If you follow me on Instagram, you may have heard we’ve gotten an apartment in Atlanta. My husband and I have always planned on moving to a warmer city and we’ve really enjoyed our visits to Atlanta so we are giving it a try! (I’m also quite excited about the vibrant design community in ATL). Until our boys are off to college we’ll be keeping our place in Ann Arbor so I’ll still be sharing updates there.

Our new apartment will be our first home that does not provide us with various design constraints, our NY studio, at 700 sq. feet, limited our functionality of the space. Here’s a look back at it:

I loved it but entertaining company, having a proper place to eat a meal, etc. was tricky at best. 

With our Ann Arbor home, my husband had designed it before we were together so it’s been long process of working with what he had and brightening up the aesthetic. He readily admits he had no idea what he was doing and with the guidance of a friend, everything was very heavy. Here are some prime examples of a few rooms ‘before’ and ‘afters’, take the full tour of these spaces here:

before

after

before

after

So I’m so excited to design our new place, it’s a bright one bedroom with an open floorplan. Here are some terrible iphone photos of it, starting with the bedroom:

Open living/dining area:

We eventually want to downsize to a smaller place in Ann Arbor so we are transitioning a few pieces to ATL. Given that, it will be fun to share with you how I fill these ‘holes’ with other furniture & décor. I’ll very much be working with what we have so see how I master the mix!

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing my design plans for our new place starting with our entry, I hope you’ll follow along in my scheming! Here’s a peek at paint ideas for the entry space, stay tuned for more:

We've just completed our new master bath in partnership with Wayfair & Kohler and are absolutely thrilled with how the design came together! Here's a peek of the new space, head on over to Wayfair's Design Speaks series to take the full tour!

We had dreamed of updating our bathroom for years so this partnership was a dream come true, a huge thanks to Kohler & Wayfair for making our vision a reality!

Items Pictured:

Kohler Archer Bathtub & Antique Faucet

Kohler Jacquard Vanity & Mirrors

Kohler Artifacts Hardware

Hudson Valley Sconce

Paint - Benjamin Moore Titanium

Brushstroke Fabric by Jana Bek Design, we are launching soon, stay tuned for details!

In the excitement for this fall's One Room Challenge reveals tomorrow (and linking participants Thursday), I thought I'd throwback to this adorable design by the ever talented Kirsten Krason of House of Jade. Kirsten designed this sweet space in last season's ORC for her daughter Jane & of course I was thrilled that she incorporated our Fuchsia brushstroke lamp in the space! I've been a fan of Kirsten's for years so chatting design with her was long overdue.

Tell us about little lady Jane's bedroom you designed!

Jane's room was such a fun space for me! I love kid's rooms because you can go really bold with color.  The room is small so I had to be careful with where I brought in the wow factor. I chose to create a focal point with some oversized art and then punch it up with colorful pillows, a pink chair and a teal rug.  I opted for a toddler bed instead of a twin because the room is so teeny.  To balance out all the color I kept the dresser and bed white.

Having started off your design career as an individual designer with 6th Street Design School, how does the design process differ now that you’re partnered with Erin Morgan for House of Jade Interiors? What are the highlights, any challenges?

As with any transition there were some growing pains but overall the process of turning my own business into the House of Jade brand has been amazing! Erin is one of my best friends so we are really comfortable with each other.  We bounce ideas off each other really well now.  It took awhile to get our design minds in sync but now most of our projects flow really seamlessly.  She brings a different eye to the table which helps broaden our designs. I gravitate towards colors and she loves neutrals so it's been fun to blend our two styles. The best part of working with your best friend is that it makes work fun! 

You are a master at mixing textiles in your designs! How do you approach picking out patterns and colors for your client’s spaces?

I always like to start with a color scheme and go from there.  If there are too many bold patterns I'll throw in a solid to break it up or some good neutrals. I think the key is to not worry about it being perfect. Oftentimes it's the most unexpected patterns and colors that look best together.  Just be careful with pattern scale so nothing competes with anything else. 

Any favorite home décor stores in Salt Lake City you can recommend to our readers?

When we are shopping for clients we always make a stop at Alice Lane! We also love Nest Boutique in South Jordan for fun and unique finds.  Anthropologie has all kinds of treasures as well. If we are looking for some vintage items we love Home Again.

I'm so delighted Kirsten stopped by today! If you are on Instagram, I highly recommend you follow House of Jade's beautiful feed! Also, this was just a small taste of the duo's designs, be sure check out their portfolio here!

With the new season of One Room Challenge upon us I felt it was time to finally share my faux shagreen console DIY I created for my office. I received a few emails about this DIY so thank you to those who have been patiently waiting for the tutorial! 

Items you will need:

Furniture piece you are going to wrap. I used an Ikea Akurum cabinet which they no longer sell, there Sektion is very similar though.

Your faux shagreen fabric. I used this faux stingray.

Then, this awesome mounting tape from 3M (which I would NOT substitute any other adhesive for this)! It is super strong but allows you to reposition the panels you make in case you need to. I think I used 4 rolls. Buy more & return what you don’t need, you’d hate to start and have to stop in the middle.

Any hardware you want to add, I used these Lews Bar Pulls in brushed brass.

So the steps are really easy, but tricky to describe so I tried to include as many photos as possible, reference the photos & you’ll be fine!

First, calculate all of the faux material you need, you’ll do this by measuring the top of your furniture item, tops of your doors, size of your door faces adding the width of the side of the doors, then the outside sides of your item. This diagram is to help you illustrate what I mean:

When you get your fabric, cut out each of these pieces. There, you’ve completed the hardest steps of this DIY.

I think you could do this DIY on an assembled item, what I did is, I assembled the cabinets, sans the doors, hung it on the wall, then started covering the doors.

Take your door and mark where you will place your pulls then drill a hole through your doors.

Then, take your 3M tape and wrap it so half the tape is on the front face of the door and the other half is on the side of the door. Then, along the top edge of the door and bottom, place the tape in entirety on the doors face (so you are not wrapping any part of the tape like we did on the sides).

Once in place, take off the other side of the tape’s wrapping, starting on one long side of the door, line up your fabric on the tape then wrap your fabric around to the other side of the door.

Then put a screw through the hole you’ve drilled so you can see through the fabric where you need to cut a small hole. I could cut this with scissors, affix your pull, and then push down the fabric securely on the top and bottom of the door. Repeat for all doors.

Cut the tape in half (no it’s half as wide) and place these on the tops and bottoms of each door. Then affix your small fabric rectangles.

You are almost done, the other steps are insanely easy!

On the outer sides and top of your furniture piece, place tape on the outer edges of each area. Then just affix your large pieces you’ve cut for each.

Admire your amazing new faux shagreen cabinet!!

I think there are areas for improvement with this DIY (like adding puffy paint to the areas you see the cabinet or wrapping the doors more like a present) – if you attempt and learn a trick, please leave it in the comments!

- Last (pretty) photo by Sarah Dorio