A Cozy Family Home with Classic Nancy Meyers Charm ｜ HOUSE TOUR

Hi, Homeworthy. I'm Melissa Olent. Welcome to my home in Black Forest, Colorado. Come on in, I'd love to show you around. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, my name is Melissa Olent, and I am the founder and design principal at Ojo Interiors, and you're at my home in Black Forest, Colorado. So my first impression of this home, we actually built it from the ground up. So my first impression was very much based in the land and seeing the potential in the land. One note about this property is that actually it is my in-laws property. So we built this carriage house basically in their backyard. And so really the concept from start to finish came from what do we want this house to feel like and look like on the inside, because really the exterior of the house was really driven by the exterior of the existing house that my in-laws live in. But we kind of had free run to play on the interior and make it whatever I wanted it to be. We've been living in this house for about two and a half years. And so you know, as a designer, I love to have a home that instantly feels like it has character. Our design is very based in an English and European sensibility of just being very lived in and nothing is too precious. I will say from day one, this house felt that way, but certainly we've lived here for two and a half years. The house has changed and evolved and we've painted some rooms and we've added some cabinetry where there wasn't cabinetry. And certainly our personal collections have evolved over the years. And so I think all of that is an effort to really create more of a lived in home. And I think really over the years, the last just two and a half years, it really has become more lived in and loved and certainly a little more wear and tear with two dogs and a seven-year-old living here. And my klutzy tendencies too. It's been a really fun journey to just even watch a house that was built in new construction kind of evolve to becoming, you know, more of a home over the last two and a half years. This is the living room and this is the first room when you first walk into the house. And so it was always very important for me that this felt like a cozy, warm space to settle in, but also it's a pretty petite footprint. Like this house overall is only 1500 square feet. So we really were kind of dealt a big challenge to figure out a layout that allowed for traffic patterns, but also really allowed for kind of cozy family moments. And so we obviously use this room a lot for the television. We watch a lot of movies. I watch a lot of Nancy Meyers, like a lot of Nancy Meyers movies. You'll probably see a little bit of her influence in my design a little bit, but this room is really meant for like those cozy family moments. And so, and it also really encapsulates a lot of our personal collections in this room as well. I have a huge affinity for wooden birds. I collect them like people collect basically matchbooks. I love them. It's so strange. My family hates it, but I love it. Um, we also, I also collect a lot of kind of Delft things. If you're going to grab something during a fire, this is what I'm grabbing outside of like family photos is my Delft mantle clock. It is because I won it at an auction and I am so deeply in love with it. And I, I will grab it in a fire. It's just, it's who I am. Some other things in this room, probably one of my favorite things about the furniture in this room is, is kind of the pattern play that you'll see happen throughout these spaces. We purchased these chairs. They're actually relatively inexpensive chairs in terms of, you know, armchair costs. But one of the things that we wanted to do to really elevate it was to put a pattern play on it. And so these were initially just kind of ivory cushions. And what we did was reupholster them in this great Lisa Fine fabric. And then we did this contrast welt in the Schumacher ticking stripe that just really elevated the entire thing. And then obviously down here, we have upholstered cushion base that really just takes an average armchair and like ratchets up the design. Just so, so good. You'll also see a lot of tassels throughout my house. I have an affinity for tassels, which drives my family and my dogs wild. But I love them so much. And I think they add a lot, just a little bit of quirk and a little bit of charm and hang from doorknobs and cabinet knobs and shower doors and basically anywhere I can put a tassel, you'll see I have put a tassel. In here, we have my grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher. And one of the things that us grandkids were gifted when he passed away in 2016 was we each got a copy of one of his Bibles. And so I took his Bible and put it in this kind of acrylic box. And it really holds a lot of sentimental value and really means a lot for me and my family. Another thing that we do as a family on the is a little bit of antiquing, especially in the Colorado area, there tends to be just a wealth of beautiful antique pieces. And you'll see that represented kind of throughout the house. But one of the places that you'll see that mostly is in the art pieces. And there's some art pieces over here that I just adore. These pieces I actually bought from an online vendor that I love. They're kind of folksy and kind of quaint and cute. And then I have a deep love for embroidery, anything that is embroidered art. I wish I had that skill set. I don't. But I love, I love this piece. And I love kind of smashing as much art in one space as possible, because it just adds so much charm and character to a space. You'll also notice unlacquered brass switch plates kind of everywhere and outlet plates everywhere. This is one of those things that when we were building, we were trying to be very mindful of costs we were building at a very extensive time as it is now. And so instead of kind of going the route of getting brass switches that we all know and love, that I love them, we put them in projects, we went a more economical route and purchased