Current Favorite Finds for the Home
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Two moves in one year plus long-term storage for half our stuff has been a whirlwind experience for us as well as our possessions. After getting rid of about 50% of what we owned back in PA thanks to the KonMari Method, I knew I didn’t want to descend into a consumerism spiral once we got here to NC. But at the same time we did have needs to be filled– everything from the brownie pan we accidentally placed in long-term storage to realizing our old house had five built-in bookcases and our new one has zero. ZERO! With that in mind, we’ve been extremely careful in what we purchased during this time and there’s been some serious standouts I wanted to share with you! Knowing our style (going for a ‘modern coastal farmhouse’ look) and only buying items that will serve us in the long term (especially while living in the apartment) helped narrow our focus… and I’ve got to say, there’s a few budget-friendly finds making me swoon and I hope you’ll love them too.
STORAGE & ORGANIZATION
Abby’s room had a serious need for bookshelves to house her huge piles of books and toys. I found these beautiful bookcases in the perfect coastal gray at Target and the best part is they look like built-ins when placed side by side. If she had more room along this wall I would have added a third! I snapped a quick pic so you can see them before I loaded them up so you could get a good look at the color. Wait until you see them filled and styled, they fit all her books and baskets and look like they were custom made.
Our playroom was in the same situation. During our HGTV episode they built two massive 8 foot tall bookshelves in our sunroom which housed toys and craft supplies top to bottom. No such luck in our new home, unfortunately, unless HGTV wants to come calling again (HOLLA AT ME, HGTV!) We had grand plans to create built ins and floating shelves in the two nooks in the playroom, however our toys needed a home ASAP so we used these industrial chic shelves from Target instead because the dimensions fit perfectly. We bought two when we were living in the apartment and liked them so much we ordered two more for the other nook, as shown. Initially we tried to each steal the bookcases for our own rooms because we all wanted them but can agree they fit best here. I’ll snap a photo of all four soon but in the meantime I had to show you what these two looked like before being filled with the kids’ beloved toys and games.
Without a medicine cabinet in the new house, I needed a place to store my brushes and daily use items. I watched this copper and glass organizer until it went on sale and then snagged it. My excuse was that it was a birthday present, but really, I would have purchased it regardless. It provides much needed storage in style.
My wall mounted essential oil rack accidentally got sent to long-term storage. After months in the apartment of having my oils all over the place and digging through bins to find what we needed, I gave up and got another holder to replace the one in storage. It’s a good thing I did, because it turns we could use two of them. (Thanks to KonMari-ing my closet I now have only 5 pairs of shoes and like 7 shirts but HANDS OFF MY OIL COLLECTION KONMARI!) I adore the modern style of the acrylic racks, one holds my personal oils and the other my soon-to-be-opened bottles (those are freebies from Young Living that I often gift to my team.) 😉
(wall mounted essential oil rack)
One major need is a lateral filing cabinet. We donated our old clunky metal ones before moving and placed files in plastic file boxes instead. Now that we’re resettled, we’d like the happy medium of a stylish filing cabinet that looks like furniture so I can place my printer on top. I was coveting one at Pottery Barn when I found it’s twin for about $500 less! It’s shipped and set to be delivered this week so I can give a full review at that time.
The papers involved with selling a house, moving, building, starting at a new school, medical transfers, EVERYTHING were bananas. I set up a daily file on my desktop to handle them and it’s made life much more organized. It’s important to make organizing PRETTY, too… so I got a file holder that made me smile whenever I reached for it.
LIGHTING
We needed lamps in the apartment, and we found two that I knew we’d still adore when moved into the new house. The gold tripod lamp looks amazing no matter where we put it; in fact, I may get another because I literally can’t decide which room in which to place it and all the rooms are calling dibs. 😉 I can’t get over how good it looks in person next to just about everything, this picture doesn’t do it justice.
(gold tripod lamp)
A gold unicorn table lamp. Need I say more? Abby loves it, and it dazzles daily.
HOME DECOR & FURNITURE
I’m trying to hold off on the decor until I get my style boards for each room finished, but there’s been a few times I found something that beautifully filled at need over on Decor Steals. If you go gaga for farmhouse or cottage style decor then you’ll love Decor Steals too. I snagged this farmhouse style wall mounted mug rack for our coffee station and it’s such a space saver.
I also got this laundry hamper, and realized you can’t see the best part of it in the photo unless you check out the reflection in the washing machine– it’s the accordion folding hardware on the sides. Do you see it? It opens to be quite large and folds slim when not being used.
Decor Steals tips: sign up for their emails and stalk their website daily (sometimes hourly because things change so often.) I love everything I’ve purchased there and appreciate the $5 shipping for even the biggest items. The tricky part is that the deals are all ‘flash sales’ and with the popularity of the ‘Fixer Upper’ and farmhouse style they go QUICK. Sometimes by the time I click over to the website items are gone so if you see something you love, get it! Sometimes items will come back in stock but it might be 6 months later and they get sold out again in a few hours.
Last but not least, when I first laid eyes on our curved staircase I knew it would take a special piece to tuck into that curve. I looked everywhere and finally found this round weathered gray table that fits like a soulmate. I haven’t finalize how I’m going to style it (and I know it needs a rug underneath, the search continues) but I wanted you to see the actual wood tone because it differs from the photo on the website. I wish it were more gray like on the site, but still, it’s lovely!
(drop leaf round table)
Again, I can’t reiterate enough how much it helped defining my style and imagining exactly where I will put each piece before I bought it so I don’t have buyer’s remorse. While it may seem like we purchased a lot of items all at once, there are two things to keep in mind:
- we’ve been stockpiling since July, so the purchases happened over an almost 10 month period
- our new home is twice as big as our previous one, and while we for sure don’t want to add clutter we do have different storage needs here (no storage attic or basement, eek!)
The decorating here will happen slowly (as it should, quite honestly) and I’m so excited to have you along for the ride. Next up: furnishing the living room and adding kitchen hardware and pendant lights! Any new favorite finds for your home lately? Can you see any of these gems in your home?
