Inspired by Illinois Homes

We went to Chicago last weekend for CJ's sister's graduation from Wheaton College and not only did we have a ton of fun, but we also fell in love with the adorable homes! Not enough to move there, don't worry. :-) But enough to motivate us to "leverage" some of their interior design ideas.

The house that we stayed at was built around the same time as our house and I loved how they worked with the quirkiness of a house built in the 50's to make it cozy, adorable, and stylish. For instance, in the bathroom (one of my favorite places in their house), they had the most adorable doorknobs (probably from Cost Plus World Market or Anthropologie), bathmat, shower curtain, and decorations on top of the toilet. I took a few photos with my phone (I promise, I'm not a creeper) so I could remember what they had done.

Cute little decorations on their toilet. I love the little couple kissing. She said that she bought them in Sweden.

I should have taken pictures of the rest of the house but, since we were out allll day errrrday doing fun activities, it was too late to be starting a photoshoot when we got back. They also had a ton of adorable photos from their wedding and engagement shoot throughout their house which I loved. One of their frames was an old window and they put the photos in each glass pane. SO cute. I really should have taken a picture of that one. Here's one that looks similar:

They had it propped on top of their mantel. That's not an option for us since we have a TV over our mantel but I'm sure we could find another place or hang it on the wall just like the photo above.

Another house that we visited was built in the craftsman style to match the original houses from that era and it was sooooo gorgeous. 

I sent my sister several photos of their craft room because it seriously was unbelievable and so organized. CJ and I also took a few mental notes from that house.

CJ's sister contacted one of her friends that has an interior designer as a mother-in-law and said that I wanted to tour their house (since she had been listening to me rave about the cuteness of the houses all weekend). Oh my, this one was soo cute too! We took several photos of their house for inspiration. Our favorite parts were their photo arrangements in the hallway, decorations in the family room, office, and master bedroom. Okay, so maybe their whole house was our favorite part. Unfortunately, they're selling their house so they won't be there for much longer. They're moving to Santa Barbara (so exciting for them!) so they will be starting the decorating process all over again once they find a home there.

We got home feeling extra inspired and headed over to Cost Plus World Market to get some fun doorknobs for our hallway cabinet. The cabinet is a bit old and we're not planning on replacing it anytime soon, if ever, so we wanted to spice it up. We decided on the ones below and installed them right when we got home. 

New (on the top) vs. old knobs

A close up - LOVE the design on the knob!!

It only took about 5 minutes to put them on. They were $4 each and make the cabinets look so different!! It's amazing how such a small change can make such a big impact.

Finished product

Have you ever visited someones house and felt inspired to adapt some of their ideas for your house?

Living Formal

One of the most common questions I get when I haven't seen someone in a while is, "How is the new house going?", and I normally respond with, "It's good." When really, I'm thinking, "Well the packing is done. We have furniture to get for the formal room and then need to actually decorate the place - curtains, pictures, decorative pieces to go on the furniture, rugs, yada yada yada..." But I try to avoid bogging people down with the details. We have so many plans for the house that it's hard to say that we're done moving in when there is so much left to do to until it feels complete.

One thing that we can check off - major furniture for the front room! Last Friday, Macy's delivered our adorable little loveseat for the front room. Our formal living room is starting to look like a real room instead of a big empty space that we pass through on our way to the kitchen that echos when we walk through it and I am SOOO excited about it.

Our painting is propped on the sofa so you can imagine what it will look like when it gets hung up

Once we moved the furniture in the layout that looked best, we could see that there was a void in between the two side chairs that needed to be filled. We saw a little Tibetan stool in Cost Plus a few weeks ago that I fell in love with but had no idea where it would fit in the house. After seeing the front room come together, I knew that it would be the perfect side table so we stopped by Cost Plus and snatched it up. I'm so in love with it because it's functional but also is a piece of artwork.

With the cute little stool!

Let's take a look at the "to do" list for the formal living room:

• Loveseat
• Side chairs
• Side table
• Buy a bookshelf for the wall to the left of the loveseat (should arrive in the next week or so)
• Paint the walls a grayish blue (I think it's called Rain Nation by Kelly Moore) - this is happening next week...hopefully
• Hang our beautiful wedding gift (painting by family friend)
• Buy the remaining furniture - end table, ottoman, floor lamp, and rug
• Pick out fabric for the curtains
• Sew the curtains (task for my superwoman mother)
• Hang the curtains
• Get a plant to bring in some life
• Hang pictures
• Make/buy a piece of artwork to hang over the credenza

Okay, so yes, there's a lot left to do for this room but at least it now feels like a room. I love walking through that space now because I can now imagine what it will look like when it's all put together.