these from House of Antique Hardware. And they will age and they will patina. You can already see that they are starting to do that. And they just add, again, just like a level of charm and interest that you just don't get with a white switch plate. So highly encouraged, super easy DIY kind of thing to do for your own home is to bring in unlacquered brass plates. They change the game. Another thing that you'll notice that I love, in addition to all of my antiques and all of the things that I've surrounded myself with, is really delftware in general. We have this great plate wall above the window. This comes in tandem with the most expensive window treatments that I've ever done in my life with this Dadar fabric that I love. And I would do it again 100 times over. This space has kind of a vaulted and asymmetrical vault ceiling. And that was something that kind of came with the construction elements of architecturals. And so we were trying to figure out a way to make a very vaulted space, you know, probably 20 foot ceilings feel cozier. And so adding this plate wall above the window, bring it down, in addition to using art that really is hung at a little bit of a higher level than normal, just kind of helps bring everything down and make it feel really cozy and makes the perfect kind of movie night experience for the family. So another thing that I love in this space and that has seen a few iterations, honestly, is the rug. I used to have an antique rug in here. And you'll see this throughout the house. There are antique rugs kind of everywhere. But instead of continuing that theme in such an open space, I really wanted to bring in botanical element to this. And so we found this great rug. I believe it's from Momeni. And it is, I think, one of their Aaron Gates collection. And it is so great. I will candidly tell you, it is not very soft. It has taken a while for it to kind of wear in and really become soft. It has become much softer. As jute, it's a natural material, it will wear in and become softer. But it is one of my favorite pieces of the room. It really kind of brings together kind of the burgundy that you're seeing throughout the space and really puts it and grounds it on the floor, which is really nice. And in addition to that, I think one of the pieces that helps ground the space is this upholstered ottoman. And this is one of these like hot designer tip things. I bought this ottoman, obviously, we needed something that was very small scale for the space because it is a small scale print. And so I bought this ottoman and on very inexpensively from one of our vendors had it recovered. And again, this great Lisa Fine fabric that brings like all of the colors of the room kind of into one place. And then the night before we were photographing my house for our you know, Oho portfolio, you would have found me with a hot glue gun and a roll of jute just wrapping the base of this ottoman in this jute detail, which brings throughout again, a bunch of details that we have throughout the house brings it this woven element to that. And again, just me and a hot glue gun just totally singeing off every fingerprint I have on my fingers in my greatest DIY accomplishment, maybe ever in this ottoman. And it really, really makes the space feel cozy. It also helps from a functional perspective. We are people who love to watch TV and put our feet up. So really, this is a crucial piece of the puzzle for us to make this room incredibly usable, but also like give us a traffic pattern to kind of go through the house because otherwise, it would just feel too tight with a really large ottoman in the space. This sofa is probably I'm gonna I'm just gonna call it probably the most expensive dog bed that has ever existed. Our dogs love to perch just like on top of the cushions. And of course, they're down cushions, so they require some fluffing, but we lovingly do that and we lovingly allow them to lay on it. It is a performance fabric to make sure that those dog paws don't cause irreparable damage, but it does tend to be just the most insanely livable sofa. Also the most comfortable sofa that we have ever had. We use this vendor a lot. It's Lee Upholstery out of North Carolina. We love them. So we love this sofa and it has just a really beautiful kind of tennis pleat skirt to it, which is a little unusual. It's something that we had to have custom done with our vendor, but we I love it. I love the personality it gives. It's also in this really fun apricot color, which is a little unexpected, but pairs really nicely with kind of the colors that are happening in the house. We also have this side table and it is, you know, in terms of trends right now, like bleached wood is having definitely having a moment, but I love this piece because it just brings an element of kind of time-worn soul to the space and you'll see that a lot too throughout the house that there's just these elements. Every room has really at least one or two antique pieces that help really make a statement and also give it a sense of purpose and soul and really give a new construction home just a little bit more character. And so this is one of my favorite pieces. Again, we sourced this out of one of our favorite antique vendors out of North Carolina, but it really gives us a lot of function and then gives us like a really fun vignette and a really great decor moment and a moment for our little kind of like red theory pop of red along with our our chinoiserie lamp. So another one element of this room that I love is really this chandelier that we have above us and it really in a space that is so vaulted it gives us a layer of warmth that happens above your head and so that that is something that like as designers we're kind of always seeking is something that feels interesting but also contributes to the overall design plan. And so adding these woven shades onto a chandelier like was really the best way to execute on kind of giving us a grand moment but making it still feel casual and cozy. And one other thing I want to point out is really this fireplace because