We've Moved!

The day has come, and you'll no longer find me here at Blonde+Tall. I've got a new site, a new name, and a new look. Please head over to Meg Milam Home to check out all of the happenings!

www.megmilamhome.com

See you there!

Oar Decor

I've heard it said, that when you think about design for your home, you should think about how you want your place to feel. Not so much look, but feel. While I've often thought that my taste bordered somewhere along the lines of country farmhouse to lake house getaway, with modern clean lines, and traditional nods, that doesn't describe how I want it to feel.

I want it to feel relaxed, casual, comfortable, and I want it to engage the outdoors. These are all things that I'm taking into account when shopping and designing for our home.

Now that many of our large furniture pieces have been bought (for the living room anyways), I get to start thinking about how I thoughtfully want to fill our walls. Space is at a premium, and I want choices to reflect us and the feeling of our home.

That leads me to this wall at the bottom of our stairway. I haven't shown you our stairs much, as they are very much in the before stages. 

The blue carpet is going, and will be replaced by wood treads and white risers, as well as a runner. At the bottom of that landing, I would love to plank the wall that is directly ahead. Not to mention a coat of fresh white paint, new barnlight fixture (we already have it, but we need to have the electrical placement adjusted before we can install), new switch plates, and something to fill the bare wall.

You know what I'm thinking of? Some oars.

Picket Fence Projects 

Oars can come across as very coastal,

which is a no no in our Sierra home.

But I think they can also come across as very lake house.

I'm all about a good lake house.

Houzz

They add age, character, texture, and shape.

Houzz

Doesn't this just make you want to hop in a canoe

and spend the day on the shady banks of a lake?

Original Source Unkown

Chatham-Ivy

Hickman Design Associates

If a dreamy blue lake house is up your alley, 

you might want to check the rest of this home out!

Home Bunch

Completely-Coastal

Original Source Unkown

I found these months ago, which are by an artist outside of the US.

I thought that if I wanted to add some color to that stairway, 

this would be the way to go.

And then, this spring, 

I couldn't believe it when the big retailer CB2 started selling a similar option.

Many other big retailers sell their own version of the oar as well.

Ballard Designs

Wisteria

Pottery Barn

I think I'll be looking to collect some authentic antique oars, 

like this pair that I found on Etsy, to create a mix of aged woods.

Ebay is a great source for antique paddles, so I'll probably be shopping there too.

I cannot wait to start collecting some oars that I love, but I think that might be putting the cart before the horse (isn't that how the saying goes?). Before you get to decorate, you have the joy of tackling all of the larger (and more expensive) renovations first, like planking, electrical, and installing the new stairs. 

Speaking of lake houses, me and my fan-bam are enjoying the shores of Lake Tahoe this week for our annual family trip, followed up by a visit from Jon's mom in just a few days. Next week I should have plenty of pictures from our fun to share.

Inspired By...

I pinned an image over on pinterest several weeks back and after seeing that one room, I really wanted to take the full tour of the house. The photo originated from a real estate listing for a home in the Sonoma, CA area. The home must now be off market now because it's no longer featured on their site, and I wish I had taken notice of the square footage and acreage when it was still active. It comes across as a smallish house, and probably serves as someones vacation home in the Napa Valley.  So, who wants to snoop around with me?

The rustic country entrance is a little bit farmhouse, and a little bit mountain cabin.

The kitchen was the original image that peeked my interest. 

It is tiny, but quaint. From the white planking, galvanized barn light, 

roman bamboo blinds, and the gray-green cabinetry

(I would love to know what paint color that is!), I was kind-of, sort-of, swooning.  

The mix of the refined marble countertops and the antique butcher block island: Bravo!

Oh, what's that you say? 

More white planking, more roman bamboo blinds, 

contrasting dark window casings, nautical sconces 

and the mix of textures. Yep, smitten.

Who wouldn't want to settle into this room for their weekend retreat?

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind having a glass of wine (okay, bottle) in this backyard.

I wish the tour they provided was longer! What eye candy. So what do you think? Does this place strike a cord with you? As I try to define and hone my design taste further, I'm always interested when I find an entire home that hits on numerous design choices that I'm attracted too. This one just does that. Happy Monday y'all!

Nolan's Room: Bringing the Outdoors In, Part I

I've been holding out on y'all. I started working on little projects here and there in Nolan's room back in November, but I haven't shared the updates with you yet.

