*REALISTIC* RUSTIC MODERN HOUSE TOUR || AFFORDABLE DESIGN IDEAS || HOME DECORATING TIPS

Hey guys, it's Jenna. Welcome to our home. So this house is a little over 2000 square feet. It's a three bedroom two bathroom with an upstairs loft space and it is a new build. So we picked out our floor plan. We picked out our lot. It's in a new build community. And while that was so exciting to be able to pick out all of our finishes and have a brand new home, sometimes with new build houses, you can get that builder grade feel. So when decorating this house, I wanted it to feel a little bit more custom and lived in. So I'm going to show you all how I did that as we go through the home. I'm also going to share some budget friendly tips on how you can get a more high end designer feel in your space while sourcing more affordable and budget friendly products. So actually what drew us to this floor plan specifically was the entryway. You have these beautiful tall ceilings with a big skylight to let in a lot of natural light. And I love the staircase. It's very grand. It helps to draw your eye up and it's beautiful during the holidays. I decorate it with all this garland and it was just one of my favorite spots in the house. We have this really beautiful cabinet over here that helps to hide our shoes. And it's just a nice drop zone to put things as we come through the door, like mail or keys. And there are several things I did in this space to try to guide your eye. One of them being this really cool gallery wall. All of these frames were sourced from Ikea, so it was super affordable. And then I just filled them with black and white photos of places that we like to visit on the West coast. So it kind of gives that beachy relaxed vibe. So it makes things feel casual as you walk through the door. And then we also have this really beautiful long runner. I believe this is a 22 foot runner and it helps to guide your eye down to the main living space. It's also really practical because it helps to keep dirt from getting all through the house and it just helps to warm up the space a little bit and make it feel softer. And because this space is really large with the high ceilings, I did want to add some furniture to break it up a little bit. So one day I was out antiquing and I found this beautiful long skinny bench. You'll see throughout my home, I'm a big proponent of adding antiques into your space and layering pieces that have that distressed chippy finish to them because it helps to add a lot of texture and character. So when picking materials for my space, this is a theme you'll see throughout my home. I try to keep them more on the earthy side. So things that come naturally from the earth, things like leather, clay, linen, wood, stone, that just helps your space to have a more casual down to earth feel. And that's really what I'm going for in our house. So that's kind of the front part of the entryway. Then you have these two bedrooms and bathroom that are right off of the main entry. And I'll show you what we did with this first front one. Oh, and also this is Kona. She will probably pop up throughout this whole video and follow us around. So our first room is actually a home gym and we were fortunate enough to have the space for a home gym. It was something that we always wanted. And of course, we decorated the space during the pandemic era. So we figured that this would be a nice luxury to have. And we use this place every single day. So we didn't want this space to feel like we just threw equipment in a room and that was it. We want it to feel a lot more styled and elevated. So the first thing that I wanted to do was add some wall moldings. So it took me about a weekend to do, and I love the beautiful warm color that they are. This is agreeable gray and it's just a nice kind of warm topi color, super neutral. So if we want to switch up the use of this room in the future, we always have that flexibility and it's a nice backdrop, but it does help the room to feel a lot more styled, a little bit more warm and create some dimension. So everything in this room is really budget friendly. The only thing we splurged on was this cable machine, but we got our elliptical off of Facebook marketplace. Our curtains are from Ikea. I also intentionally styled three mirrors because that makes it feel a little bit more elevated and designer as opposed to just having one big mirror. But the mirrors are from Ikea. They were really affordable. I also love to bring the outside in, in my spaces through things like artwork and faux greenery, even though it's faux, it still gives the illusion that you're bringing nature inside. And I actually try to intentionally plant plants that you're going to see through your window. So here we have these beautiful hydrangeas. They're in full bloom right now, and it just helps to add to the ambiance of inside. Even though they're outside, you feel connected to them because they're right by the window. And honestly what it comes down to in this space and what makes it feel nice is how you style everything. So for example, instead of just putting our elliptical on the carpet, I laid down a rug and that's from target. It was really affordable, but it just helps the space to feel a little bit more elevated. And same thing with our yoga mats. I rolled them