and especially this fireplace surround because it really has been this is one of those like labors of love there's two labor of love that we went through in this house. I found a local Colorado carpenter that really helped me carry this to to life and made it just really feel like it has a lot of kind of that like Georgian architectural interest to it in a new construction home in Colorado. So it's kind of fun to just we ideated on this together picked all the pieces together and then watching it come to life and getting to really like sit in front of the fire with my family and experience it it's just such a delight I love it. So my journey you know into becoming a designer it was you know I feel like that people have these paths into becoming a designer and everyone's path is is so different. I initially had started to go to school to be an interior designer and then had a very well-meaning professor in college say like kind of sit me down and say I don't think the industry is is what you think it is and that you know that was 2001. The design industry was just so different at that point it was very much kind of luxury and you know you apprentice you start under someone and you apprentice under them and if you're so lucky one day you can one day buy their book and then become the principal of your own firm and I think that that professor could really sense that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and so you know I started college that way really threw me for a loop kind of threw me a bit off my axis and so I kind of floundered a little bit figured out I wanted to go into like public relations ended up working for like the American Red Cross and the Chamber of Commerce and then landed in finance actually once we had moved to Minnesota and then you know kind of actually through working in finance which I love it's very type a and I needed a creative outlet and so I then became a photographer because that was the only tool that I had at my disposal at that time to feel like I could actually make something of it and then I was a photographer for a decade and then hit a really tragic set of circumstances over the course of a year of my life I you know my beloved grandfather passed away and we found out we couldn't have kids biologically and my mom was diagnosed with cancer and sort of all of these things culminated in one in one fell swoop really um and they what it really made me understand is that I had a business that I couldn't scale like I was the person that had to show up and and be contractually obligated to perform my job and that was 2016 um and there for the next three years I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next design has always been my first love I was always the kid with the like traditional home shelter magazine under my arm as a 13 year old and you know painted my childhood bedroom a navy blue despite my parents very you know distinct outrage at at that um but they were they still let me do that um and then I you know I had a just a love for design and so it always was my first love it always was something that called to me but I just felt that you know level of imposter syndrome that you do when you don't have formal the formal training that you think you should in something but I I told myself by 2019 I had wound down the photography business I told myself in 2019 I'll just give it a year let's see what happens and then of course COVID hits and everything everything shut down for a while and I and I had that moment of like okay I can't go into anyone's houses I don't know what I'm gonna do and then obviously as we all know with COVID everyone did have a full concentration on their homes and what they were going to do in their homes and so that really catapulted my business from zero to 90 um in the course of a few months and really I've been running ever since since 2020 we've been just hitting the ground running and now I have a firm of 10 people um which is wild uh firm is based in Minnesota and I am based in Colorado which has its challenges but we are making it work um and it's just been a dream honestly if you'll follow me we're gonna head to the kitchen the heart of the home let's go so welcome to the kitchen obviously on the way to the kitchen you get a peek at this stunning staircase which really is your first introduction into the house it really is the architectural moment that you notice first and so we didn't want to let our staircase get forgotten and so obviously we painted it in this you know oil cloth color that gives this like blue green kind of chameleon effect but in addition to that we also painted the risers that same color and then kept the treads the color of the floor which just created this really beautiful architectural moment in addition to having kind of a thicker stair skirting that goes up that really just helps carry the architectural weight of it and helps it not feel like too puny but it really leads us into the kitchen which is is where we as a family probably spend our most time and is one of the tighter spaces in the house and took a lot of really intense planning to make sure that we had that all that we needed from a kitchen perspective in addition to just having it be also our dining area as well as a family and so as a small family of three we can we can make this situation work but we also have really created a space that when the grandparents when both sets of grandparents come over like we can really make this a space that comfortably fits seven to eight people and so it really becomes like the place where we gather it also becomes I cook a ton like I it is one of my most stress reliever hobbies so I'm often floating between the sink and the range between just like doing my thing this also gives a really beautiful moment for my husband or my daughter to sit here and have a little end of the day moment maybe a little glass of wine or a cocktail or even just a glass of water because it's Colorado and it's dry but it gives us a nice moment to have someone sitting here having a yes chef moment but also just kind of