We’re doing something a bit different today! I love home tours and thought it would be fun to do a little one of my own.

When Tom and I moved into our new condo last spring, we didn’t have much time to truly settle in. We had a crazy busy year between my sister’s wedding, my mom’s cancer battle and then our wedding and as a result not a lot of time was spent on the finishing touches that really make a space feel like “home”. We spend the most time in our open concept kitchen/living room area and I found myself growing more tired of the setup lately so we decided that some updates were in order. It was a lot of fun giving this area a little face lift so I thought I would share! Here is a shot of the view from our front entry to give a better idea of the layout:

I didn’t actually take before photos, because it only occurred to me to blog this after we were almost done. However, I do have a recent photo of the living room area:

Because the paint and flooring are pale gray and our place gets lots of natural light I wanted to amp that up even further by adding white and some pops of bright color. I tried to go for a summer-y feel with the new accessories and chose things that played well with some of our existing art work and décor, like this yellow painting:

First things first: the area rug. This is our third attempt and I’m thrilled to say I think we’ve finally found the right one. The last one was a shaggy silver number that we loved the look of. It felt lovely underfoot and was pretty practical aside from the fact that it was shedding like crazy the entire time we had it. Guests would get silver threads all over their clothes and we could never sweep or vacuum enough to keep the mess at bay. It’s driven us nuts for months and we knew we’d have to get rid of it eventually. The problem was that we couldn’t find anything we really loved, at least not without spending $500. However, as soon as I saw this woven leather rug, I was intrigued. I love the unexpected texture it adds to the room and we only paid $100 for it! Huge steal.

I’m big on keeping fresh flowers in my kitchen and decided that this vase would be a nice upgrade for the basic clear glass I usually use. I love the statement it makes on my island.

The old runner on our bar cart was a piece of vintage fabric that was looking pretty tired and this new one perks things up nicely. It fits the cart perfectly and the firework inspired print is a nice nod to summer.

You may also notice my new succulent! When I picked up basil plants for the balcony, I decided to get this one to add a little more green indoors. This is my first houseplant so let’s pray I can keep her alive, alright? I love that cream pot as well.

Something small that we needed and finally picked up: coasters!

And a pretty new basket to corral all the dog toys…

Remember when I wrote about creating new art in my summer bucket list? This is what we came up with! The piece we had in there before had a lot of different blues and felt a bit dark for the season. We decided to do a large triptych of ink paintings. Tom is more into color but he very kindly agreed to try a black only piece with lots of white space. I love how modern and clean it looks and it gives us a lot of freedom to play with color in other areas in the room.

And now for my personal favorite: throw pillows! These are also the bane of Tom’s existence, I might add. I love how switching them out can give a room a totally different feel with very little effort. For the refresh I kept the silver and black and white ones that we already had. I’ve been wanting one of those fluffy pillows for a long time and decided it would be a good, versatile addition to my collection while also brightening things up with white. When I saw those turquoise tie dye pillows I knew they would be perfect; they remind me of a swimming pool. I am still waiting on this throw pillow I ordered online to put between the silver ones. I think it will work great with the others.

I’m so excited about the finished look and we’re really hoping to do more hosting this summer; that bar cart isn’t going to drink itself!

Sources:

• Area Rug– Winners
• Gray Vase- Winners
• Bar Cart Runner– Urban Barn
• Succulent Pot– London Drugs
• Coasters– Winners
• Toy Basket- Superstore
• White Pillow- Winners
• Black Ink Paintings- DIY
• Turquoise Pillows- Chapters