Home Decor Blog

The first winter we lived in this house, our living room felt cold even when the heat was running. I remember sitting on our old couch in December and looking around at half-unpacked boxes. The room had furniture, but it still felt flat and uninviting. Four winters later, I know which changes made a real…

Last November, my in-laws texted to say they were coming for five nights. I had only nine days to turn our sad little office-slash-junk-room into a comfortable guest room. We do not have a traditional spare bedroom. Our 1,400-square-foot house has to work hard for every bit of space. This room usually holds Mark’s desk,…

Every November, I tell myself this will be the year our walls look like something from a magazine. Then December arrives, and I find myself hot-gluing a pinecone back onto a wreath while Biscuit tries to eat the ribbon. After five Christmases in this house, I have found a few Christmas wall decor ideas that…

Before you decorate your small apartment for Christmas, there are a few things I wish I had known. Mark and I learned them the hard way during our three years in a 650-square-foot apartment. I bought a tree that was too big, filled the room with too many decorations, and ignored the storage problem until…

October arrived, and I still had a bowl of dusty faux lemons sitting on my coffee table from a summer refresh that never happened. Mark asked if we were “doing fall” this year, which is really his way of saying, “Can we make the house stop looking like July?” I had about $75 to spend…

The first Thanksgiving we hosted in this house was back in 2021. I spread a runner across the table, added a few pumpkins, and thought I was finished. It looked fine in photos. In real life, it looked unfinished. Since then, we’ve hosted four more Thanksgiving dinners. I’ve ruined one tablecloth with cranberry sauce, rearranged…

The first October we owned this house, I went a little overboard with fall porch decor. I bought pumpkins in every size, tied corn stalks to the porch posts, and hung a wreath that looked beautiful for only a couple of weeks. Before Halloween arrived, the corn stalks were making a mess, and the afternoon…

Before Mark and I bought our place outside Charlotte in 2021, we spent three Octobers in a 700-square-foot apartment. Our lease banned nails, tape residue, and anything attached to the outside of the building. Decorating for Halloween felt like solving a puzzle. Every idea I saw on Pinterest seemed to need a porch, a yard,…

Our first Christmas in this house, I spent almost $400 on decorations before New Year’s Eve. Even after spending that much, half of everything looked cheap. Mark still reminds me about it every November. Since then, I’ve made it a personal challenge to keep our Christmas decorating budget under $150 for the entire house. Some…

The first year we lived in this house, I poured all my holiday energy into the living room. I completely ignored the bedroom. That changed when my sister asked to see it during a video call in mid-December. The room still had our everyday navy pillows, and a laundry basket was sitting beside the closet….

Our staircase is the first thing people see when they walk into our house, but for the first couple of Christmases I barely decorated it. I’d hang a wreath on the front door, style the dining table, and leave the banister completely plain. Last year I finally decided it deserved some attention, but I also…

Every year, I pack away the Christmas decorations on New Year’s Day. Then I spend a week staring at our bare mantel before deciding what to do with it. Our mantel is pretty simple. It’s an oak-look shelf above a gas fireplace insert, nothing fancy. During our first two winters in this house, I either…