shoes  //  top (on super sale!)  //  favorite jeans of all time

Many of you already saw this on Instagram, but I wanted to document here some VERY EXCITING NEWS! We are moving to a new studio space in downtown Mesa!! I’ve been trying to find a new office for Juniper Studio that can also have a retail component for a really, really long time now. I’m not exaggerating when I say we very seriously looked at and planned on about six other spaces, which makes my head spin when I think about all that wasted time and effort. All of the other spaces fell through for weird reasons and usually at the very last minute. This one came together VERY quickly and almost without effort, which makes me feel like it was truly meant to be. It just feels GOOD in here, guys! It is just the right amount of space, in just the right location. I couldn’t be happier about it – I keep pinching myself!!

The building is one of the oldest on Main street and was built in the late 1800s, which is old for Arizona considering we got statehood in only 1912! The building has served all sorts of functions over the decades, including a speakeasy in the crazy double barrel vault basement (there is a boarded up secret tunnel that was used for bootlegging during prohibition!), a Masonic hall on the second floor (which is now an architect’s office), an old-timey pharmacy, a Woolworth’s Annex and later on in the 60s and 70s, a fancy shoe store. My mom told me she saved her babysitting money for a whole summer to buy her first pair of black and white oxfords before 7th grade right in this VERY STORE! Isn’t that the coolest thing?!

We got the keys just last week and already we are about ready to start working here! I think we’ll be ready to move in desks this weekend! Here’s what the space looked like just a few days ago. The old beams on the ceiling were already painted black and the duct work was painted forest green. There was also a weird four foot strip of brown paint on walls that only managed to make the space feel darker and sort of squatty! Continue reading “Juniper Studio Gets a Store Front!”

Some of you saw on my Insta stories recently that I got a new rug from my friends at Loloi and it sparked a revolution in my library! We moved all the furniture around and it looks better than ever in here if you ask me!!

rug  //  linen sofa //  coffee table  //  basket  //  lamp  //  pillows

The new rug is from Loloi’s brand new Javari collection and this specific rug is called Berry Sunrise. I remember seeing the Javari collection displayed in the (insanely popular) Loloi showroom at High Point last market and thinking that the collection would be a big hit. Every rug in the collection is beautiful!

I love that colors in fashion and home are going a little more on the warm side. Warmer colors can be so cozy and flattering! But don’t fret if your whole house is covered in the cooler tones that were more popular a few years ago! The new rusts and olives and mustards mix SO well with the cooler tones as long as there is a healthy does of white and black and other neutrals in your space (like my linen and leather sofas!).

(pillows  //  throw)

(PS A bunch of you have been asking about my new leather Sven sofa from Article. Yes, I love that sofa as much as when we installed the same one in Lucy’s living room! It is beautiful and incredibly affordable for the quality and I LOVE that it ships so fast. Two thumbs up!)

And how great is this camel leather and rug combo?! I love that this rug has pretty much every color in the rainbow but it is also somehow super neutral and low-key. I am a HUGE fan. We have been using this room so much more recently since we moved things around and added the pretty, new rug!

You can buy the Berry Sunrise rug online HERE or you can email info@loloirugs.com to find a local-to-you retailer to see the rug in person. I think you’ll love it as much as I love mine!

(cloud prints – $15 each from Jenny’s Print Shop!)

Loloi Rugs is a sponsor of LGN. All opinions are my own.

Thanks for all the sweet comments about the Girls Bathroom reveal! A lot of you have been asking for more details, especially on how we did the shiplap above the subway tile. I’m so excited to share this project! It’s cheap, easy to do and the results are so pretty!

Continue reading “Easy, Affordable Shiplap Using Bender Board”

The girls upstairs bathroom is finished! I starting writing a MONSTER reveal post with the shiplap tutorial included, but I just couldn’t edit it down to less than, like, 70 photos, so I decided to make this reveal a two-parter! This post is still enormous, but I’m hoping it’s a little more bite-sized! :)

As a reminder, here’s what the bathroom looked like when we moved in (and here’s the post where I talked all about the tile we considered for this space).  Continue reading “The Girls Bathroom!”

We are having a ton of house guests this summer, so I’ve been working on a little guest bedroom refresh. As you know, we started with changing the wall color (still obsessed!), but I also wanted to make some furniture changes and actually buy some real furniture for the space, since we were just using random hand-me-downs before.

I’m taking a cue from this gorgeous bedroom I designed with my team for a client’s beach house. I want our guest room to be light and airy while still having some fun accessories and, of course, the coziness that comes from mixing textures.

