the day homeowners could order from the Sears & Robuck catalog or other mail order sources to get a custom piece of carpet or linoleum cut to exactly the right size to give a nice border around the room. My parents' 1910 home still had some of these when they bought it, and my 1937 home has very clear lines where the wood floor has discolored from the sun over time around the edge of a perfectly sized floor covering.
But now nowadays, a 10'x14' or 12'x16' rug are about as big as you can get and they are just not the right dimensions… Until now! There is a new way to get incredible quality natural material, fully custom size rugs, down to the inch!
I actually started with an 8'x10' rug in this room and just kept slowly getting bigger over the years. Finally we had a 10'x14' which was close-ish to the right width, but there were these two bare floor areas on either side of the couches. I put a small vintage rug on one, but it wasn’t a great look. My kids played so frequently in the other one, near the bookshelf with toys and books and Barbies, and I really wanted something comfortable there for them. Plus, you’ve probably heard this before… a too-small rug makes a room look smaller! Repeat that after me… When your rug is too small, it makes your room look smaller!
But it feels wasteful to redo a new kitchen. I’m not about to replace tile countertops or cabinets, but I realized there were several things I could do that would add more character and interest. I also had some circa 2022/2021 “organic earthy modern” touches to undo! They had coordinated with the brushed brass and industrial wood shelves, but did not go with my clean, classic, Nancy Meyers-inspired, hopefully timeless kitchen look.
I did several small, budget-friendly projects to totally refresh this kitchen!.jpg)
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After many years of subpar window treatments in my bedroom… I finally cracked the code! I had been using slightly-too-short standard 84" Target curtains, pretty good blackout, but just the hidden tab top, because I knew they would be quiet for opening and closing while the kids were sleeping nearby. But I really wanted the elegant look of pinch pleat curtains on rings. Well, I figured it out!
The solution: layered Roman shade and curtains. I got this beautiful woven Roman shade from Twopages, with a super thorough blackout lining, and I mounted it outside the window to block the light around the cracks and allow all the light I can through the window when the shade is open. This thing is so powerful, but all I need is the shade closed for a seriously effective blackout (and it’s silent when I open and close it).
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I was really proud of these DIY industrial wood/bracket shelves when we redid our kitchen in 2019. I couldn’t find thick enough wood on its own so I use stair risers and cut off the rounded edges. They worked great function-wise, and when we first installed them, they added some nice warm because the kitchen was so plain and so white. But now… I’m really going for a more traditional, classic, and cohesive look here, and they were sticking out like a sore thumb.
So... I replaced them with something better!!!
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Thanks to Van Dyke's Restorers for partnering with me on this post.
Well, I’m to the point of redoing DIY projects I did at this house a few years ago…! I wallpapered this entryway with peel-and-stick wallpaper in 2021, My first wallpaper project in this house. That paper was trendy and kind of modern and never exactly perfect for this house. But, it was neutral and not offensive, and I wasn’t sure what else I would choose. But an entryway is such an important moment. When you first walk into the house, I wanted it to be really special.
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