being a part of just whatever is happening over here so I love this banquette it fits perfectly gets tucked into the stairs it really took a lot of design and thought and effort for this to come to fruition because as you'll see it is a floating banquette and does have little corbels underneath but it also kind of brings in that same dadar fabric that we love that is also in the windows and gives us another decorative moment that brings that oil cloth into here one other thing that you'll notice this is not a normal thing for us to have a fridge that does not have a panel and that was actually there were like maybe two requests from my father-in-law and when we were building this house knowing that one day they would have to sell the land with this house on it one of them was to have a fridge that had a dispenser on the front well it is pretty tricky to have a panelized fridge nowadays with a dispenser on the front so this is one of my more moments where as a designer I was like okay we're making a big compromise here but there really weren't that many requests so we had to honor that one the other one is the countertops so my impulse as a designer is always to go with marble or soapstone that is our go-to we've brought a lot of quartzite into our projects lately just for the durability piece of it but one of the requests that my father-in-law had was that he wanted granite countertops in part because of the durability the other part of it was because of its kind of location proximity to Colorado and so finding the right granite countertops was such a mission for us and we found this great linear grained granite that really gives a lot of personality punch and honestly sometimes feels as soft as our soapstone or marble might in this moment but also gives us the durability of just the insane durability of granite that we love in addition to that we brought in you know our Duval like our favorite Duval faucet which is a Perrin and Rowe faucet which has been finished by Duval in their specialty finishes we love that we have some antique pieces of course because it's me and then we have our range hood which is another one of those kind of moments for me that took a lot of planning and also a lot of thought just to make sure like we don't have a ton of upper cabinetry in this kitchen and so making sure we had a moment that really felt like this is a design moment we are okay sacrificing the upper storage we have the you know shelf here to kind of perform some functionality for us but this really becomes the focal point of the space and so this one was handcrafted just every detail was like fully thought and planned through to make sure that like this was going to provide the functionality that we needed for the space but also give us like a great moment of drama in addition to that you'll see this pottery piece up here so I love Rebecca Miles she's one of my favorite ceramicists sure pieces are so special and so wonderful and they go so fast and so you'll see this piece up here that like I is just one of my treasured pieces of of everything I love horses as well um but it is just really one of those moments that creates just a little bit of like kind of grandma's plate wall like I I love a plate well that's all I can say about that also because kitchens need function we have our pantry cabinet so this door goes out to our garage this really becomes like a workhorse of our entire kitchen and really makes it possible for us to have kind of the openness of what we have in our kitchen right now but these cabinets I mean I won't I won't even show you they are jam-packed with items pantry items plates this is where our flatware sits spices like this really is this is what makes our kitchen possible for sure in a kitchen can be a little bit controversial just because of what's happening with the oils and cooking and all those things I deeply believe your kitchen needs art and so any place that I can find to stash art I will find a place to stash art one of those pieces are these vintage postage stamp they are from a friend of mine her shop brook and loo I found that on her shop and I love them and they are truly vintage postage postage stamps but they've been framed in such a beautiful way and just like a collection of three just adds a lot of personality in the space speaking of my friends um we actually this is another one of my favorite ceramicists her name is Ellen but her company is great florals and I have so many of her pieces throughout our house I am her super fan I am deeply that person who tries to buy every single piece of her collection when they launch but this is one of like my most treasured pieces too it again speaks to the blue and white kind of theme that we have throughout the house but it also means a lot we've done we did a collaboration with her on our shop um a couple years ago and it turned out really beautifully and so this is one of the pieces that like I bought from her and I just love so so much and also just holds seasonal flowers constantly I love it the rug is another one of our friends we source a lot from a place called curio rugs they are out of Minnesota and they are our go-to for antique rugs and it is just a stunning large it's actually probably the first piece that I bought decorative piece that I bought for the house and I love it it brings this like levity of just these like peachy pinks but also blues that you'll see throughout the house and it just really kind of ties everything together and also leads us into our beautiful kind of European style range and we love Ilve as a company we use them quite a bit I cook a lot as I said so that is this is an element that like I am just constantly using so it is hyper functional but also just is so beautiful with the brass touches and it gives us just a again a nice focal point for the room another element that you'll see a lot throughout really these woven light fixtures I do think that there's this level of Nancy Meyers to it that brings just cozy comfortable element to it they're also really easy and livable and so I love this I