When it comes to putting a bedroom together, my best advice is to keep it simple. In fact, one of my girlfriends just recently finished some home renovations and has been SO excited to finally get to the decorating phase. But just last week she texted me to say that she felt paralyzed about where to start with her bedroom. She felt like she needed to find the perfect pillow to build the rest of the room off of. I told her to stop worrying about finding the perfect all-encompassing pillow and gave her a couple of my best tips for decorating any bedroom…

STEP 1: Focus on quality and comfort for the foundation pieces and anything else will be gravy! An upholstered headboard is a MUST for me – in every bedroom. Over the years, I’ve bought all sorts of adorable vintage brass and wood framed beds and none of them last long in our house because they just aren’t that comfortable! Here are a few beds that would provide the perfect simple foundation and won’t break the bank!

STEP 2: Get a good mattress topper (I have and LOVE this one) and simple, good-quality bedding. I like to have a pop of color either in the throw pillows or the quilt/blanket at the end of the bed, but not usually in both. I prefer mostly white bedding 99% of the time. It just looks so clean and inviting!

STEP 3: A soft rug that is the right size for your room is key to a beautiful, well-designed space. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll need at least a 9×12 under a king, an 8×10 under a queen and a 6×9 under a twin, though you can always go bigger. I like layered rugs a lot, too, so if you need a bit more coverage, consider layering a jute or sisal rug under your special pretty rug, like we did in our client’s room. Here are some of my favorites:

STEP 4: As far as accent furniture goes, I like to keep it on the light side. Just a pair of really great nightstands and some sort of secondary seating (like a reading chair, or a bench for the foot of the bed) that helps keep guests comfortable but doesn’t overstuff the space. A dresser is on the “only if there’s room” list for me. Usually if there are enough hangers and shelves in your closet there’s not a huge need for a dresser in a guest room.

STEP 5: Don’t forget that great lighting makes a huge difference in a guest’s comfort! An awesome pair of wall-mounted bedside sconces makes it easy for guests to read in bed without taking up a huge amount of space on the nightstands themselves. Here are some of my favorite wall sconces, all of which are super affordable and most of them can just be plugged in! I’m obsessed with the ones we installed at our client’s house here (and they’re on sale right now!)

STEP 6: Layer in some fun art and accessories! I’m planning on a couple of pieces from Jenny’s Print Shop for our guest bedroom. Maybe the clouds (version 1 and/or 2) or CHAMOMILE?

Maybe LUNA, the full moon print? Or Beth’s new piece, SUMMER DAY?

I also want to layer in a few fun pillows and some hooks for the wall to hang up bags and coats for our guests. I always think a mirror is a nice idea too.

What are your best tips for making a bedroom cozy and comfortable for guests? I’d love to hear!

Photos taken by Kate Lines and space designed and styled in collaboration with Megan Evans.

What do you have going on this weekend? Want to join me and friends all over the world who are throwing dinner parties large and small to help Syrian refugee families?

My sweet friend Linsey Laidlaw is on the board of Lifting Hands International (my charity of choice for this cause) and she has organized a worldwide event called GATHER FOR GOATS. The goal is to raise enough money THIS WEEKEND (May 5-6) to buy 800 goats for refugee families in desperate need in the deserts of Jordan.

I’ll be co-hosting a huge dinner party at my house on Thursday night with Tubby Todd and Plain Jane. We’ll have yummy food and drinks, a photo booth, a crazy-good swag bag AND Beth Allen (who has a new print in Jenny’s Print Shop!) will be teaching all of us how to paint an 8×10 abstract painting! I am SO EXCITED. (PS we can fit a few more people in on Thursday! If you’re local and want to join in, email me!)

Your gathering can be as elaborate or simple as you want! A family BBQ would be awesome and is a great way to help get your kids involved! The idea is to invite your guests to donate what they would have spent on the night out HERE.

I hope even if you can’t participate with a gathering this weekend, that you’ll donate at www.gatherforgoats.com and help us reach our worthy goal of at least 800 goats for these suffering families. I have been so ridiculously blessed in my life, it seems incredibly unfair that others are hurting and literally fighting for their lives and the lives of their children, right this minute. It overwhelms me. I just can’t wrap my mind around it. I’m so grateful for friends like Linsey and organizations like Lifting Hands International that allow us to share, help and give however we can. I hope you’ll join me and GATHER FOR GOATS if you’re able!!

Our guest room has been an eyesore from day one of moving in. Despite a few efforts to spruce it up over the last few years, it’s always been sort of an afterthought. Here’s what it looked like when we first walked the house before buying it. Pink carpet. Golden Tan walls. Heavy furniture. Astroturf on the balcony. (Yes, astroturf.) Not totally my style I would say.

