Am I the only one who thinks it's refreshing to see the wood kitchen trend making a come back after painted shaker cabinets have been so popular? I'm loving the natural, medium wood tones we are seeing. It works beautifully in a variety of kitchen styles and material selections.

The Creativity Exchange

Thread Art & Design

Old Sea Grove Homes

Beacon Lighting

Katie Hackworth Architectural Designs + Interiors

Simo Design

House of Jade Interiors

Disc Interiors

Bringing back wood cabinets to the kitchen is a trend to love that adds warmth and works well paired with light painted cabinets without sacrificing a clean, white look or dark painted cabinets for a modern, dramatic look. Keeping wood cabinetry a natural tone adds texture and achieves an effortless, organic style.

Be back soon!
- Dani

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Here to update you with 3 trends that I am seeing all over the place right now that are affordable and simple to incorporate into a space. I was just in West Elm today and I swear these 3 elements were all over the store! The pieces below have a wide range of prices, but everything below is LESS THAN $250. One thing these trends have in common is that they are all very textural, another huge trend right now. All of these items can work together to create a highly textural palette.

Click the links below to shop the item.

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Wovens add texture and warmth to a space and are really practical when incorporated through baskets for organization or rugs in a seating or entry area. I like how all of these woven pieces are neutral but they are also playful so they will add personality through fun shapes or whimsical fringe.

Cognac leather is so beautiful and serves as a warm but neutral accent. It's definitely my favorite tone of leather and looks good with almost any palette because it can go rustic or modern. Leather doesn't have to be real to look great in a space, there are some very good looking faux leathers out there these days so you can get the same effect without the splurge.

Tassels are seriously everywhere right now - in home decor, jewelry, and clothing. And I'm obsessed! Along with tassels, wall hangings and macrame plant hangers are super hot. I'm already a pillow addict, so add tassels and oh my goodness my heart!

I hope you find some pieces you love! If so, I'd love it if you let me know in a comment below.

Are we long overdue for an update or what?! Since we were pretty burned out when we moved in, we have been taking our time and picking away at projects at a slower pace. That doesn't mean that we haven't accomplished a lot though!

Our first couple weeks, we lived without interior doors, which of course included the bathroom. All of our poor guests only had the privacy of a curtain! We did finally get doors ordered and installed, but not without some pretty big snags due to a miscommunication with the building supply company!





We also have installed a flat stock trim in most of the upstairs. We still have to patch the nail holes and paint the trim, which we joke about being one of those tasks that won't done until we put the house up for sale!



Don't worry, I'm getting to the basement updates, but to distract ourselves from that big headache, we worked on some little projects, like adding a towel bar and ring in the bathroom.







After living with this completely unorganized situation for about 2 months (I couldn't even reach anything in the bottom of the cardboard box because it was so tall!), one night I begged Martin to go with me to Ikea to get a dresser so we could get the situation under control. Leave it to Martin to set a record for the fastest Ikea trip in history with a total of 5 minutes in the store!

Before



After

We do have a closet in our room for hanging storage, but a new dresser was seriously the best way to force myself to get rid of all of the clothes that we don't need or wear. Such a good feeling (I'm am doing my best to carry this concept through the whole house)! Now I just have to get them beyond sitting in a box in our spare bedroom!

Now onto the basement! Martin demoed the basement one day while I wasn't home and what I came home to was nothing short of a disaster. It's been demoed for about 3 months and goes back and forth between showing progress and being a terrifying sight. I do think things are turning the corner!



In the bathroom, we tore out the raised tub that had two steps to get up to it for the plumbing to live underneath. In order to fix this, Martin and his dad had to cut through the concrete and tie in a new plumbing line for a new corner shower. What a mess! They also changed the plumbing for the washer so that it would be on the same wall as the dryer, like it should have been from the start. Bonus - it left us with a little nook for a new wash tub!



I'm so happy that things are finally starting to come together and get cleaned up! We also just finished up some electrical work to make switches more functional. The only major things left before new drywall are to run cable to the basement and install a new dryer vent.




One last update: Spring has sprung in Maryland! Here are some of my favorites from April!






Enjoy your warmer weather wherever you may be!

We finally decided to ditch our tiny Ikea dining table and get a grown-up table to gather around with friends and family. It didn't take me long to find out that we could build a real wood table for the same or less than the cost of a low quality table from a home store. I did some searching on Pinterest and fell in love with this farmhouse table here. Those truss beams had me all heart eyed!

With an open floor plan, I didn't want the table too close to the living room area so we made it 15" shorter than called for in the plans and I'm so glad we did! That would have been WAY too big! It is the perfect size and will easily fit two people on each side, as well as one on each end.

We found all of our lumber during a late afternoon trip to Lowe's and by the end of the night, we had a table that was sanded and ready to be stained.

(Excuse our hot mess of a basement! There will be an update on that soon. It does make for a good workshop though!)







For the stain, we used a 2:1 mix of Minwax Classic Grey with Dark Walnut and finished it with a clear matte polycrylic finish.


The finished product!

We weren't feeling too confident in the strength of the breadboards at the ends so we added L-brackets that we painted matte black to add a lot more support, and that they do. The only time you can see them is while sitting on our couch, but I'm kind of liking them!


I'm so impressed by Martin's building skills and how handy he is getting on all of our projects!
We are excited for the memories that will be made around our new table!