just love this light fixture it provides just a lot of architectural interest but also just gives us like really functional light for the sink and really kind of adds an element of cozy like naturalness to the kitchen that otherwise really is hard to achieve in a kitchen right outside of the kitchen is obviously our front entry door and so we wanted to give this a little bit of a moment and some personality and not have it be a forgotten space because it could it very could easily be forgotten and so again you'll find a great little tassel moment you'll also find my decoupage umbrella stand which is pretty hilarious if you know how much it rains in Colorado which is not a ton unless it's the summer and then it rains every single day but this really also becomes like a moment just of like you know kind of our antique finds these great kind of caned wooden canes but also our friendly gentleman art entry to welcome into the space this is one of those pieces that I think my husband is like who is that what are we doing here I love him and I will never give him up so this is one of those pieces that I actually bought for a client and then never ended up in a client's house and I'm not gonna tell you which client but now he's mine he's mine forever and his name is Oscar so that's the entry when people walk in here for the first time I think that there is this level of wanting people to feel instantly comfortable and I use the term like feeling at home a lot because I think most people can identify with what that might feel like but I think for me it does feel like this level of like kick your shoes off here's a glass of wine you know kind of that that instinctual just settle in and relax and allow yourself to just be exactly who you are it's very much how I want people to feel in this house but it's also how I want people to feel in their projects just because over the years I really have come to understand after crafting homes for myself and crafting homes for other people there is a deep level of mental health relief when you have a home that is truly catered to your wants and your needs and your functional needs as well being able to create that for my family but being able to create that for other families is honestly just you know it it gives me such a deep sense of purpose in life because it's more than just you know picking out beautiful finishes and picking out things that look beautiful together it's also about giving people a sense of home and a sense of relief and having a home that really can hold you in your darkest moments but also celebrate and lift you up and and bring all of the people you love into one place together in those celebratory moments like that that is home that is home to me and so I hope people feel a little bit of that when they walk in here a little bit of that kind of release of of just the mental burden of daily life and they can kind of just settle in and relax here so if you'll follow me we're gonna go look at the primary bedroom together so I'll meet you there welcome to the primary bedroom yes it's pink and yes my husband's okay with it this is actually one of those things that we kind of call grown-up pink in our office it's skulking room pink by farrow and ball and I just think it is the perfect mature pink and it goes perfectly in a kid's room all the way up to obviously an adult space but we love it and I think it is just so cozy we chose not to color drench in here which might be a controversial thing um but it just felt like the relief of white casing and trim felt like a really nice like grown-up sophisticated way to handle the pink in the room as you walk in obviously the main character energy in this room especially in a small room is really the bed and this bed has a story my friends we've had this bed for probably a decade or so it had originally just a beautiful oatmeal linen cover to it at some point in the last six months we decided like the laundered and me thinking I could do this by myself I took the cover off and threw it in our washer well if you have washed linen ever in your life you know that that was a bad idea I should have known better I completely destroyed this linen cover it shrunk to the point of not even being able to be usable and so we have been on an adventure the last six months to replace this slip cover they don't make this bed anymore we reached out to one of our vendors that we use a lot in Minnesota and she was able to whip this up out of nowhere long distance we picked this beautiful rogers in gothagon gingham fabric that I am obsessed with again just a huge mix of pattern play in this space adding that layer of comfort for all of us but really like pattern mixing with blue gingham and the striped bedding from quince and the quilt from pottery barn and you know like our beds our sheets from ballard designs nothing is too unachievable here like it all from a price point perspective stays really reasonable but allows us to just have this really beautiful layered personality moment also we love linen bedding I love linen bedding in general I think it washes really well it does not it is not for the person who can't take wrinkles though just know thyself kind of moment but we embrace the imperfections here at the olent house so it is great we have these great lampshades that again we had made by our workroom here in Colorado and this is a great McLaurin and Piercy fabric that we just had put over the the shade of the existing visual comfort lamp and so it really adds a lot of personality and a lot of mix to the space and is honestly one of my favorite elements of the room it really brings this like cozy vibe at the end of the day and really just is so beautiful we are tv in the bedroom people and again that might be controversial but we love a tv and so you'll see any tv in our house really is the samsung frame tv to make it as unobtrusive as possible it's still going to be a tv still is what it is but we put art on it and it really becomes just a nice background for a space and also just allows me to have my laptop in bed working late at