Living for Pretty

Celebrating all things pretty, happy and inspiring. From renovation stories, to recipes, decorating, parties and little life lessons, you’ll find a little bit of everything here.

5 binge-worthy home design podcasts

What’s better than looking at a pretty home? Looking into the mind of that home’s designer. These podcasts take you past the pretty pictures and into the minds that created them. You’ll hear exactly what goes into a home renovation, what inspires some of your favorite designers, how rooms are born, how they’ve evolved and how they’re lived in. If I missed any, please comment!

How to Decorate Podcast

This is produced by some lovely women at Ballard Designs. You know that catalog you would flip through with your mom growing up?  Well, it’s still around and it’s still awesome. In fact, it’s gotten better.  These ladies don’t claim to be designers, but they have a passion for design and are learning and getting inspired right along with you. They’re real people just like me and you who love to decorate and make things beautiful and happen to have some awesome industry knowledge. They’re like your fashionable friend who throws dinner parties, knows how to get the stain out of your coffee-stained silk dress and how to convert that itchy duvet into a luxurious tablecloth. These ladies interview interior designers and people in the industry. I’m constantly discovering new names and talents. I’ve also been known to go on deep dives in Atlanta real estate so I can move there and become best friends with these ladies.

Start Here: Ep. 36 with James Farmer, decorator, garden expert, and author 

Young House Love Has A Podcast

If you’ve ever read their blog you know how adorable and down-to-earth  Sherry and Jon are, but after listening to their podcast, you actually feel like you know them. This is paced beautifully, the sound is crisp and Jon edits so there’s never a lull.  While you’ll get tons of decor advice, the best part is listening to their banter. They keep it real by doing updates and not always recommending something to buy that they’ll profit off of. In the blogger world, that’s refreshing.

Start Here: Are Open Floor Plans Over?

Style Matters

Karen and Zandra run the blog the Little Yellow Couch. With more than 100 episodes, there’s a lot to binge. Most episodes a designer or blogger joins the ladies to talk design, projects and life. Some episodes are the two ladies bantering and providing tips for things like holiday decorating. And, yes these two are also on my girl crush list.

Start Here: My Scandinavian Home – Nikki Brantmark

Second Life

This podcast is not exclusively about design, but it is about women who are making their dreams happen with a few career pivots along the way. Hillary (one of the creators of the Who, What, Wear lines at Target) interviews these inspirational ladies, and I love that she jumps straight into the meat of it and gets going with the interview questions quick. And don’t worry, many of her interviewees are in the design and decor realm.

Start Here: Lauen Conrad, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of the LittleMarket.com

Clever

The podcast is interview style and they get some pretty big names to come on and chat inspiration. You’ll also hear how some designers got their start and the ups and downs of their careers. This podcast is a must-listen for the look behind the scenes about what it takes to make it in the design business and how designers got their start. I love the candid conversation and wisdom and inspiration.

Start Here: Jonathan Adler

 

$100 bathroom transformation

We have a ton of work we want to do on this house, and unlike the last house, we don’t have the upfront funds to make our house dreams a reality. So while we save, I’m placating myself with small projects that have minimal impact on the bottom line. 
 
We are so excited to have a second bathroom, and this was the perfect little room to work a little magic. This bathroom makeover cost around $100. Believe it. We reupuposed a few things added a dramatic paint color and this half bath went from drab to ‘damn!’

What it took:

  • A new mirror
  • A shelf (we already had two we took from the previous house)
  • New-to-us faucet (saved it from the curb)
  • Less than a gallon of paint
  • A Costco-sized pack of toilet paper and knick-knacks for styling
  • Hardware purchased from local salvage store (installed post-pictures…)
The vanity situation could be 100x better, but for the quickness and cheapness of this bathroom update, it works. I’m keeping my eye out for old dressers and cabinets that I can transform into the perfect vanity.
 
Let’s talk the color. I feel like there’s this big ol’ black trend going on right now, and I’m here for it. I’ve been itching to paint a room black, and this was the perfect moment. I was just giddy as we were rolling on the color. I kept calling to Billy in the next room, “Babe, this color is SO YUMMY.” Because it just was. It was rich and delicious, like butter on toast.

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invest in yourself: blogging skills: photography

Confession: I had done what (I assume) a lot of bloggers had done. I invested in a nice camera (a Sony A6000), hoping that would up my photography game and take it to a new level. But I didn’t put a lot of effort into learning my new camera. Sure I YouTubed some things, but I never got the information truly into my muscles and into practice. I invested in a camera that was capable of the most beautiful images, and then I stayed safely on auto and wasn’t always thrilled with the results.

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Affordable Home Decor to Rival Ikea

We know about the plethora of good design and home decor items to be had at Ikea and Target, but there are a few that don’t get enough attention. One of them is H&M Home. We love them for their trendy fashion, but just like their fashion, their home decor is on-trend, full of simple basics and oh-so-affordable.  Many don’t know just exactly how great they are because their items are largely sold online. Stores have started sprinkling the wares in stores, but they’re still a big underutilized resource.