up and put them in a nice basket. So everything feels organized and fresh. It's really about combining aesthetics with function in those pieces that you use every day and just putting them in your space in a way where they're going to look visually pleasing. So yeah, that's the gym. Let's go over to the guest bath now. So this is our guest bathroom. Obviously this is the one that guests use when they come over. So I like it to feel a little bit more styled and spa-like. So we didn't go too crazy in here. I just hung two of these shelves. These are actually from the Hobby Lobby unfinished wood section. So they were super cheap. And then I stained them with the hazelwood stain. And this is just a nice spot to put things like canisters, candles, extra towels, and it makes it feel a little bit more styled and homey. And I also wanted this space to feel really simple and spa-like. And to me, spas have a lot of bright white colors. So I wanted to keep this feeling pretty bright and natural. So we went with a white shower curtain for that reason. It's easy to wash and bleach and it does have a really subtle waffle texture, which I love, which helps to add a little bit of depth and texture. But overall it still gives off that bright, fresh feeling. So this was a home goods find. It was really affordable. Here we had this ugly towel bar that came with the house. I thought it was so ugly and builder grade. So I swapped it out to these little wall hooks. I got these off of Amazon. And then I just sewed some elastic onto my towels. So we have a nice pretty moment here where function meets aesthetics. And then I just printed this off of Etsy. I bought it for a couple dollars as a digital download and put it in this frame that I found at TJ Maxx. And it just helps the space to feel a lot more styled, really peaceful while also adding to its function as well. So that's the guest bath. Like I said, just really simple and fresh. That's the feeling that I wanted it to have in here. And then here is our guest room. And we wanted to keep this again, still really simple, very calm. Wanted it to feel like a little oasis when people come here to stay. So in my mind, one of the most calming colors is blue. So we painted this accent wall, a beautiful blue gray. One of the most sentimental things to me in this room is this bed. My dad and I actually made this together when we were talking about what I wanted for my college dorm room. I pointed of course to a pottery bar magazine and I said, I want a bed like that. And it was like this beautiful black canopy bed. And my dad was like, cool, let's make it. So we spent hours making this thing together out in the Florida heat. I remember I was like, why did we do this? I kind of regretted saying that I wanted it, but it turned out so beautiful. It has this really beautiful like tapered post and all of the details are really pretty. I love the slatted headboard that it has. It was originally black. I'll see if I can find a photo of my college dorm room, but I wanted it to be black. And then when I moved out to the West coast after college, my parents took the bed, they painted it white to match their space. So it's just always been white ever since then. And so I felt like that would look good with the blue. And then also another thing I love about this space is this photo up here. So we were just at the beach and I was taking photos and this flock of birds flew by and I was able to quickly focus on the birds so that the background of the ocean was just kind of blurry and faded into the background. And it ended up being such a pretty piece. Like I love how the birds add movement and you can just feel them flying. And it's just this beautiful moment frozen in time. So that is the guest bedroom. And now we're going to go on over to this little section of hallway here. We have this little mud room, which has been such a convenient area down here in these baskets. This is where we hide away all of our shoes. And typically this has a lot more coats and bags on here, but it's just nice to have a convenient drop zone for when we come in the door, since this is our garage door. And then I also found this print at HomeGoods. So it was really affordable and that just helps to make this more of a moment and feels a lot more styled. We've loved this. It's just like a convenient little thing that doesn't take up a ton of space, but has really functioned well for us. So we also have this nice gallery wall of all of our wedding photos. So it's nice to have that displayed. And it also kind of funnels your eye this way to the main living space. So this is the main living area of our home. This is the heart of the home. It's where we spend most of our time. It backs up to the backyard and you just get all this beautiful natural light that floods the space. So naturally we love being in here and spending time in here. And often I'm in here cooking while Mike is in here watching TV. And we're having conversations as I'm prepping dinner. Something that we did to define the space was put this big sectional here. This makes the space feel really laid back and cozy, which is the one thing that I wanted this space to feel like. And this was actually an outlet find. And that is a tip I have. If you want to get more expensive high end furniture for a discounted