Right after we moved in, when my sister Heather still lived with us and stayed in this room, we painted the doors black, the molding white and used some leftover random light blue paint for the walls. It was an improvement on the tan walls for sure, but still not ideal, right? And those black doors were a pretty idea, but that’s a LOT of door there on that wall. It was essentially a black wall in a tiny, already dark room. Not a great choice.

We didn’t realize it until it was too late, but we didn’t end up having enough blue paint to do the pitched ceilings, just enough to cover the tan paint. It has always bugged me, but apparently not enough to do anything about it for a really long time! Poor Heather had to live with janky paint lines like this for years.

Enter, my friends from Ace Hardware! They invited me to check out their Optimus line from Valspar (which is one of Ace’s best paint brands and is the most stain resistant). I immediately thought of the guest bedroom. Followed by a lighting bolt of inspiration: PAINT THE WALLS WHITE AND THE TRIM A DARKER COLOR! YESSSSSSSsssssss….

I went to Ace to pick up a few paint chips in their Paint Studio (you can find your local Ace here!). Their Valspar line is so well curated.  I think they offer just the right number of color options. Too many choices can be so overwhelming, right? But too few can feel frustrating, since not every color looks the same, or good, for that matter, in every house. Guys, PINTEREST LIES TO YOU. What looks great in one blogger’s house just might not be the right fit for your home! It it SO important to get the right color for your space.

Take our funky guest bedroom for instance. There is only one window in the room (and actually it’s not a window – it’s a paned door) and it is south-east facing, but its also on a little porch so the door is pulled back from the face of the house. It’s full, bright sun, spotlight style, for the first few hours of the morning, but then it’s pretty dark the rest of the day.

The tan was a terrible color for maximizing the natural light, but the blue I chose after we moved in was pretty sad, too.

For our little makeover, I knew I wanted to do a creamy white on the walls and a contrasting color on the millwork. I think its such a fun way to get the best of all worlds – where you get the beautiful light that comes with white walls and the depth and character that comes with a color on the trim and doors. I had these two inspiration images in mind as I was selecting colors.

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After lighting and orientation of exposures, your floors are the most important factor of your paint color choices. Next comes your decor, of course, but that part is definitely last. SO many times I see friends choosing a color (usually gray, which is really hard to get right) based on their bedding or the color of their side tables… or solely because they saw it being used on a ton of blogs or in magazines. :/ And once they get their walls painted they realize the color of their carpet and the shadows in the room makes the gray paint look very purple! GASP!

Don’t make the same mistake! Just grab a couple samples and try them out in your actual space. And the amazing news about Valspar at Ace Hardware is they guarantee you will love the color. And if you don’t love it, you can get a replacement gallon! How’s that for taking the pressure off?!

I brought all my samples in the guest room, laid them out on my white painted plywood floors, and I instantly knew the colors I liked and didn’t like for the space – and I’ll tell you, they weren’t the colors I thought I was going to choose in the store! For the walls, I thought I would want Graceful White (top right), but I ended up really loving Soft Wool (top middle) with our floors! And for the trim color, I originally thought I would want something deeper and more moody. Like this beautiful color, called Old Soul.

But as soon as I got all the colors in there, I knew I wanted a lighter gray on the millwork. The bottom center chip called to me!

It’s called Feathers of a Dove and I think it works beautifully with Soft Wool and the floors! Doesn’t the color combo feel so classic?

Before I started painting, I took the time to patch a few holes in the wall and to caulk some areas in the trim that had settled and cracked over the past few years. Here are the products that I use the most when painting. All of these items are available at Ace Hardware, except for the baby wipes (which I use to clean up drips!). And if you have any trouble finding anything, the Ace Hardware employees are always incredibly nice and helpful.

When painting with a roller, my best tip is to avoid only rolling up and down. If you roll the paint on in a W or X pattern, you’ll get in all the nooks and crannies (if you have textured walls like I do).

Also be sure to load the roller with paint for every 3 square feet you paint! If you try to roll on more than that, you’ll end up having uneven coverage. If you reload the roller often, you’ll probably only have to do one coat like I did! That Optimus line is REALLY good and covered my blue walls with no problem!

I like to use a mini roller to paint all my base boards. If you keep a paper towel or a scrap piece of paper under your roller at all times, you’ll only have to cut in on the top of your base boards, SO EASY!

Here’s how the beautiful new paint job turned out! I’m SO happy with it!!