I’m particularly smitten with the tall brass crane. This comes in at over 13 inches tall – perfect item to add height and style out that bookshelf or tabletop. And it is made of brass, not cheaply brass colored.

And that hand-y candlestick holder? It’s such a unique piece that looks like you picked it up at Jonathan Adler for quadruple the price. It comes in at over 9 inches tall, a total statement piece.

The simple design of the trivet has me with heart eyes. Trivets are an often overlooked kitchen piece–we’ve gotten our act together with cute measuring cups and pitchers, but trivets have not yet come into vogue. These are a must in our house when serving that cast iron dish on our antique wood table. It also comes in brass for those of you that are oh-so-over the brass craze.

See some of my favorite items below.

We Bought Another House – Enter the Dutch Colonial

The heart wants what the heart wants. When we saw this home my heart lurched.

The problem was that we weren’t looking, and I was still pretty in love with our current house. But there were a few things in our current house that we wouldn’t be able to fix. Our house didn’t have a garage, it hardly had a yard, and it only had one bathroom. On top of that, we are looking at starting a family in the next few years.  We love entertaining, and in our current home, the living areas and sleeping areas are butted up next to each other. I really like the idea of sequestering little ones upstairs, locking the doors and saying “see you later” (I’m joking, everyone).

Then this house showed up on my screen. I had been house hunting with my parents and thus the internet algorithm happened. After seeing a link on Nextdoor, I took a click and immediately texted Billy with an “omg – I found our next house”. We scheduled a viewing that night and we fell in love with the old character and the potential. We hmm’d and haww’d. It felt like middle school when you have a crush on a boy and you just want to write about him in your diary all day and draw hearts around your names. But we weren’t looking for a house. We felt impulsive. But it also felt right.

Here’s a look at the house in the state we purchased it in.

The Parlor /Living Room

Why yes, it does have a parlor, it is cute and where we will do most of our living. It’s important to me to fill this space with beautiful and comfortable pieces. I want people to curl up here, have long conversations and read books cover-to-cover. It is on the small end, but look at all that show-stopping molding and the real, working fireplace.

Those curtains were the first thing that came down!

The Dining Room

It’s got a built-in, which makes me all lovey eyed. The plan as of now is to make the build in the bar area and deck it out with barware and decanters. The door that goes into the kitchen is an old-fashioned butler’s door with heavy duty spring action that we were way too into.

The Kitchen + Laundry

This kitchen has a lot more counter space than our kitchen. But I can’t wait to gut and renovate… someday.  We’re dreaming of opening it up to the sunroom on the other side. But that means big dollar signs, so this is one of those spaces that will go through a phase I and phase II renovation. Good news is that it is way better than the kitchen our first house came with.

 

The laundry room is right off the kitchen. We’re playing with a few ideas of things to do with it. Will we keep as is and add some pantry shelving? Will we steal from it to make the half bath into a full bath? Will we kick the appliances to the basement? Only time can tell.   

The Half Bath

I’m pretty sure we’re going dark and moody in here. We can’t wait to have a bathroom on the main floor for guests so that we don’t have to scrub our bathroom everytime we have a get-together. Plus, with Billy and I on a similar schedule, it will give the morning some more flexibility.

The Sunroom

This sunroom was an addition, that based on the curved, bullnose drywall, makes me think it was added in the 90’s. It’s a space I’ve never thought about decorating before, and I’m all kinds of pin-crazy about it.

The Master

We are really excited for a bigger bedroom. With us and the dog on the floor the sleeping quarters can get pretty tight.

The Nursery

We are only calling this the nursery because there is a door connecting this room to the Master, which will be perfect for future-not-yet-conceived baby. For now, I’ll be putting a wardrobe and vanity in here and little sitting area. Billy and I do Barre workouts in the morning, and this gets such beautiful morning light, I can’t wait to have a large space to spread out in every morning.

The Guest Bedroom

A room just for guests. That we’re going to try really hard no to fill up with stuff. We’ll see how that goes.

The Bathroom

This bathroom. There’s not much to say other than it’s there. I’d love to rearrange it for a larger vanity with two sinks and rip out that tile. Add it to the top of the list!

The Yard

And last is the yard. Which is just big enough and glorious. Where you could build a fort or dig a pool. So much room for activities and bbqs!

My Girl Cave: Walk in Closet

Welcome to the girl cave! The one place where you don’t have to apologize for your pink, your tulle, your bows. This room has been a dream-come-true for me. Our bedroom is on the small end–we can fit a queen size bed in it and nightstands.. and that’s all, folks. This closet makes up for that. When we purchased our house this had two doorwarys, one connected to the master bedroom and one to the front entryway. It also had two small closets in it, which didn’t make much sense to me (see the original layout here). We closed off the doorway to the entryway and made this 100% closet. Billy has a small, reach-in closet in the bedroom that he’s happy with. I’ve offered to share, but I think he likes to keep a few things in our marriage separate.

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