price, check out the outlets near you. We have a pottery barn outlet about an hour away and we got this for a fraction of the price of what we would have got it online for. Same thing with the coffee table. So definitely some really deep discounts if you check out your local outlets. And like I said before, I really wanted to avoid just putting all brand new furniture in a brand new house. You want to make your space feel like it has soul and character. So I tried to do that with our accents. For example, this beautiful wood bowl, this I found while antiquing and this just helps to act as a little catch all here for things like our coasters and remotes. And I did a lot of things to try to make it feel a lot more homey and less builder grade. One of those being adding this beautiful shutter propagation wall. This was an antique find. I was just antiquing, not looking for anything remotely like this. And I saw these shutters and I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to have those. And it just takes this really blank piece of builder grade drywall and makes it feel like it has character in a story. So another thing that I wanted to do in this space to make it feel a little bit more custom was add a treatment to the center fireplace wall. And I didn't want to do anything too involved or expensive. So I decided to do a lime wash technique and I love the way that it adds texture and depth to our space. It was super inexpensive to do, but it gives off that really designer expensive feel and helps to make that wall pop a little bit more. And I have a full tutorial on that. I will link that video down below and I'll also link any furniture that I can that is similar to what we have or you know, any decor pieces that you see in this video. I will link that down in the description box as well. So that's the main living space. Now we're going to move on over to the kitchen. It's just really nice that everything is open to each other and it's just really nice to feel like everybody is in the room together, even if you're in separate parts of the space. So because this space was really light and bright, I wanted to add some elements to contrast that. So we have this beautiful woven back dining chairs. Something that I wanted to do as well would be to add a black pendant because we have a lot of white going on in here and we needed something to contrast that. So I added these black pendants and I love the statement that they make. I always like to have some sort of statement greenery here in a statement vase. This was a beautiful vase that I found at HomeGoods and these are from Magnolia Market. So really simple, but just helps to give it that rustic Mediterranean feel. And another tip I have for helping your countertop to feel a little bit more aesthetic is just putting your wooden utensils in your utensil crock. So here we have the wooden ones displayed and then I have all of the hodgepodge plastic, white, other utensils in this drawer. So that way it just feels a little bit more cohesive, a little bit more professionally styled and aesthetic and gives it a little bit more of a warmer feel. So like I said, this was a new build. So we were very fortunate to have brand new appliances and it's been such a joy to cook with because I do majority of the cooking. I cook almost every single night. So it's been a very functional kitchen and I love the way everything looks, especially this beautiful farmhouse sink. This was an upgrade that we did and it's been really nice to have. So that's really the kitchen. This is really where we added a lot more custom details here in our dining nook. None of this was here. This was just a blank wall. We actually decided to extend our kitchen out. So we got the same countertop, the same backsplash. My dad helped us to put these in and he helped us to do this really intricate herringbone backsplash. So that was super helpful. This is nice because it's our little bar area here during the holidays and stuff. I'll put drinks out here and it has all of our barware and then Mike actually added this whole custom bench. So that way it feels a little bit more cozy, a lot more custom. And I will say, I really do like this. The aesthetics are 10 out of 10. The only negative with this spot is a lot of times if you have people in here, it is tough getting in and out. So everyone has to pile in and then if you want to get out, the person stuck in the back is stuck in the back. That is my only critique of this setup, but we really liked it because it helps to save on space and it does just make the space to feel a lot more cozy and custom. So we did get this faux leather cushion custom made by a local upholster. And this table was actually another Pottery Barn outlet find. We got it for like a crazy deal. I think it was like $600 or something. This photo I actually took in Laguna beach and then I just cropped it into threes and I got them printed on this company Smallwoods. So it helps to scale the photo to make it feel like much more of a statement. And then I hung these faux lights above each one to make it feel again a lot more custom and designer. So I just bought these on Amazon and they have little puck lights in them and their battery operated. So custom was really the name of the game when it came to this dining nook. I love