Back in the end of October, sitting in my office at work, an obsession to start working on Nolan's room rooted itself in my head, and I couldn't shake it. Spending time on the kids rooms didn't really seem like the best use of our time and resources. Aside from our kids (and myself cleaning), no one spends much time in their rooms, and our dollar bills could certainly be put towards areas with much more traffic. But when you're obsessed with design, you don't always follow the path of logic. I think the urgency stemmed from the fact that Nolan's room is the darkest in the house (and coldest, poor guy). Despite having two nice windows, it doesn't receive a lot of natural light, and the dark carpeting, dark ceiling, dark blinds and dark window trim, were killing any potential the room had. So I figured if I could tackle just a few things than it would be worth while.

Here's Nolan's room on our final walk through before receiving the keys.

His walls were the same yellowy peach color

as the main living floor of our house.

The ceiling is certainly my favorite feature of the space.

Here are the pictures I snapped as I was about to dive head first into the room. 

A little unpolished, you might say?

The bed that we have is too large for the space,

but it belonged to Jon's grandfather so we want to make it work.

That little nook with shelves holds so much potential (white planks please!), 

but I haven't been able to settle on just which direction I want to take it.

Oh you know, an old dresser, some dirty laundry and some paint samples. NBD.

(This photo makes it easy to see how yellowy peach 

those walls really were.)

The window trims had been painted a dark brown,

which actually proved itself to be a great opportunity.

Here are some of my favorite kids room that I was pulling inspiration from

when I set out to tackle Nolan's space.

Better Homes & Gardens

Sam Allen Interiors

Posh Tots

School House Electric

Nine+Sixteen 

I'd long been thinking of an outdoorsy/adventure/animal inspired room, with some industrial touches, and soon it consumed me. All I could think about was making his room look at the least a bit better. It's safe to say that this buffalo check duvet cover that I had spotted months prior over at Ikea for a totally affordable and kid-room friendly price of $39.99 was my initial inspiration for the space. I used it as my jumping off point.

Next, I spotted this print from Fox and Quill

and my inspiration was in full motion.

It incorporated earth tones, was playful, had a bit of whimsy, 

and featured the outdoors. 

Because this room will also serve as a guest bedroom when it's needed, I wanted to keep the space feeling youthful and fun, but designed for an adult to feel comfortable in.  I created a design board to manage my ideas, and this is what it evolved into:

First things first, I had to do something about the color on those walls. In November, I had several weeks off of work. In a haste, I grabbed a paint brush, an available can of the same creamy white paint that we picked for the main living floor and I started painting. At some point in our home journey I've learned that there will never be enough time to finish the projects I want to tackle. I have to make the time, find the time, and squeeze in moments whenever I can. I painted between nap times. Taped off the trims while the kids played. Stole moments when Jon was at home. And I finally finished it, weeks later (yes, it took me weeks, and this is a tiny room!). All by myself, I might add.

With a visit from Jon's mom just a week away, I had a good excuse to work on a few more touches in Nolan's space. Next week I'll share images of how the room is looking today. It's not done, but it's headed in the right direction. Here's a sneak peak:

Happy July Y'all + Ch, Ch, Changes

July is the month that feels the most alive to me. The days are long. It is filled with visits from family and friends, not to mention the celebration of 4th of July, followed immediately by my birthday and very soon thereafter, Nolans. Our yard is filled with birds, roaming deer (I awoke to a buck feet from my bedroom window early on Saturday morning), rabbits, coyote and an occasional bear (there has been one visiting our neighbors' houses this summer!). We get more exercise. And our social life gets a little insane. I could do July about six times a year. 

This summer has already been very good to us.

We have been taking full advantage of our yard every evening.

                                      
There are some big-to-us changes brewing too. For my birthday, I was pining for some new blouses and dresses as well as some home accessories I've been eyeing, but on the cusp of 33 I realized my money could be more well spent.

 

So instead, I've aligned myself with a graphic designer to design a blog and logo that is more inline with, well,  me. While I've been happy with the content that I've been feeding the blog, I'm not inspired when I see my landing page. A year ago, when I recommitted to blogging, I told myself that if I maintained it for six months (while balancing a full time job and children), then I would get my site designed. Fast forward, and I have and I'm still enjoying it. The blog name will be changing and will be moved to a .com site, and the new site should reflect the character of the designs that I gravitate towards. I cannot wait to have that site come together, and have it rolled out  for you in a few weeks.

I also took a bit of a leap several weeks ago when I went ahead and enrolled myself in the 
Complete Course in Interior Design at the New York Institute of Art & Design. My materials have only just arrived and I'm starting to establish a schedule for studying. Creating a new habit can be hard for a 33 year old!