night with a little bit of real housewives on the tv because we love our bravo shows summer house right now you guys should we we should talk about that later but in addition to that you'll also see another one of my cabbage ware or another one of my collections which is cabbage where i love plates in general i love plate walls i probably am an 80 year old if you were to judge me by my plate walls but i love them and i think it adds a lot of personality we wanted to do something here that felt a little bit quirky a little bit unusual and so we kind of framed the tv in this kind of arch and turned the platter on its side and one other thing i want to point out i get asked all the time about how we hang our plates and these are my favorite plate hangers they are made in england they are actually out of a place in colorado but they are amazing you can find them on amazon you can find them basically anywhere at this point because they are so well loved they hold like nobody's business you just have to follow the instructions really well but they are great and i would highly recommend them another hot tip that we do as designers is that we often find ourselves in a situation where we have an antique rug that isn't quite the size that we want it to be to fill a room and we always you know you've probably heard this advice before but the larger the rug the better even in small spaces we always go as large as possible and so one of our things that we do often is that we will layer a jute rug or any sort of solid rug under an antique rug and really it gives us that moment to be able to use these great antique rugs that might be slightly undersized but also give us the girth of a large rug in a space that really sets the tone and so that is one of our one of the hot tips one of the things that we did in here really kept things economical from a use perspective like allowed us not to buy the ten thousand dollar giant antique rug and allowed us to buy the less expensive smaller one but really pair an economical jute rug underneath the other thing is this dresser so this obviously from a functional perspective is something that we all mostly need in our homes and so you'll see like one of the things that we do as designers is we kind of pull a lot of black into spaces to help ground it and so this is a giant black nine drawer dresser that performs the weight of holding a lot of our clothes especially again in a small footprint we really have this moment to be able to provide a lot of function but it also has just a lot of style to it and brings a lot of character and so if you're looking for a large dresser I would just really pay attention to make sure that feels like a statement piece that you're not losing character in a room just because you need a large storage piece you can have both and you'll also notice that we have sonos everywhere that is we are dedicated to our sonos we are music people so you'll see a sonos kind of everywhere in our house I had to make a decision early on for livability in the house is really the window treatments in the house and so all of that the decisions for the window treatments happened before the rest of the house and the patterns in the house really came together and so I chose this amazing Alice Sargent textile that I just love and it has this really beautiful kind of botanical element to it but it also has a stripe to it and so it kind of gives the best of both worlds it also in this kind of like toffee coffee color provides a really nice base for the rest of this so you know obviously these were in the room before the room went pink before we had the blue gingham before we had this great McLaurin and Piercy fabric involved in it it really is a chameleon fabric that can work in so many different iterations but I'm so thankful that we didn't have to replace them because I think my husband might have threatened divorce over that one if we had had to so we did a Tim Gunn and we like made it work in here so I love those every bedroom needs a mirror we all need that moment to be able to check out our outfits before we walk out the door for the day and so this West Elm mirror is huge it provides the exact function that we need but it also stays pretty quiet visually and so while it makes definitely like a great Instagram selfie moment it also just really every day provides exactly the lift that we needed to you know I love a good art moment and so this wall gave us a perfect like little spot for art and one that I love it is by the same artist as the pieces by the front door a little folksy a little whale moment it's just really sweet it's kind of a his and her whale moment and I just love it it's so quirky and funny but and it means we have no like affinity for whales other than these pieces but it just provides a lot of levity as we just like walk into our space and get to spy those right away our primary bathroom had to perform a heavy lift for us it had to be laundry it had to be storage closet had to also obviously be our bathroom and so I wanted to give this space as much personality as I could fit into a relatively small footprint that we did go a little more generous with this footprint just knowing that a I'm 43 well actually almost 43 I need a lot of lotions and potions to like make this pull this thing together so we made sure that there was adequate storage in here we kind of started with a base level of storage and then adding the personality and really came in the form of this William Morris wallpaper that I've loved for forever and so bringing that element into the space giving it a layer of green to help make it all make sense so we have green millwork that's happening along our green casing and then we have this cabinetry which is also in a great green color and then we have our same granite countertops in here we wanted to make those countertops feel a little bit more special and so we gave it an og edge on the edge and then we also did this great scallop backsplash that really adds a lot of personality and not a lot of cost but gives it just a punch of everything to