how everything feels really cozy. We soften things up a little bit with adding these pillows. It's really nice to sit here and drink a cup of coffee in the morning and look out to the garden. So next we're going to go on out to the patio area, which is actually an extension of this living space as well. So out here we have our patio and this was really simple when we first got here. I added some more personal touches like these curtains. We just got some conduit at Lowe's and we got it cut to the size that we needed. And then I hung these curtains that are from Amazon and it just gives it a more resorty laid back feel. And what was really important about this space was that it coordinated with the decor that was inside because when you're sitting on the sofa inside, you get a direct view out to this patio. So I wanted everything to kind of still feel cohesive and like it would go together since this really does just feel like an extension of the living space. And we're out here all the time. I'm always out here picking my herbs. We play fetch with Kona while we're sitting here. We eat dinner out here. I drink coffee out here. So it's definitely a space that needed to feel functional and comfortable. So I actually found this outdoor set at HomeGoods and it was such a steal. I love the woven detail and how it adds that warmth. So that's the outdoor covered space. But if we go a little further into the backyard, this is probably one of my favorite things that we did to our entire home. And it's this beautiful pea gravel patio. We put this in last year and when we first moved in here, there was nothing here. This was a total blank slate. It was just a patch of grass. We added in this whole wall of trees and shrubs to help give it a more established feel and to make it feel soft and like it's a true garden. We did that two years ago. And then last year we planted this really beautiful rose garden. Of course, at the time we're filming this video, they're in between flushes, but they just had this beautiful bloom about three weeks ago or so. And the rose bushes just surround this patio. And it's so nice to sit out here and you just smell the roses and hear the birds. It is one of my favorite places in the entire world. So relaxing. I come out here and I glaze my pottery. I do crafts. We eat dinner out here. So it's just a really beautiful area that not only is really calming and relaxing to be in, but also adds to the aesthetics inside as well because you just kind of have this ambiance and it feels like its own little oasis out here. And the fact that you can see that from all of the windows inside in the main living just really helps to up the aesthetics as well. So that's the pea gravel area. And then another area that has really come to be such a beautiful space is this back garden area. When I first planted this Jasmine, it was about yay high and it was super thin. I'll see if I can find any photos to insert. This has been two years of growth and this is exactly how I envisioned it. Just sweeping over one of these sides to kind of create an asymmetrical look on this Arbor. We actually got this Arbor off of Amazon and we installed it one night on a whim. And I just love how it instantly elevates this space and makes it feel more intentional. It gives it a focal point on this wall of shrubs, something simple that really enhanced this space. And then I also planted this little blackberry bush in one of my most recent garden with me videos. And we already have so many little blackberries on it. So I'm hoping that we get to harvest some of those soon. I also love our olive trees. These have such a beautiful kind of like jade blue color. And when the sun shines on them and the wind blows, they kind of look like glitter from the inside. So speaking of let's go inside and show you one of my favorite views of this space from the entire home. So this is our bedroom and it really isn't that large, but I feel like we made a really good use of space in here. I know it can be a little bit unconventional to put a desk in a bedroom, but for me, I will never be able to concentrate in an office. So personally I would rather have my desk somewhere that has a view where I have natural light. I can look out onto my yard. So this is my absolute favorite view of our backyard. It is so nice and peaceful to sit here. Sometimes I even have my coffee or lunch here. I love a bay window because you almost feel like you're just kind of put out in nature, but you're still inside. So it's like a little perch for me. I love this area and this desk actually I found for free on Facebook marketplace. And it was originally like a dark wood desk and I refinished it to give it this old vintage antique look. I also have these little woven storage baskets. These are great for hiding my electronics and all of the things that I use in my daily work. I just tuck them in there like my chargers and everything. So it's a great way to aesthetically hide clutter. And I love all of the natural light in this room. Obviously we have the beautiful bay window here, but we also have these transoms and because we back up to that forest, it just feels like you're immersed in the trees and you feel like you're in this little nature box. And I love that cozy feeling in this space specifically for our bedroom. So