Making Your Home More You- Cait from Hernando House

Hey Friends! Happy Monday!  This week we will spend our last days in the home that really made us who we are today. It was the place where we figured out we both had a passion for the same industry and we'd rather work together than with anyone else. . . even if we do fight daily! :)   We will definitely be leaving a little part of us here as many of the projects we did will stay with the house.  Over the past 4 years, we've developed a design philosophy which centers around celebrating who you are by how you decorate and design your home.  We believe your home should serve to inspire and tell a story about your life, dreams, and experiences.  Now before a get too sappy let me turn the reigns over to Ms. Cait!  Cait writes the blog Hernando House where she documents her own home's transformation as she and her husband, Robert, take on some great projects!  In a recent e-mail exchange, Cait mentioned that she feels like her home is really starting to reflect her and Robert's personalities!  I loved hearing that and asked Cait if she would share a little bit about how she made that happen!  So, here's Cait!


Hey y'all, I'm so exited to be guest posting for Kara today! She asked me to talk about developing a cohesive style throughout a home, after an email conversation mentioning that my husband Robert and I feel that our house has really started to come together to represent us. The photo below is a good representation of how our various styles meld into one eclectic look.

 


Robert and I definitely aren't afraid of color. We initially painted our three main living areas the same color (Valspar Spun Honey), feeling that it would be the best choice for our fairly open floorplan, but over the past few years we have added accent colors to help define certains spaces. We added the birch trees in the living room, the entryway wall, and most recently, a chalkboard in the kitchen. The rest of the house is mainly from the (now defunct) Valspar Seaside Retreat line. Choosing colors from one paint line, and repeating them throughout a house can help the flow from room to room. In addition to coordinating and repeating colors, we have also used a lot of layering and repeating patterns & textures. We changed ceiling fans and a chandelier out for pendant lights, and added light fixtures over the kitchen sink & the round table in the living room.

 

In addition to adding more color to the house, Robert & I have also been slowly replacing inherited furniture with pieces that suit our taste a bit better. One of the biggest changes, in my mind, was replacing the dining room chairs. Part of the inspiration for our pairing of mid-century modern chairs and a traditional farmhouse table came from seeing Kara's dining room. We went with Bertoia style wire mesh chairs since our dining room is a passthrough from the entryway to the living room. These chairs are visually lighter and less imposing.

 

After swapping out the chairs, Robert & I could see that the entryway table we were planning needed to be a bit more modern. We also purchased a different china cabinet from Craigslist that is traditional but also has clean lines, and pairs well with modern pieces.

 

 We painted most of our house before we moved in, and ironically, the first room we worked on is one of the last to come together. The master bedroom has gone through several incarnations. We started with a bed frame Robert bought before we got married, and an inherited dresser & nightstand. Later we added a small green table from a neighbor, and DIYed a Pottery Barn inspired bed frame. We've been through three sets of curtains, because the wall color (which we still love, after three years) can be tricky to pair with other colors as it varies greatly depending on the time of day. We finally settled on navy, brow, taupe-gray, golden yellow and light blue accents.

 

It hasn't always been an easy path. I mentioned, we've been through three sets of curtains in the bedroom, we also painted the kitchen twice, and we swap rugs around constantly. At some point we learned to start taking risks, though. The dining room walls below the chair rail and what we've dubbed the Closet Office are painted with Oops paint, colors we probably never would have chosen on our own. We also painted the chalkboard in the kitchen after only briefly discussing the idea, and slapped a quick $80 peel-and-stick floor over the faux marble tile in the kitchen without our usual mountains of research.

 

Although there are still a lot of things we'd like to change, Robert and I are very happy with how far our house has come. We may not have done anything all that Earth shattering, but it truly feels like us.


A huge thanks to Cait for a great post!  Cait and I are both hoping you'll take some steps to make sure your home celebrates YOU!