If you look at the date on the last post I wrote, almost two months have passed by. Over the course of the last year and a half, we purchased some land, designed a house, built a house, and had a sweet baby girl.
It may sound like a lot, but we’ve truly enjoyed the process. We finally have been settling into our new home these last two weeks. The last two weeks have been a bit wearisome and tiring, but today I was able to see the beauty again in the new home and the land.
This is a dedicated quilting and sewing blog, but for just a moment, I’m going to take a bit of time and offer a bit of the inspiration that went into our home.
In the world of Pinterest and Instagram, home decorating can become overwhelming and almost paralyzing. Colors or neutrals or wood or texture or modern or vintage or farmhouse.
What inspired us as we built our home? Here are a few sources and people that may inspire you too.
(Please pardon the text on the photos. These are screen shots that I’ve saved from their stories over the last year.)
I have never made a single purchase from Schoolhouse Electric. I cannot speak to their quality or products, but I think their inspiration is beautiful.
How would I describe their products?
Timeless
Modern
Neutral
Color
Playful patterns
My favorite pictures of their products are from the Instagram feed where they’ve integrated vintage or antique furniture with their products.
Paige from Farmhouse Vernacular
I’m not an engineer, but I am a researcher. I didn’t want to make flippant decisions about our home, and I’m still resisting quick decisions as I am eager to get curtains on our walls and landscaping planted.
I would never paint the same colors as Paige, but she gave me good reason to make intentional decisions. I was inspired to look at lots of pictures of 1920s and 1950s kitchens. They were so different than the typical American kitchen yet they were so practical.
We, of course, wanted a kitchen in our new home. But we asked ourselves what kind of features did we want. How big? What kind of cabinets? Instead of browsing pinterest, we researched. What makes kitchens functional? What has changed in the last 100 years in kitchens? And why?
I knew no matter how many kitchen cabinets we had, I’d fill them. Full. Did I want a lot of cabinets or just a few? In the end, we ended up with very few cabinets but a larger walk in unfitted pantry.
We also have a large island with exposed shelves. The lack of doors keeps me accountable to keeping my things pretty and arranged nicely.
Believe it or not, I considered an entirely unfitted kitchen but ended up using the inspiration just for our pantry. Here a link to my favorite unfitted kitchen: https://www.scaramangashop.co.uk/Fashion-and-Furniture-Blog/vintage-kitchen-style-scaramanga/
-scaramanga/
We also have transom widows above the doorways in our home. We considered making them functional, but because of expense, they are not.
Considering we live near a forest of oak trees, we decided to put in a wood stove as well. When contemplating where to put it, we ultimately decided to put it near the kitchen. Traditionally, it’s where you’d find the wood stoves in the homes.
Then there are shutters. Thankfully my husband did a bit of research on why there are shutters on homes and how large they should be. Once again, we considered functional shutters that close over the windows but because of cost and simply lack of necessity, our shutters will not close. But, if they did close, they would be the same size as the window they’d protect. (That, my friends, is key to not having awkward looking shutters.)
When figuring out our kitchen, this was where I went. Functionality and timelessness. I’ve been a gray and white girl for the last ten years, but this account won me over.
This account is FULL of inspiration from kitchens long gone. I absolutely love one of the recent quotes they put on their post. They quoted a designer named Christopher Howe. He said,
“Eighteenth-century design has never been bettered… If you analyze modern kitchens, they’ve become more expensive, slicker, but not more efficient. The storage, the cupboards, the drawers, the shelves, there’s nothing that’s improved. Back then, kitchens were the engine room of a big house. In the basement, below stairs, was a machine for producing all this amazing food, not just cooking it… Eighteenth-century kitchens were built to last.”
(In case you are wondering, our kitchen cabinets are blue.)
This is a quilter’s feed. And it’s lovely. It’s calm and soothing and full of gorgeous florals. I love Susan’s use of color paired with so many neutral elements. I go to her pictures time and time again for inspiration.
If you love browsing vintage or antique furniture. You must check out this Etsy Shop and Instagram feed. This is a collection of European furniture. I WANT IT ALL. It’s beautiful. Even though I’ve never come close to buying anything from this wonderfully curated shop, I’ve used it many times to help me find pieces that I like on Facebook Marketplace.
In a world where our homes are revolving doors of stuff, I’ve found a bit of peace purchasing used furniture instead of always buying new.
Last but not least, I’ll leave you with a few images from Tammy’s feed. If you are looking for ways to make a new home look old, her Instagram feed may be quite the inspiration to you.
We live in a home full of books, and I’m thankful for a bit of inspiration that allows the books to be seen as treasures and not just clutter.
These images are all simple screenshots that have been in my photo favorites for the last year. Not many screenshots make it into the ‘favorites’ album, but these did. They became my inspiration as we designed and built our home.
I’m sure you’ll begin seeing little snippets of our home in the pictures on my Instagram Feed. The boxes are almost all unpacked!