I painted the ceiling, the center beam and even the ceiling fan in the Soft Wool white color. The Feather of a Dove warm gray color is heaven to me on all the doors and trim in the room! It all feels light and so fresh, but still interesting/not boring!

I’m excited to add these black pulls to the closet doors that I bought at Ace.

I think they’ll look so cool with these accordion sconces I bought for either side of the bed.

I’m also thinking of using one of my new prints called Hidden Heart from Jenny’s Print Shop in the room. I love how the pink and gray look together! (PS can you see the little heart in the cactus arm?) :)

All the furniture for the room arrives in the next week or so. I can’t wait to share the finished room photos with you soon! I’m SO happy with the progress so far though and can’t believe how different this room feels just by changing the wall and trim colors! The power of paint is REAL! :)

A HUGE thanks to Valspar and Ace Hardware for sponsoring this post. All opinions are my own and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of Ace or Valspar. :)

Some of you who have been following me for a long time know that I have never been one to shy away from a good slipper chair. But a PAIR of slipper chairs, that are on super good sale?  Stop. There’s no chance for me to pass. Get in my online cart, little babies!

I’ve been wanting a new pair of chairs for our (super dark) living room. I needed something petite enough to fit the tight space and that’s really light and airy to help brighten things up. But, you know, I HAVE CHILDREN! White stuff does not stay all that white for long in my house with four young kids and our giant poodle, Linus.

Enter these white basketweave beauties. Guys, they are outdoor chairs! Which means the white will stay white. Sure, it’s not fancy leather or the traditional cotton webbing you usually see on these MCM chairs (a la Jens Risom). The straps are a nylon material, but I don’t think they look cheesy. That bright white just calls to me. And the acacia wood frame is truly A+.

I figure worst case scenario, I put them outside. Best case scenario, I love them until the day I die and then my girls fight over who inherits “the vintage white basketweave slipper chairs.” (not likely, I know. Give me some slack guys, I literally unpacked these from the chairs from the box like two hours ago and I’m still on a buyer’s high.)

CLICK HERE if you want in on my stress-free white slipper chair club! 20% off right now with the code SUNFUN!! I think the sale ends tonight though, so move fast.

PS They also have a dining chair version that I am SO TEMPTED by… But how much webbed furniture is too much webbed furniture? Will we ever know?

Shibori patterns are EVERYWHERE right now! I am obsessed with this loose, organic look that’s created through different methods of folding and binding fabric before dyeing. What I didn’t realize is that it is incredibly easy to DIY!

I really wanted to do a pillow for my house and a baby blanket or two (I have SO many pregnant friends and family members right now!), but after doing a couple and realizing how easy it is to mix dyes for custom colors, I went crazy. My girls and I dyed dresses, t-shirts, onesies, bedding and tea towels on Saturday morning. No fabric item in my house was safe this weekend! :)

Rit Dye invited me to try these shibori projects and share them with you, and I couldn’t wait to experiment! I love Rit Dye, which is completely non-toxic, and use it often for home projects that range from dyeing curtains to overdyeing rugs like the one in this photo. You can use all-purpose Rit Dye on any natural fiber (even wood and paper!) and I always have a selection of colors in my laundry room to refresh dulling clothes, especially black or dark denim jeans. You can grab your bottles in the laundry or craft aisle of practically any store – Michaels, Joanns, Walmart and even my grocery stores all have Rit Dye!

There are 32 base colors available in powder or liquid (the liquid is my favorite!). It is SO easy to mix the base colors to make your own custom color! You can even color match to a Pantone color with their custom color formula tool HERE! How genius is that?! These are a couple of formulas that I mixed over the weekend and had great results!

I used 100% cotton products in these projects here, but Rit also has a line called Rit DyeMore that works for synthetic materials too (including PLASTICS!). You also don’t have to use items with an all white background like I did here. Just keep in mind, the base fabric color will mix with the dye color to create a new color – the rules of color mixing apply.

To get started, you’ll have the best results if you wash and iron the item you want to shibori dye. The ironing is not a necessary step, but I liked the patterns of the items I pressed the very best! I used these cotton swaddling blankets and these white cotton pillow shams, though truly, any solid color fabric item will work!

There are a million different ways to shibori dye to achieve different patterns (and I can’t wait to try more!) but the two I focused on here are what I’m calling the fold and bind method and the fold and clip method. With both methods, the first step is to fold the fabric item in flat, tight accordion style folds.

I have to admit, I was most nervous about getting the folding right at first, but I learned pretty quickly that there’s no need to stress! Do you remember making paper fans when you were a kid? The fold – flip – fold – flip thing? You do the exact same thing with shibori! You literally can’t screw this project up, as long as you accordion fold every time! Just remember that the shorter the length of your folds are, the tighter your pattern will be in the end.