it's just really relaxing. You feel super calm. And again, I just love being able to relate my spaces back to nature. So when they feel like they're nestled in nature, it's just my favorite. So I kind of played off of that with all of the materials in here. And another thing that I added to kind of give that natural feel to the space are our beams. We actually just bought these at Lowe's and then we installed them. We had this tray ceiling already here. And then I figured, Hey, like let's put some beams across to add some interest and to warm everything up a little bit. And because this is our bedroom, I just wanted it to feel really casual and relaxed. So the way I do that through my decor is just to add lots of natural earthy materials, things like a jute rug that helps everything to feel a lot more casual. And it brings that earthy element in here. I also love that our bed has kind of like this linen-y look to it. This was actually relatively affordable. I think we got it on Wayfair and we've really liked it. So we're going to go into our bathroom right now. And I have really never shown this space on my channel. I feel like maybe only a couple of times we really didn't do anything to it. You know, I don't know why I just felt super unmotivated to do anything to this space. Maybe because it's always covered in our toiletries. I have this little simple styling moment here, which I do like, you know, I have some sponges in a glass container. Those are both from Hobby Lobby. I got this on Magee & Co. And then I just have some of my simple everyday jewelry and a little Target dish. So it makes things feel spa-like and styled, but again, just really simple and nothing too fancy. So the last place that I have to show you all is our upstairs living area. So here we are in our upstairs game loft living area. And this is one of our most functional spaces in the house. We have a really nice TV for entertaining. My dad and Mike, my husband built this beautiful built-in. So it kind of makes everything seem a lot more custom. I was able to lime wash the wall back here. So when that is contrasted against this white built-in, it helps to give it some depth and texture and a little bit of interest and makes things feel more organic and natural. So this was a nice place to display some of my antiques. I actually did a lot of DIY aged vessels. So I have quite a few videos on those. So those are displayed up here, which is nice. Another thing I like to incorporate in this room are woven details. Wovens really help to warm up a space. They make it feel earthy and add that nice texture. So we have our woven console table over there, which holds all of our games. And then on top of this table, we also have a little set of glasses that I DIY'd in a previous video. And these are etched with all of the places that Mike and I have lived. So that's kind of cool. And like a fun conversation piece for when people come up here, we'll put like the little ice bucket there and it's a nice little entertaining spot. Another favorite in this spot are these chairs. I specifically put them here so you can swivel to be part of the shuffleboard game, or you can swivel if you're going to be part of like the game playing conversation, TV watching over here. And that's been super convenient because when we have a lot of people up here, it's nice that you can be a part of both sides of the room. Since this is a little bit more of our game area, this is a really fun dart board that we like to play. As you can see, we've had a couple misses here, but that's how we like it. The newbies don't feel so intimidated. You can hit the wall. It's fine. But I actually got this on Wayfair and I felt like it looked like something that you would get at Pottery Barn. Same thing with the shuffleboard table. I feel like it has a very high end look to it. So it's been a really fun piece in the space that's created a lot of memories, a lot of competition, a lot of conversations. And then this art piece is my favorite. I did the same thing that I did downstairs just with a digital download that I found on Etsy. I really loved this image. I love the colors in it. I love how it kind of felt rustic and had those earthy tones, but it still had that little bit of blue in there to feel calm and relaxing. So this was like a perfect image of what I wanted this space to feel like. And the sofa was actually a crate and barrel outlet find. Again, it's really deep and it has that beautiful kind of like linen-y slip cover look, which just helps everything to feel a lot more casual and laid back, which I love. And then another accent that we tied in over here was the leather detail. I wanted to have leather accent pillows to tie in from the swivel chairs over there and just make everything feel a little bit more cohesive. So that's the upstairs space. Super functional and it's just nice to have this extra bonus space for when we're entertaining or when one of us needs to come up here and do work. It's nice to have this as a little extra spot. All right, everyone, that about wraps up our house tour. I hope that you enjoyed coming along and seeing everything that we've done to our beautiful home. I want to thank you all so much for watching. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will see you guys in my next one. Bye.