I don't have expectations for where this leap will take me. I'm not leaving the workforce, I'm not seeking blog advertisers, and I'm not changing the scope of my content. I just kinda figured, why not?  I realize that I have oh-so-much to learn when it comes to designing balanced and harmonious interiors, and deciding to seek the fundamentals of the industry should be my next natural step. At the least, I hope that it will help me to create a home that personally reflects our family and lifestyle. The program is quite risk free financially speaking, as well as the time commitment it demands. I can work at my own pace and complete assignments in my time. Who knows, maybe I'll share a project or two here with you.

But that ain't it y'all. A new career opportunity recently presented itself, and so I am leaving hospitality after about ten years in the industry. Hospitality is a hard field to be in, as we operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including all major holidays. Burnout is not uncommon, and in the past year balancing two children with a 5-7 day work week has proved to be exhausting. Jon and I were averaging 1-2 days off together a month (that's about 20 days off together a year!!!), and it has been down right making us grumpy. So to say I'm eager to learn a new field, grow professionally, and have a more structured schedule, would be an understatement.

I'm on the cusp of change and growth this 33rd year, and I'm welcoming it. For funs sake, I did a round up of some goodies I'd love to have under my birthday tree, if I had one.

Antlers/Striped Towel/M/Blouse/Galvanized Frame/Wall Clock/Dress/Outdoor Pillow/

Chambray/Michelle Morin Print/Pool Towels/ Galvanized Pot

 

I'll be spending the rest of the week preparing for Nolan's birthday party that is coming up this weekend. Hopefully I'll take a few minutes to snap photos so that I have some to share with y'all!

Our Powder Room Project

There are many rooms that I haven't talked about much yet, and one of those is our powder room. It's what you will find if you slip behind this magical blue door (that is no longer blue, mind you).

It looked like this on our final walk through before we moved in. 

Modest in size and basic, there was really nothing wrong with it.

Shame on me for not taking more photos of the space (blogging fail). The only change that I had made, was replacing the original not-my-style mirror with this roped version that I loved.

The flooring was an economical linoleum which really wasn't really doing all that much for the room, style wise, so when we were in hardwood install mode, we decided to add the small footprint of a bathroom to the install list.

Back in February, Jon demo'd the flooring,

which in turn meant demoing the whole bathroom

(here you get a glimpse of that old linoleum I mentioned).

When we realized how taxing and overwhelming the process of installing hardwoods was on the main living floor, we decided that this room would just have to wait until a later date. We have two other full bathrooms, so this room wasn't essential, and it was pretty easy to close the door and ignore it for the time being. So it became kind of a catch all room for equipment and gear for a while.

Fast forward nearly four months, and the room has continued to look like this
(quick iPhone pics..apologies!)
(and yes, that is 1/2 of a green plastic easter egg, and 1/2 of a pink plastic Easter egg).

This is where the vanity once stood

(which now stands in our garage with the toilet, which is totally awesome).

The bathroom includes a shallow closet with a built in shelving system.

Previously, it had sliding mirrored doors to conceal the shelves but 

we removed those when we were in demo mode.

This is how our shelving system has continued to look.

It serves as my craft /baby supplies/kids artwork closet of sorts.

With a 4th birthday party for Nolan just around the corner (which he is very excited about, in an uber sweet kind of way) and a visit from Grandma Bab's on the calendar for July, we figured it was time to get this space at the least, functional again (ie, a toilet and sink). Last week, immediately after installing our new door Jon jumped right in to installing the final pieces of flooring in this room. He then sanded and sealed it, so we're ready to proceed!

That left me to make some design choices. I really wasn't set on taking this room in any one direction. I had some ideas for how to improve it's function, and toyed with some things I wanted to incorporate, but I wasn't dead set on any one scheme or design plan. I considered many many combinations of colors, palettes, accessories, etc. I toyed with stenciling the walls, and adding texture via board and batten or planking. In the end, here is the design board that will guide me:

I have been eager to use this saturated green, Sherman-Willams' Rosemary, since seeing it used by Erika Powell (the legend) of Urban Grace Interiors in her own kitchen. Because I generally shy away from bold color, I think testing my limits in the form of a saturated vanity is a good baby step. That, and I've been wanting to paint a bathroom vanity for a while now.

I'm planning on incorporating a mixed gallery wall in the space which will feature lots of different textures, materials and a variety of art prints. I'm really excited to start building that wall. It might go a little something like this:

or this:

(and apparently I have a thing for bird prints)

I also plan on installing clean lined rustic plank shelves in that shallow closet, similar to the ones we installed in our entry nook, which I'll then load up with lots of galvanized bins for great storage.

I'm sure my plans will evolve a bit from here, and we're not in any huge rush to get this all done lickety-split. We'll be piecing it together slowly but surely (dolla dolla bills yo). I look forward to sharing those updates with you!