For the fold and bind method you’ll want to find two matching pieces of wood or even foam board that will act as the bookends for your folded fabric bundle. The fabric under the bookends will be bound up so tightly that the dye will only soak up around the edges that are peeking out. So pick items for your bookends that are about the size of the pattern you want in the end. Smaller bookends work great for pillows, but I’d use something closer to 4″ wide for swaddling blankets. I used just some random things I found around the house for bookends, though you can easily get craft wood from Michaels or Home Depot that will work great!

To see the end result of this pattern using a paint stirrer snapped in half (!), check out the center green image in the formula round up above!

You can use your bookend pieces to help you know how big your folds should be. You will fold it the long way, like a paper fan, and then again the short way (all accordion style folds), so that in the end you have a stacked bundle. You can fold in a triangle shape or a square/rectangle shape. Square folds give you a grid pattern and triangle folds give you an asterisk pattern. Again, the smaller the fold, the smaller the pattern!

Triangle fold! I cut two triangle pieces out of foam board for the bookend pieces here.

After folding, you place your bookend pieces on either side and bind everything up really well with cotton or jute cording. The pattern will be more distinct if you bind the folded bundle very tightly.

This square fold will make a grid pattern.

The fold and clip method is even easier! You just fold the long way and then clip the edges with binder clips. My favorite results (like on the lilac gray pillow on my sofa above) were made with a mix of large binder clips and the mini ones! The more clips, the busier the pattern.

Grace made this t-shirt using the fold and clip method all by herself! She’s 11, guys! Shibori is SO SIMPLE!

The liquid bottles of Rit Dye make it really easy to make small dye baths. Since Rit Dye is non-toxic and won’t stain ceramic or porcelain sinks or bowls if they don’t have cracks, I just used a big mixing bowl in my kitchen sink. I followed the super simple instructions on the bottle and boiled some water, added salt and played with different combos of colors to get the end result I was after. You don’t have to use huge quantities of dye to get results, especially with these smaller batches. The more dye you use, the more saturated the end result will be. But for some of these lighter pastel colors, I only used about a tablespoon of dye! Even the saturated colors didn’t need more than a quarter cup of dye.

My best tip that I hadn’t thought of before this is to use a paper towel to check the color and saturation while you’re mixing your dye. If it’s not saturated enough, add more dye. Too saturated? Add more hot water. It couldn’t be more simple!

The very nice people at Rit Dye also taught me that you can add a touch of Pearl Gray to any of the base colors and it helps to sort of muddy the color up in a way that looks SO pretty. I ended up adding a drop of Pearl Gray to most of the projects here.

Once your dye color is spot-on and your fabric is folded and bound up, you just submerge the fabric in the dye bath. Obviously, the longer you leave it in, the more saturated the color will be. After experimenting a bit, I figured out it works best to keep the bundles in the dye for only about a minute to keep the bound up part dye-free and to make pattern high contrast.

Once you pull the bundle out of the dye bath, rinse it out for a few minutes under cold running water while still bundle up, then unwrap it and give it a really good rinse until the water runs clear.

I let this grid pattern (made with the fold and bind method using wooden squares) sit a little too long in the dye bath, so instead of a white center, I got pink. BUT I LOVE IT! That is truly the best part of these shibori projects, you will be surprised at the results every single time! And every single time it looks GREAT!

The most exciting part is taking off the binding after the dye has been rinsed out. It’s like unwrapping presents on Christmas morning.

Do you see the soft lines made by cotton cording I used to bind up the squares? SO PRETTY!

I love love love the blushy color that I made with 1 quarter cup of Petal Pink, 2 tablespoons of Sunshine Orange and 1 tablespoon of Pearl Gray! I used it over and over again for tea towels and euro shams for Claire’s room and for a couple of baby blankets, like the one below in Margot’s room. I used a triangle fold on this one for a subtle asterisk pattern!

To finish up and set the dye, you’ll just want to run your items through the wash with regular detergent. And that’s it! If you want to go the extra mile, you can you this Rit ColorStay Dye Fixative to help the color set further. I can’t wait for you to try this yourself! I’m warning you though – it’s addicting. I’m dying to get my hands on more white cotton pillows! And in the meantime, I’d LOVE to give away one of the pillows I made today! To enter, leave a comment here with your favorite Rit Dye color and I’ll choose a winner one week from today!

Thank you to Rit Dye for sponsoring this post! Learn more about Rit Dye HERE and click HERE to see where you can find Rit Dye near you!