it this nude piece which if you have a place for a nude bathroom is going to be it is by my friend Abby Holden she's done some work for us and our some of our other projects but we just love I love her work this is another great florals piece that I love this lamp is by Ellen and it just is one of those pieces that makes it feel so cozy in here and then here's another one of my like moderate success DIY successes is that again the night before my photo shoot I was definitely pleading a lampshade with this fabric this leftover Schumacher fabric that we had from our other upholstery adventures added this contrast ribbon it doesn't give off a ton of light that's that's the tricky part about doing this as a an average person but it does provide a lot of personality here alongside all of our bathroom accoutrement in addition to that we obviously have like our great Perrin and Rowe faucets that we love we have Louis Philippe mirror fired mirror that we picked up that is just so beautiful and and then we have our shower behind us you'll see that this is subway tile and I know some people are like oh subway tile it's overdone I think subway tile is classic and it's beautiful and it's inexpensive and so this in a giant shower was a perfect way to have a tile that didn't kind of break the bank but held a lot of classic style the way to do it in the classic way is by really paying attention to your grout joint size and making sure that your grout doesn't feel too graphic meaning like black or charcoal we went with something that was a little softer and a warm gray grout that really helps it feel classic and timeless and just exactly what we want it to be one of the other pieces of this room is our laundry and you'll see that our laundry got tucked into the eve of the stairs and so what you'll see behind here is exactly what we need it to be is our our washer and dryer moment we also have a great area to be able to fold clothes also this tends to become the place where like my purse gets thrown our coats get thrown it really becomes like a functional center for our house but it also really does provide the exact function of the laundry which we all know and love another piece of this bathroom is our rug in here and so one of the things that you know in a more expected situation we probably would have pulled a more neutral rug because we have such a lot of personality with the wallpaper but i saw this strawberry rug and i fell in love with it again it's from our friends at curio rug and i just had to have it it is wool it is soft it is what we step out onto after a shower which is totally fine you guys a wool bath rug is exactly what you want in your space um and so it just is exactly like it's that punch of fun personality that i get to see every single morning kind of starts my day off in such a bright way we have our water closet so we all need a water closet it is reality of life and so i want to make anything that feels like it's a functional need also as absolutely beautiful as possible and so we have this beautiful skirted toilet we put a wood seat on it because we love a good wood seat moment and wood seats are not your grandmother's wood seats these are wonderful antibacterial great wood seats and then we have our kind of captain sea captain moment that again something my husband does not understand hates but i love and i think it's quirky and one of the conversation points because this is actually the bathroom that our guests use when they come here it is our primary bathroom um but it really provides like a nice fun talking point for anyone who uses this space i love penny tile as a floor tile and i think it is one of those really economical decisions to make in a bathroom especially in a bathroom where you have a lot of large ground area but we chose this kind of green undertoned penny tile and i think it just sets the tone perfectly for our green walls and our green cabinetry and it just it flows perfectly okay so there's a few more spaces i want to show you one of them's my daughter's room with with my favorite wallpaper ever you want to go see it with me let's go this is my all-time favorite wallpaper it is colfax and fowler's bowwood wallpaper and it may seem a little grown up for a seven-year-old and you're probably right about that so we wanted to make it a little playful so we added this blue trim everywhere just blue casing blue doors blue cabinetry that makes it a little feel a little bit more youthful and a little less grown up but she loves it except for the one day that she came home and asked for horse wallpaper and i told her that's not how this works but that's okay we'll ignore that she's a kid she's fine but again we have a small footprint in this room and so giving her a twin bed that just is perfectly sized for her in this moment we found this great bed by the chris loves julia collection from pottery barn that has this beautiful kind of bobbin spindle moment feels a little old world but gives us a great playful moment to layer patterns again and so again you'll find it's great gingham light blue gingham on here paired with some like floral like it has a cute little embroidery moment on there and then a chelsea textiles pillow of a little dog well some dogs doing ballet and a circus act and i just think it is so charming and playful and exactly what you want for kind of a little girl's room candidly this is not at all what this room looks like during most days there are stuffies everywhere and things you know pieces that cut pieces of paper everywhere so this is a refined version of a kid's room but most of these elements do stay in every day and so i want to point out that this pin board and so you know kids make a lot of art something i didn't totally know until i had my own kid and so giving her a moment and i i did not clean this up for you but giving her a moment of like playfulness where she can pin the things that she loves and that matter to her she has little notes from her teacher she has a little note from her papa like and little postcards from her family members and her