How about a little spring decorating, dining-room-style today?
Our dining room is such a small and simple space, I don’t like to add too much or it starts to feel a bit claustrophobic. I like small spaces that are filled just enough to be cozy, but not cluttered. It’s a fine line I find myself crossing just about every time I’m changing things up from season to season, and as soon as I do, I start taking away a little from here and a little from there and suddenly it all just feels right.
I have another lazy decorating trick to share with you today.
I think we’re all fans of quick and easy solutions to make things pretty around the house, right? I know I am.
Bonus points when they end up being super inexpensive too.
I am famous for picking up unframed art prints and other pieces that I would like to hang on the wall, but then never get around to actually framing and hanging on the wall. It’s not always easy to find frames off the shelf to fit your print, and custom framing can be costly. And then there’s that whole making an actual trip to the framing store thing that I never manage to make time for either.
Ugh.
Do you love super easy DIY projects you can do in just a few minutes – no special skills required?
You do?
Oh good. Me too.
And I just so happen to have one to share with you today. 😉
Cozy.
Neutral.
Simple.
How many times have you heard (or read) me describe a room using one or all of those words?
A lot, right?
I can’t help it – those three little words just to seem to sum up what we have going on around here so well. I apologize for the repetition. 🙂
And so it goes without saying that, regardless of the season, my decorating choices are going to reflect those three little words – and this spring is no different. I simply wanted things around the house to feel fresh, open, and airy – which to me meant lots of white, soft and subtle neutrals, and pops of green.
I shared a little look at a few things last week…
Last weekend I tried out milk paint for the first time.
Based on what I’ve read, milk paint can sometimes have a mind of its own – chipping and flaking wherever it sees fit. I loved the idea of that. The idea that I would apply the paint and then the piece would kind of get to decide how it wanted to look. However, I was a little intimidated by the fact that it comes in a powder and you mix it with water to turn it into paint. I was afraid it wouldn’t mix well, or that the color wouldn’t be consistent, or that I would be stuck with lumpy bumpy paint.
I love the farmhouse plate rack we have in the dining room – it’s one of my favorite projects to date (you can read about it here). I have fun changing it up from time to time and adding things to introduce a little seasonal flair in the dining room.
And no matter what I incorporate, the one constant has always been the plates…because…well…it’s a plate rack.
Right?
But maybe it doesn’t have to be just a plate rack…
Whenever I share a post about styling or creating vignettes around a room, readers will often write to me and say they struggle with this part of decorating. How do you know what to bring in? How do you know how to arrange it? When is it too much and when is it not enough?
You know what I’m about to say…
There is no right or wrong – it’s completely about personal taste.
Not what you wanted to hear, right?
I know. I get it. It can be a little overwhelming, and having no direction when you’re not sure what to do does not help.
I go through weeks where I read all the time, and then I hit weeks where I don’t read hardly at all. I’m in one of those “reading all the time” times – probably due to the string of good books I’ve been hitting. What have you been reading and loving?
So how has 2017 been treating you so far?
Here we are, already into March, and I can definitely say it’s been off to a rather rocky start here at the Smith house. I suppose starting a new year off with a major surgery can do that, right?
You may have remembered I mentioned that Jordan had surgery right after Christmas. I’ll spare you all the nitty gritty details, but in a nut shell he was supposed to have colon resection surgery, his condition ended up being a lot worse than predicted, and they were unable to do the surgery as planned. So my poor husband went in thinking he was going in for a fairly routine procedure and instead woke up with a colostomy and news that as soon as he healed from this surgery it would be time to head back for round two.
Major curveball.
Usually when I’m out treasure hunting, I know why something catches my eye – qualities like worn wood, rusty metal, chippy paint, etc. But every once in a while, I spot something that speaks to me and I can’t quite make sense of why.
Last fall while browsing the local flea market, I dug a pair of little horse and rider prints from the bottom of a box and could not put them down. The frames were not exactly my style, the prints themselves were not exactly my style, but I wanted to bring them home nonetheless.