friends um and so it just really becomes like a nice little moment for her to have a little bit of say in her room sorry kid you have a designer mom it's tricky um but we also have this beautiful built-in in her room and her grandfather my father-in-law really wanted her to have the room that overlooks the back 40 is what we call it the woods in the back of the house and we have i mean daily visits by deer and rabbits and it really becomes a moment that she can just sit with a great book she finally has gotten into reading which i love and she really kind of uses this as a moment to look out on the property experience everything that her grandfather wanted for her in this moment and so giving her this really beautiful window seat we picked this patterson and flynn wool cushion cover that is beautiful and then this really playful swiss dot schumacher fabric that is just so adorable for her for her roman shades and then filled her shelves with like exactly kind of what you want as a kid which is just books and her own art pieces that we've had framed um and then certainly her massive collection of stuffies or at least a portion of them are in this space um but really provide a great backdrop for like just this playfulness of a kid's room in addition we wanted to give her a sconce moment that felt like she was getting a little bit of what mom and dad have in their room with the fabric covered shades and so i picked out this kind of really playful circus red fabric and gave it a little bit of a gold ribbon trim contrast trim around it just really provides a lot of playfulness for a kid's room so one of the spaces i want to show you is her bathroom because it's so sweet and charming and perfect for our seven-year-old so let's go look at it in addition to the whale photos the kind of his and her whales photos that we have downstairs we also have this really charming one by the same artist and it gives our daughter a little bit of that like being a part of the mom and dad like she gets a little whale moment of her own on her way into the bathroom and so i love this little piece i think it's so charming and it's a really perfect kind of intro into her her bathroom space in this space like from origination i knew that i wanted this space to feel a little bit more grown up we are building another house about an hour and a half away from here but we knew that she would be here for a few years so i wanted this room to kind of grow with her and be a great space that she could have a little bit of moment of her own and so what we did for this space is really ground it with this millwork we did floor to ceiling bead board in here great trim in here but we really kept the color quiet knowing that there's a lot of color through the house we wanted to keep the walls just a little quieter a little bit more sophisticated it also gave us a really great backdrop for our walnut vanity and her walnut linen cabinet really feels like a it's a stained piece of cabinetry it can really live up to the beefiness and the you know abuse of a kid in any space so it can really and like from a toothpaste like there are toothpaste strips on here usually wipeable great i would highly recommend stained cabinetry for kids spaces we also bring kind of the consistency of that granite into this space but instead of doing a backsplash like we did in the primary we wanted to give her a little bit of a difference so we created this ledge moment with these little corbel details on the side that really give us like a little bit of actual function she can put things on here often you'll find her little rock collections kind of staggered on here got cleaned up for the for the video shoot but also just gives us like a little bit more of that personality and that architectural detail and then in addition to that kind of layering in this beautiful woven mirror that really like gives us another woven detail that we have woven throughout the house no pun intended and then we we chose these great sconces and these were very economical sconces from ballard designs but we added this great custom lampshade that we found on etsy actually of all places that really adds another layer of just added design in this in this room her shower curtain it's probably might go down as one of the most expensive shower curtains of all time but i do think it provides exactly what we want the space to provide in a more quiet sophisticated space it gives us a little bit of playfulness this is a great mulberry fabric that has these racing horses with the jockeys on them it has a beautiful euro pleat at the top with an unlacquered brass shower rod and it just like adds so much personality i think i can count on the like one hand the number of times this has actually been closed and used as a shower but that's okay we won't tell anyone and then again you'll also find another great piece of just antique art just above the toilet a little quirky a little fun a little playful just really makes her bathroom just what it is the word home carries such weight in my world you know being a residential interior designer there is there is a level of understanding what home can feel like and wanting that for everyone i'm and even you know beyond the clients that we're so privileged to serve wanting that just to give a piece of that to everyone home in and of itself is such a sacred thing and i think on a deep level i probably felt this before i was a designer but now that i am a designer i feel this deep-seated purpose that i home is is truly like where we can be ourselves and where we can release and shed the stressors of the day and process the stressors of the day as well and in addition to just holding and capturing kind of our most precious moments between you know births and deaths and you know celebratory and successes and losses and you know all the things that that our home should be able to shelter us and celebrate us through that that i mean home is everything to me home means everything thanks for watching go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content and shopping guides